Travels in England in 1782 Part 3

Sir Cecil Wray was obliged to step forward and promise these same gentlemen, with hand and heart, that he would faithfully fulfil his duties as their representative. He also made an apology because, on account of his long journey and ill-health, he had not been able to wait on them, as became him, at their respective houses. The moment that he began to speak, even this rude rabble became all as quiet as the raging sea after a storm, only every now and then rending the air with the parliamentary cry of "Hear him! hear him!" and as soon as he had done speaking, they again vociferated aloud an universal "huzza," every one at the same time waving his hat.

And now, being formally declared to have been legally chosen, he again bowed most profoundly, and returned thanks for the great honour done him, when a well-dressed man, whose name I could not learn, stepped forward, and in a well-indited speech congratulated both the chosen and the choosers. "Upon my word," said a gruff carter who stood near me, "that man speaks well."

Even little boys clambered up and hung on the rails and on the lamp- posts; and as if the speeches had also been addressed to them, they too listened with the utmost attention, and they too testified their approbation of it by joining l.u.s.tily in the three cheers and waving their hats.

All the enthusiasm of my earliest years kindled by the patriotism of the ill.u.s.trious heroes of Rome. Coriola.n.u.s, Julius Caesar, and Antony were now revived in my mind; and though all I had just seen and heard be, in fact, but the semblance of liberty, and that, too, tribunitial liberty, yet at that moment I thought it charming, and it warmed my heart. Yes, depend on it, my friend, when you here see how, in the happy country, the lowest and meanest member of society thus unequivocally testifies the interest which he takes in everything of a public nature; when you see how even women and children bear a part in the great concerns of their country; in short, how high and low, rich and poor, all concur in declaring their feelings and their convictions that a carter, a common tar, or a scavenger, is still a man--nay, an Englishman, and as such has his rights and privileges defined and known as exactly and as well as his king, or as his king's minister--take my word for it, you will feel yourself very differently affected from what you are when staring at our soldiers in their exercises at Berlin.

When Fox, who was among the voters, arrived at the beginning of the election, he too was received with an universal shout of joy. At length, when it was nearly over, the people took it into their heads to hear him speak, and every one called out, "Fox! Fox!" I know not why, but I seemed to catch some of the spirit of the place and time, and so I also bawled "Fox! Fox!" and he was obliged to come forward and speak, for no other reason that I could find but that the people wished to hear him speak. In this speech he again confirmed, in the presence of the people, his former declaration in parliament, that he by no means had any influence as minister of State in this election, but only and merely as a private person.

When the whole was over, the rampant spirit of liberty and the wild impatience of a genuine English mob were exhibited in perfection.

In a very few minutes the whole scaffolding, benches, and chairs, and everything else, was completely destroyed. and the mat with which it had been covered torn into ten thousand long strips, or pieces, or strings, with which they encircled or enclosed mult.i.tudes of people of all ranks. These they hurried along with them, and everything else that came in their way, as trophies of joy; and thus, in the midst of exultation and triumph, they paraded through many of the most populous streets of London.

Whilst in Prussia poets only speak of the love of country as one of the dearest of all human affections, here there is no man who does not feel, and describe with rapture, how much he loves his country.

"Yes, for my country I'll shed the last drop of my blood!" often exclaims little Jacky, the fine boy here in the house where I live, who is yet only about twelve years old. The love of their country, and its unparalleled feats in war are, in general, the subject of their ballads and popular songs, which are sung about the streets by women, who sell them for a few farthings. It was only the other day our Jacky brought one home, in which the history of an admiral was celebrated who bravely continued to command, even after his two legs were shot off and he was obliged to be supported. I know not well by what means it has happened that the King of England, who is certainly one of the best the nation ever had, is become unpopular.

I know not how many times I have heard people of all sorts object to their king at the same time that they praised the King of Prussia to the skies. Indeed, with some the veneration for our monarch went so far that they seriously wished he was their king. All that seems to shock and dishearten them is the prodigious armies he keeps up, and the immense number of soldiers quartered in Berlin alone. Whereas in London, at least in the city, not a single troop of soldiers of the King's guard dare make their appearance.

A few days ago I saw what is here deemed a great sight--viz., a lord mayor's procession. The lord mayor was in an enormous large gilt coach, which was followed by an astonishing number of most showy carriages, in which the rest of the city magistrates, more properly called aldermen of London, were seated. But enough for the present.

