Pencillings by the Way Part 29

LETTER LXIX.

THE LITERATI OF LONDON.

Spent my first day in London in wandering about the finest part of the West End. It is nonsense to compare it to any other city in the world.

From the Horse-Guards to the Regent's Park alone, there is more magnificence in architecture than in the whole of any other metropolis in Europe, and I have seen the most and the best of them. Yet this, though a walk of more than two miles, is but a small part even of the fashionable extremity of London. I am not easily tired in a city; but I walked till I could scarce lift my feet from the ground, and still the parks and n.o.ble streets extended before and around me as far as the eye could reach, and strange as they were in reality, the names were as familiar to me as if my childhood had been pa.s.sed among them.

"Bond Street," "Grosvenor Square," "Hyde Park," look new to my eye, but they sound very familiar to my ear.

The equipages of London are much talked of, but they exceed even description. Nothing can be more perfect, or apparently more simple than the gentleman's carriage that pa.s.ses you in the street. Of a modest color, but the finest material, the crest just visible on the panels, the balance of the body upon its springs, true and easy, the hammercloth and liveries of the neatest and most harmonious colors, the harness slight and elegant, and the horses "the only splendid thing" in the establishment--is a description that answers the most of them. Perhaps the most perfect thing in the world, however, is a St.

James's-street stanhope or cabriolet, with its dandy owner on the whip-seat, and the "tiger" beside him. The att.i.tudes of both the gentleman and the "gentleman's gentleman" are studied to a point, but nothing could be more knowing or exquisite than either. The whole affair, from the angle of the bell-crowned hat (the prevailing fashion on the steps of Crockford's at present), to the blood legs of the thorough-bred creature in harness, is absolutely faultless. I have seen many subjects for study in my first day's stroll, but I leave the men and women and some other less important features of London for maturer observation.

In the evening I kept my appointment with Lady Blessington. She had deserted her exquisite library for the drawing-room, and sat, in fuller dress, with six or seven gentlemen about her. I was presented immediately to all, and when the conversation was resumed, I took the opportunity to remark the distinguished coterie with which she was surrounded.

Nearest me sat _Smith_, the author of "Rejected Addresses"--a hale, handsome man, apparently fifty, with white hair, and a very n.o.bly-formed head and physiognomy. His eye alone, small and with lids contracted into an habitual look of drollery, betrayed the bent of his genius. He held a cripple's crutch in his hand, and though otherwise rather particularly well dressed, wore a pair of large India rubber shoes--the penalty he was paying, doubtless, for the many good dinners he had eaten. He played rather an _aside_ in the conversation, whipping in with a quiz or a witticism whenever he could get an opportunity, but more a listener than a talker.

On the opposite side of Lady B. stood Henry Bulwer, the brother of the novelist, very earnestly engaged in a discussion of some speech of O'Connell's. He is said by many to be as talented as his brother, and has lately published a book on the present state of France. He is a small man, very slight and gentleman-like, a little pitted with the small-pox, and of very winning and persuasive manners. I liked him at the first glance.

His opponent in the argument was Fonblanc, the famous editor of the Examiner, said to be the best political writer of his day. I never saw a much worse face--sallow, seamed and hollow, his teeth irregular, his skin livid, his straight black hair uncombed and straggling over his forehead--he looked as if he might be the gentleman

Whose "coat was red, and whose breeches were blue."

A hollow, croaking voice, and a small, fiery black eye, with a smile like a skeleton's, certainly did not improve his physiognomy. He sat upon his chair very awkwardly, and was very ill-dressed, but every word he uttered, showed him to be a man of claims very superior to exterior attractions. The soft musical voice, and elegant manner of the one, and the satirical, sneering tone and angular gestures of the other, were in very strong contrast.

A German prince, with a star on his breast, trying with all his might, but, from his embarra.s.sed look, quite unsuccessfully, to comprehend the drift of the argument, the Duke de Richelieu, whom I had seen at the court of France, the inheritor of nothing but the name of his great ancestor, a dandy and a fool, making no attempt to listen, a famous traveller just returned from Constantinople; and the splendid person of Count D'Orsay in a careless att.i.tude upon the ottoman, completed the _cordon_.

