Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals Part 11

"Bolt court lies on Fleet street, and it is but few steps along a narrow pa.s.sage to the house, which is now a hotel, where Johnson died; but you must walk on farther through the narrow pa.s.sage, a little fearful to a woman, to see the place where he wrote the dictionary. The house is so completely within a court, in which nothing but brick walls could be seen, that one wonders what the charm of London could be, to induce one to live in that place. But a great city always draws to itself the great minds, and there Johnson probably found his enjoyment.

"August 27. We took St. Paul's Church to-day. We took tickets for the vaults, the bell, the crypt, the whispering-gallery, the clock and all.

We did not know what was before us. It was a little tiresome as far as the library and the room of Nelson's trophies, but to my surprise, when the guide said, 'Go that way for the clock,' he did not take the lead, but pointed up a staircase, and I found myself the pioneer in the narrowest and darkest staircase I ever ascended. It was really perfect darkness in some of the places, and we had to feel our way. We all took a long breath when a gleam of light came in at some narrow windows scattered along. At the top, in front of the clock works, stood a woman, who began at once to tell us the statistics of the pendulum, to which recital I did not choose to listen. She was not to go down with us, and, panting with fatigue and trembling with fright, we groped our way down again.

"There was another long, but easy, ascent to the 'whispering-gallery,'

which is a fine place from which to look down upon the interior of the church. The man in attendance looked like a respectable elderly gentleman. He told us to go to the opposite side of the gallery, and he would whisper to us. We went around, and, worn out with fatigue, dropped upon a bench.

"The man began to whisper, putting his mouth to an opening in the wall; we heard noises, but could not tell what he said.

"To my amazement, this very respectable-looking elderly gentleman, as we pa.s.sed him in going out, whispered again, and as this time he put his mouth close to my ear, I understood! He said, 'If you will give anything for the whisper, it will be gratefully received.' There are notices all over the church forbidding fees, and I felt that the man was a beggar at best--more properly a pickpocket.

"A figure of Dr. Johnson stands in one of the aisles of the church. It must be like him, for it is exceedingly ugly.

"September 3. We have been three weeks in London 'out of season,' but with plenty of letters. At present we have as many acquaintances as we desire. Last night we were at the opera, to-night we go out to dine, and to-morrow evening to a dance, the next day to Admiral Smyth's.

"The opera fatigued me, as it always does. I tired my eyes and ears in the vain effort to appreciate it. Mario was the great star of the evening, but I knew no difference.

"One little circ.u.mstance showed me how an American, with the best intentions, may offend against good manners. American-like we had secured very good seats, were in good season, and as comfortable as the very narrow seats would permit us to be, before most of the audience arrived. The house filled, and we sat at our ease, feeling our importance, and quite unconscious that we were guilty of any impropriety. While the curtain was down, I heard a voice behind me say to the gentleman who was with us, 'Is the lady on your left with you?'--'Yes,' said Mr. R.--'She wears a bonnet, which is not according to rule.'--'Too late now,' said Mr. R.--'It is my fault,' said the attendant; 'I ought not to have admitted her; I thought it was a hood.'

"I was really in hopes that I should be ordered out, for I was exceedingly fatigued and should have been glad of some fresh air. On looking around, I saw that only the 'pit' wore bonnets.

"September 6. We left London yesterday for Aylesbury. It is two hours by railroad. Like all railroads in England, it runs seemingly through a garden. In many cases flowers are cultivated by the roadside.

"From Aylesbury to Stone, the residence of Admiral Smyth, it is two miles of stage-coach riding. Stage-coaches are now very rare in England, and I was delighted with the chance for a ride.

"We found the stage-coach crowded. The driver asked me if we were for St. John's Lodge, and on my replying in the affirmative gave me a note which Mrs. Smyth had written to him, to ask for inside seats. The note had reached him too late, and he said we must go on the outside. He brought a ladder and we got up. For a minute I thought, 'What a height to fall from!' but the afternoon was so lovely that I soon forgot the danger and enjoyed the drive. There were six pa.s.sengers on top.

"Aylesbury is a small town, and Stone is a very small village. The driver stopped at what seemed to be a cultivated field, and told me that I was at my journey's end. On looking down I saw a wheelbarrow near the fence, and I remembered that Mrs. Smyth had said that one would be waiting for our luggage, and I soon saw Mrs. Smyth and her daughter coming towards us. It was a walk of about an eighth of a mile to the 'Lodge'--a pleasant cottage surrounded by a beautiful garden.

"Admiral Smyth's family go to a little church seven hundred years old, standing in the midst of tombstones and surrounded by thatched cottages.

English scenery seems now (September) much like our Southern scenery in April--rich and lovely, but wanting mountains and water. An English village could never be mistaken for an American one: the outline against the sky differs; a thatched cottage makes a very wavy line on the blue above.

"We find enough in St. John's Lodge, in the admiral's library, and in the society of the cultivated members of his family to interest us for a long time.

"The admiral himself is upwards of sixty years of age, n.o.ble-looking, loving a good joke, an antiquarian, and a good astronomer. I picked up many an anecdote from him, and many curious bits of learning.

"He tells a good story, ill.u.s.trative of his enthusiasm when looking at a crater in the moon. He says the night was remarkably fine, and he applied higher and higher powers to his gla.s.s until he seemed to look down into the abyss, and imagining himself standing on its verge he felt himself falling in, and drew back with a shudder which lasted even after the illusion was over.

"In speaking of Stratford-upon-Avon, the admiral told me that the Lucy family, one of whose ancestors drove Shakspere from his grounds, and who is caricatured in Justice Shallow, still resides on the same spot as in Shakspere's time. He says no family ever retained their characteristics more decidedly.