CHAPTER VI.

London, June 17th, 1782.

I have now been pretty nearly all over London, and, according to my own notions, have now seen most of the things I was most anxious to see. Hereafter, then, I propose to make an excursion into the country; and this purpose, by the blessing of G.o.d, I hope to be able to carry into effect in a very few days, for my curiosity is here almost satiated. I seem to be tired and sick of the smoke of these sea-coal fires, and I long, with almost childish impatience, once more to breathe a fresher and clearer air.

It must, I think, be owned, that upon the whole, London is neither so handsomely nor so well built as Berlin is; but then it certainly has far more fine squares. Of these there are many that in real magnificence and beautiful symmetry far surpa.s.s our Gens d'Armes Markt, our Denhoschen and William's Place. The squares or quadrangular places contain the best and most beautiful buildings of London; a s.p.a.cious street, next to the houses, goes all round them, and within that there is generally a round gra.s.s-plot, railed in with iron rails, in the centre of which, in many of them, there is a statue, which statues most commonly are equestrian and gilt. In Grosvenor Square, instead of this green plot or area, there is a little circular wood, intended, no doubt, to give one the idea of rus in urbe.

One of the longest and pleasantest walks I have yet taken is from Paddington to Islington; where to the left you have a fine prospect of the neighbouring hills, and in particular of the village of Hampstead, which is built on one of them; and to the right the streets of London furnish an endless variety of interesting views.

It is true that it is dangerous to walk here alone, especially in the afternoon and in an evening, or at night, for it was only last week that a man was robbed and murdered on this very same road. But I now hasten to another and a more pleasing topic:

The British Museum.

I have had the happiness to become acquainted with the Rev. Mr.

Woide; who, though well known all over Europe to be one of the most learned men of the age, is yet, if possible, less estimable for his learning than he is for his unaffected goodness of heart. He holds a respectable office in the museum, and was obliging enough to procure me permission to see it, luckily the day before it was shut up. In general you must give in your name a fortnight before you can he admitted. But after all, I am sorry to say, it was the rooms, the gla.s.s cases, the shelves, or the repository for the books in the British Museum which I saw, and not the museum itself, we were hurried on so rapidly through the apartments. The company, who saw it when and as I did, was various, and some of all sorts; some, I believe, of the very lowest cla.s.ses of the people, of both s.e.xes; for, as it is the property of the nation, every one has the same right (I use the term of the country) to see it that another has. I had Mr. Wendeborn's book in my pocket, and it, at least, enabled me to take a somewhat more particular notice of some of the princ.i.p.al things; such as the Egyptian mummy, a head of Homer, &c. The rest of the company, observing that I had some a.s.sistance which they had not, soon gathered round me; I pointed out to them as we went along, from Mr. Wendeborn's German book, what there was most worth seeing here. The gentleman who conducted us took little pains to conceal the contempt which he felt for my communications when he found out that it was only a German description of the British Museum I had got. The rapidly pa.s.sing through this vast suite of rooms, in a s.p.a.ce of time little, if at all, exceeding an hour, with leisure just to cast one poor longing look of astonishment on all these stupendous treasures of natural curiosities, antiquities, and literature, in the contemplation of which you could with pleasure spend years, and a whole life might be employed in the study of them--quite confuses, stuns, and overpowers one. In some branches this collection is said to be far surpa.s.sed by some others; but taken altogether, and for size, it certainly is equalled by none.

The few foreign divines who travel through England generally desire to have the Alexandrian ma.n.u.script shewn them, in order to be convinced with their own eyes whether the pa.s.sage, "These are the three that bear record, &c.," is to be found there or not.

The Rev. Mr. Woide lives at a place called Lisson Street, not far from Paddington; a very village-looking little town, at the west end of London. It is quite a rural and pleasant situation; for here I either do, or fancy I do, already breathe a purer and freer air than in the midst of the town. Of his great abilities, and particularly in oriental literature, I need not inform you; but it will give you pleasure to hear that he is actually meditating a fac-simile edition of the Alexandrian MS. I have already mentioned the infinite obligations I lie under to this excellent man for his extraordinary courtesy and kindness.

The Theatre in the Haymarket.