I fell into conversation after a while with Smith, who, supposing I might not have heard the names of the others, in the hurry of an introduction, kindly took the trouble to play the dictionary, and added a graphic character of each as he named him. Among other things he talked a great deal of America, and asked me if I knew our distinguished countryman, Washington Irving. I had never been so fortunate as to meet him. "You have lost a great deal," he said, "for never was so delightful a fellow. I was once taken down with him into the country by a merchant, to dinner. Our friend stopped his carriage at the gate of his park, and asked us if we would walk through his grounds to the house. Irving refused and held me down by the coat, so that we drove on to the house together, leaving our host to follow on foot. 'I make it a principle,' said Irving, 'never to walk with a man through his own grounds. I have no idea of praising a thing whether I like it or not. You and I will do them to-morrow morning by ourselves.'" The rest of the company had turned their attention to Smith as he began his story, and there was a universal inquiry after Mr. Irving. Indeed the first question on the lips of every one to whom I am introduced as an American, are of him and Cooper. The latter seems to me to be admired as much here as abroad, in spite of a common impression that he dislikes the nation. No man's works could have higher praise in the general conversation that followed, though several instances were mentioned of his having shown an unconquerable aversion to the English when in England. Lady Blessington mentioned Mr. Bryant, and I was pleased at the immediate tribute paid to his delightful poetry by the talented circle around her.

Toward twelve o'clock, "Mr. Lytton Bulwer" was announced, and enter the author of Pelham. I had made up my mind how he _should_ look, and between prints and descriptions thought I could scarcely be mistaken in my idea of his person. No two things could be more unlike, however, than the ideal Mr. Bulwer in my mind and the real Mr. Bulwer who followed the announcement. _Imprimis_, the gentleman who entered was not handsome. I beg pardon of the boarding-schools--but he really _was not_. The engraving of him published some time ago in America is as much like any other man living, and gives you no idea of his head whatever. He is short, very much bent in the back, slightly knock-kneed, and, if my opinion in such matters goes for anything, as ill-dressed a man for a gentleman, as you will find in London. His figure is slight and very badly put together, and the only commendable point in his person, as far as I could see, was the smallest foot I ever saw a man stand upon. _Au reste_, I liked his manners extremely.

He ran up to Lady Blessington, with the joyous heartiness of a boy let out of school; and the "how d'ye, Bulwer!" went round, as he shook hands with everybody, in the style of welcome usually given to "the best fellow in the world." As I had brought a letter of introduction to him from a friend in Italy, Lady Blessington introduced me particularly, and we had a long conversation about Naples and its pleasant society.

Bulwer's head is phrenologically a fine one. His forehead retreats very much, but is very broad and well marked, and the whole air is that of decided mental superiority. His nose is aquiline, and far too large for proportion, though he conceals its extreme prominence by an immense pair of red whiskers, which entirely conceal the lower part of his face in profile. His complexion is fair, his hair profuse, curly, and of a light auburn, his eye not remarkable, and his mouth contradictory, I should think, of all talent. A more good-natured, habitually-smiling, nerveless expression could hardly be imagined.

Perhaps my impression is an imperfect one, as he was in the highest spirits, and was not serious the whole evening for a minute--but it is strictly and faithfully _my impression_.

I can imagine no style of conversation calculated to be more agreeable than Bulwer's. Gay, quick, various, half-satirical, and always fresh and different from everybody else, he seemed to talk because he could not help it, and infected everybody with his spirits. I can not give even the substance of it in a letter, for it was in a great measure local or personal. A great deal of fun was made of a proposal by Lady Blessington to take Bulwer to America and show him at so much a head.

She asked me whether I thought it would be a good speculation. I took upon myself to a.s.sure her ladyship, that, provided she played _showman_ the "concern," as they would phrase it in America, would be certainly a profitable one. Bulwer said he would rather go in disguise and hear them abuse his books. It would be pleasant, he thought, to hear the opinions of people who judged him neither as a member of parliament nor a dandy--simply a book-maker. Smith asked him if he kept an amanuensis. "No," he said, "I scribble it all out myself, and send it to the press in a most ungentlemanlike hand, half print and half hieroglyphic, with all its imperfections on its head, and correct in the proof--very much to the dissatisfaction of the publisher, who sends me in a bill of sixteen pounds six shillings and fourpence for extra corrections. Then I am free to confess I don't know grammar.

Lady Blessington, do you know grammar? I detest grammar. There never was such a thing heard of before Lindley Murray. I wonder what they did for grammar before his day! Oh, the delicious blunders one sees when they are irretrievable! And the best of it is, the critics never get hold of them. Thank Heaven for second editions, that one may scratch out his blots, and go down clean and gentleman-like to posterity!" Smith asked him if he had ever reviewed one of his own books. "No--but I _could_! And then how I should like to recriminate and defend myself indignantly! I think I could be preciously severe.

Depend upon it n.o.body knows a book's defects half so well as its author. I have a great idea of criticising my works for my posthumous memoirs. Shall I, Smith? Shall I, Lady Blessington?"

Bulwer's voice, like his brother's, is exceedingly lover-like and sweet. His playful tones are quite delicious, and his clear laugh is the soul of sincere and careless merriment.

It is quite impossible to convey in a letter scrawled literally, between the end of a late visit and a tempting pillow, the evanescent and pure spirit of a conversation of wits. I must confine myself, of course, in such sketches, to the mere sentiment of things that concern general literature and ourselves.