"Some years ago one of this family was invited to a Shakspere dinner. He resented the well-meant invitation, saying they must surely have forgotten how that _person_ treated his ancestor!

"The amateur astronomers of England are numerous, but they are not like those of America.

"In America a poor schoolmaster, who has some bright boys who ask questions, buys a gla.s.s and becomes a star-gazer, without time and almost without instruments; or a watchmaker must know the time, and therefore watches the stars as time-keepers. In almost all cases they are hard-working men.

"In England it is quite otherwise. A wealthy gentleman buys a telescope as he would buy a library, as an ornament to his house.

"Admiral Smyth says that no family is quite civilized unless it possesses a copy of some encyclopaedia and a telescope. The English gentleman uses both for amus.e.m.e.nt. If he is a man of philosophical mind he soon becomes an astronomer, or if a benevolent man he perceives that some friend in more limited circ.u.mstances might use it well, and he offers the telescope to him, or if an ostentatious man he hires some young astronomer of talent, who comes to his observatory and makes a name for him. Then the queen confers the honor of knighthood, not upon the young man, but upon the owner of the telescope. Sir James South was knighted for this reason.

"We have been visiting Hartwell House, an old baronial residence, now the property of Dr. Lee, a whimsical old man.

"This house was for years the residence of Louis XVIII., and his queen died here. The drawing-room is still kept as in those days; the blue damask on the walls has been changed by time to a brown. The rooms are s.p.a.cious and lofty, the chimney-pieces of richly carved marble. The ceiling of one room has fine bas-relief allegorical figures.

"Books of antiquarian value are all around--one whole floor is covered with them. They are almost never opened. In some of the rooms paintings are on the walls above the doors.

"Dr. Lee's modern additions are mostly paintings of himself and a former wife, and are in very bad taste. He has, however, two busts of Mrs.

Somerville, from which I received the impression that she is handsome, but Mrs. Smyth tells me she is not so; certainly she is sculpturesque.

"The royal family, on their retreat from Hartwell House, left their prayer-book, and it still remains on its stand. The room of the ladies of the bedchamber is papered, and the figure of a pheasant is the prevailing characteristic of the paper. The room is called 'The Pheasant Room.' One of the birds has been carefully cut out, and, it is said, was carried away as a memento by one of the damsels.

"Dr. Lee is second cousin to Sir George Lee, who died childless. He inherits the estate, but not the t.i.tle. The estate has belonged to the Lees for four hundred years. As the doctor was a Lee only through his mother, he was obliged to take her name on his accession to the property. He applied to Parliament to be permitted to a.s.sume the t.i.tle, and, being refused, from a strong Tory he became a Liberal, and delights in currying favor with the lowest cla.s.ses; he has twice married below his rank. Being remotely connected with the Hampdens, he claims John Hampden as one of his family, and keeps a portrait of him in a conspicuous place.

"A summer-house on the grounds was erected by Lady Elizabeth Lee, and some verses inscribed on its walls, written by her, show that the Lees have not always been fools.

"But Dr. Lee has his way of doing good. Being fond of astronomy, he has bought an eight and a half feet equatorial telescope, and with a wisdom which one could scarcely expect, he employed Admiral Smyth to construct an observatory. He has also a fine transit instrument, and the admiral, being his near neighbor, has the privilege of using the observatory as his own. In the absence of the Lees he has a private key, with which he admits himself and Mrs. Smyth. They make the observations (Mrs. Smyth is a very clever astronomer), sleep in a room called 'The Admiral's Room,'

find breakfast prepared for them in the morning, and return to their own house when they choose.

"I saw in the observatory a timepiece with a double second-hand; one of these could be stopped by a touch, and would, in that way, show an observer the instant when he thought a phenomenon, as an occultation for instance, had occurred, and yet permit him to go on with his count of the seconds, and, if necessary, correct his first impression.

"Admiral Smyth is a hard worker, but I suspect that many of the amateur astronomers of England are Dr. Lees--rich men who, as a hobby, ride astronomy and employ a good astronomer. Dr. Lee gives the use of a good instrument to the curate; another to Mr. Payson, of Cambridge, who has lately found a little planet.

"I saw at Admiral Smyth's some excellent photographs of the moon, but in England they have not yet photographed the stars."

CHAPTER VI

1857

FIRST EUROPEAN TOUR CONTINUED--CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY--AMBLESIDE--MISS SOUTHEY---THE HERSCHELS--A LONDON ROUT--EDINBORO' AND GLASGOW OBSERVATORIES--"REFLECTIONS AND MUTTERINGS"

"If any one wishes to know the customs of centuries ago in England, let him go to Cambridge.

"Sitting at the window of the hotel, he will see the scholars, the fellows, the masters of arts, and the masters of colleges pa.s.sing along the streets in their different gowns. Very unbecoming gowns they are, in all cases; and much as the wearers must be accustomed to them, they seem to step awkwardly, and to have an ungraceful feminine touch in their motions.

"Everything that you see speaks of the olden time. Even the images above the arched entrance to the courts around which the buildings stand are crumbling slowly, and the faces have an unearthly expression.

"If the visitor is fortunate enough to have an introduction to one of the college professors, he will be taken around the buildings, to the libraries, the 'Combination' room to which the fellows retire to chat over their wine, and perhaps even to the kitchen.

"Our first knowledge of Cambridge was the entrance to Trinity College and the Master's Lodge.

"We arrived in Cambridge just about at lunch time--one o'clock.

"Mrs. Airy said to me, 'Although we are invited to be guests of Dr.

Whewell, he is quite too mighty a man to come to meet us." Her sons, however, met us, and we walked with them to Dr. Whewell's.