"The Rejected Addresses" got upon his crutches about three o'clock in the morning, and I made my exit with the rest, thanking Heaven, that, though in a strange country, my mother tongue was the language of its men of genius.

LETTER LXX.

LONDON--VISIT TO A RACE-COURSE--GIPSIES--THE PRINCESS VICTORIA--SPLENDID APPEARANCE OF THE ENGLISH n.o.bILITY--A BREAKFAST WITH ELIA AND BRIDGET ELIA--MYSTIFICATION--CHARLES LAMB'S OPINION OF AMERICAN AUTHORS.

I have just returned from _Ascot races_. Ascot Heath, on which the course is laid out, is a high platform of land, beautifully situated on a hill above Windsor Castle, about twenty-five miles from London. I went down with a party of gentlemen in the morning and returned at evening, doing the distance, with relays of horses in something less than three hours. This, one would think, is very fair speed, but we were pa.s.sed continually by the "bloods" of the road, in comparison with whom we seemed getting on rather at a snail's pace.

The scenery on the way was truly English--one series of finished landscapes, of every variety of combination. Lawns, fancy-cottages, manor-houses, groves, roses and flower-gardens make up England. It surfeits the eye at last. You could not drop a poet out of the clouds upon any part of it I have seen, where, within five minutes' walk, he would not find himself in Paradise.

We flew past Virginia Water and through the sun-flecked shades of Windsor Park, with the speed of the wind. On reaching the Heath, we dashed out of the road, and cutting through fern and brier, our experienced whip put his wheels on the rim of the course, as near the stands as some thousands of carriages arrived before us would permit, and then, cautioning us to take the bearings of our position, lest we should lose him after the race, he took off his horses, and left us to choose our own places.

A thousand red and yellow flags were flying from as many snowy tents in the midst of the green heath; ballad-singers and bands of music were amusing their little audiences in every direction; splendid markees covering gambling-tables, surrounded the winning-post; groups of country people were busy in every bush, eating and singing, and the great stands were piled with row upon row of human heads waiting anxiously for the exhilarating contest.

Soon after we arrived, the King and royal family drove up the course with twenty carriages, and scores of postillions and outriders in red and gold, flying over the turf as majesty flies in no other country; and, immediately after, the bell rang to clear the course for the race. _Such_ horses! The earth seemed to fling them off as they touched it. The lean jockeys, in their party-colored caps and jackets, rode the fine-limbed, slender creatures up and down together, and then returning to the starting-post, off they shot like so many arrows from the bow.

_Whiz!_ you could tell neither color nor shape as they pa.s.sed across the eye. Their swiftness was incredible. A horse of Lord Chesterfield's was rather the favorite; and for the sake of his great-grandfather, I had backed him with my small wager, "Glaucus is losing," said some one on the top of a carriage above me, but round they swept again, and I could just see that one glorious creature was doubling the leaps of every other horse, and in a moment Glaucus and Lord Chesterfield had won.

The course between the races is a promenade of some thousands of the best-dressed people in England. I thought I had never seen so many handsome men and women, but particularly _men_. The n.o.bility of this country, unlike every other, is by far the manliest and finest looking cla.s.s of its population. The _contadini_ of Rome, the _lazzaroni_ of Naples, the _paysans_ of France, are incomparably more handsome than their superiors in rank, but it is strikingly different here. A set of more elegant and well-proportioned men than those pointed out to me by my friends as the n.o.blemen on the course, I never saw, except only in Greece. The Albanians are seraphs to look at.

Excitement is hungry, and, after the first race, our party produced their baskets and bottles, and spreading out the cold pie and champaign upon the gra.s.s, between the wheels of the carriages, we drank Lord Chesterfield's health and ate for our own, in an _al fresco_ style worthy of Italy. Two veritable Bohemians, brown, black-eyed gipsies, the models of those I had seen in their wicker tents in Asia, profited by the liberality of the hour, and came in for an upper crust to a pigeon pie, that, to tell the truth, they seemed to appreciate.

Race followed race, but I am not a contributor to the Sporting Magazine, and could not give you their merits in comprehensible terms if I were.

In one of the intervals, I walked under the King's stand, and saw Her Majesty, the Queen, and the young Princess Victoria, very distinctly.

They were listening to a ballad-singer, and leaning over the front of the box with an amused attention, quite as sincere, apparently, as any beggar's in the ring. The Queen is the plainest woman in her dominions, beyond a doubt. The Princess is much better-looking than the pictures of her in the shops, and, for the heir to such a crown as that of England, quite unnecessarily pretty and interesting. She will be sold, poor thing--bartered away by those great dealers in royal hearts, whose grand calculations will not be much consolation to her, if she happens to have a taste of her own.

[The following sketch was written a short time previous to the death of Charles Lamb.]

Invited to breakfast with a gentleman in the temple to meet Charles Lamb and his sister--"Elia and Bridget Elia." I never in my life had an invitation more to my taste. The essays of Elia are certainly the most charming things in the world, and it has been for the last ten years, my highest compliment to the literary taste of a friend to present him with a copy. Who has not smiled over the humorous description of Mrs. Battle?

Who that has read Elia would not give more to see him than all the other authors of his time put together?

Our host was rather a character. I had brought a letter of introduction to him from Walter Savage Landor, the author of Imaginary Conversations, living at Florence, with a request that he would put me in the way of seeing one or two men about whom I had a curiosity, Lamb more particularly. I could not have been recommended to a better person. Mr. R. is a gentleman who, everybody says, _should have been_ an author, but who never wrote a book. He is a profound German scholar, has travelled much, is the intimate friend of Southey, Coleridge, and Lamb, has breakfasted with Goethe, travelled with Wordsworth through France and Italy, and spends part of every summer with him, and knows everything and everybody that is distinguished--in short, is, in his bachelor's chambers in the temple, the friendly nucleus of a great part of the talent of England.

I arrived a half hour before Lamb, and had time to learn some of his peculiarities. He lives a little out of London, and is very much of an invalid. Some family circ.u.mstances have tended to depress him very much of late years, and unless excited by convivial intercourse, he scarce shows a trace of what he was.

He was very much pleased with the American reprint of his Elia, though it contains several things which are not his--written so in his style, however, that it is scarce a wonder the editor should mistake them. If I remember right, they were "Valentine's Day," the "Nuns of Caverswell," and "Twelfth Night." He is excessively given to mystifying his friends, and is never so delighted as when he has persuaded some one into the belief of one of his grave inventions. His amusing biographical sketch of Liston was in this vein, and there was no doubt in anybody's mind that it was authentic, and written in perfectly good faith. Liston was highly enraged with it, and Lamb was delighted in proportion.

There was a rap at the door at last, and enter a gentleman in black small-clothes and gaiters, short and very slight in his person, his head set on his shoulders with a thoughtful, forward bent, his hair just sprinkled with gray, a beautiful, deep-set eye, aquiline nose, and a very indescribable mouth.

Whether it expressed most humor or feeling, good nature or a kind of whimsical peevishness, or twenty other things which pa.s.sed over it by turns, I can not in the least be certain.

His sister, whose literary reputation is a.s.sociated very closely with her brother's, and who, as the original of "Bridget Elia," is a kind of object for literary affection, came in after him. She is a small, bent figure, evidently a victim to illness, and hears with difficulty. Her face has been, I should think, a fine and handsome one, and her bright gray eye is still full of intelligence and fire. They both seemed quite at home in our friend's chambers, and as there was to be no one else, we immediately drew round the breakfast table. I had set a large arm chair for Miss Lamb. "Don't take it, Mary," said Lamb, pulling it away from her very gravely, "it appears as if you were going to have a tooth drawn."

The conversation was very local. Our host and his guest had not met for some weeks, and they had a great deal to say of their mutual friends. Perhaps in this way, however, I saw more of the author, for his manner of speaking of them and the quaint humor with which he complained of one, and spoke well of another was so in the vein of his inimitable writings, that I could have fancied myself listening to an audible composition of a new Elia. Nothing could be more delightful than the kindness and affection between the brother and the sister, though Lamb was continually taking advantage of her deafness to mystify her with the most singular gravity upon every topic that was started. "Poor Mary!" said he, "she hears all of an epigram but the point." "What are you saying of me, Charles?" she asked. "Mr. Willis," said he, raising his voice, "admires _your Confessions of a Drunkard_ very much, and I was saying that it was no merit of yours, that you understood the subject." We had been speaking of this admirable essay (which is his own), half an hour before.

The conversation turned upon literature after a while, and our host, the templar, could not express himself strongly enough in admiration of Webster's speeches, which he said were exciting the greatest attention among the politicians and lawyers of England. Lamb said, "I don't know much of American authors. Mary, there, devours Cooper's novels with a ravenous appet.i.te, with which I have no sympathy. The only American book I ever read twice, was the 'Journal of Edward Woolman,' a quaker preacher and tailor, whose character is one of the finest I ever met with. He tells a story or two about negro slaves that brought the tears into my eyes. I can read no prose now, though Hazlitt sometimes, to be sure--but then Hazlitt is worth all modern prose writers put together."

Mr. R. spoke of buying a book of Lamb's, a few days before, and I mentioned my having bought a copy of Elia the last day I was in America, to send as a parting gift to one of the most lovely and talented women in our country.

"What did you give for it?" said Lamb.