Last week I went twice to an English play-house. The first time "The Nabob" was represented, of which the late Mr. Foote was the author, and for the entertainment, a very pleasing and laughable musical farce, called "The Agreeable Surprise." The second time I saw "The English Merchant:" which piece has been translated into German, and is known among us by the t.i.tle of "The Scotchwoman," or "The Coffee-house." I have not yet seen the theatres of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, because they are not open in summer. The best actors also usually spend May and October in the country, and only perform in winter.

A very few excepted, the comedians whom I saw were certainly nothing extraordinary. For a seat in the boxes you pay five shillings, in the pit three, in the first gallery two, and in the second or upper gallery, one shilling. And it is the tenants in this upper gallery who, for their shilling, make all that noise and uproar for which the English play-houses are so famous. I was in the pit, which gradually rises, amphitheatre-wise, from the orchestra, and is furnished with benches, one above another, from the top to the bottom. Often and often, whilst I sat there, did a rotten orange, or pieces of the peel of an orange, fly past me, or past some of my neighbours, and once one of them actually hit my hat, without my daring to look round, for fear another might then hit me on my face.

All over London as one walks, one everywhere, in the season, sees oranges to sell; and they are in general sold tolerably cheap, one and even sometimes two for a halfpenny; or, in our money, threepence. At the play-house, however, they charged me sixpence for one orange, and that noways remarkably good.

Besides this perpetual pelting from the gallery, which renders an English play-house so uncomfortable, there is no end to their calling out and knocking with their sticks till the curtain is drawn up. I saw a miller's, or a baker's boy, thus, like a huge b.o.o.by, leaning over the rails and knocking again and again on the outside, with all his might, so that he was seen by everybody, without being in the least ashamed or abashed. I sometimes heard, too, the people in the lower or middle gallery quarrelling with those of the upper one. Behind me, in the pit, sat a young fop, who, in order to display his costly stone buckles with the utmost brilliancy, continually put his foot on my bench, and even sometimes upon my coat, which I could avoid only by sparing him as much s.p.a.ce from my portion of the seat as would make him a footstool. In the boxes, quite in a corner, sat several servants, who were said to be placed there to keep the seats for the families they served till they should arrive; they seemed to sit remarkably close and still, the reason of which, I was told, was their apprehension of being pelted; for if one of them dares but to look out of the box, he is immediately saluted with a shower of orange peel from the gallery.

In Foote's "Nabob" there are sundry local and personal satires which are entirely lost to a foreigner. The character of the Nabob was performed by a Mr. Palmer. The jett of the character is, this Nabob, with many affected airs and constant aims at gentility, is still but a silly fellow, unexpectedly come into the possession of immense riches, and therefore, of course, paid much court to by a society of natural philosophers, Quakers, and I do not know who besides. Being tempted to become one of their members, he is elected, and in order to ridicule these would-be philosophers, but real knaves, a fine flowery fustian speech is put into his mouth, which he delivers with prodigious pomp and importance, and is listened to by the philosophers with infinite complacency. The two scenes of the Quakers and philosophers, who, with countenances full of imaginary importance, were seated at a green table with their president at their head while the secretary, with the utmost care, was making an inventory of the ridiculous presents of the Nabob, were truly laughable. One of the last scenes was best received: it is that in which the Nabob's friend and school-fellow visit him, and address him without ceremony by his Christian name; but to all their questions of "Whether he does not recollect them? Whether he does not remember such and such a play; or such and such a sc.r.a.pe into which they had fallen in their youth?" he uniformly answers with a look of ineffable contempt, only, "No sir!" Nothing can possibly be more ludicrous, nor more comic.

The entertainment, "The Agreeable Surprise," is really a very diverting farce. I observed that, in England also, they represent school-masters in ridiculous characters on the stage, which, though I am sorry for, I own I do not wonder at, as the pedantry of school- masters in England, they tell me, is carried at least as far as it is elsewhere. The same person who, in the play, performed the school-fellow of the Nabob with a great deal of nature and original humour, here acted the part of the school-master: his name is Edwin, and he is, without doubt, one of the best actors of all that I have seen.

This school-master is in love with a certain country girl, whose name is Cowslip, to whom he makes a declaration of his pa.s.sion in a strange mythological, grammatical style and manner, and to whom, among other fooleries, he sings, quite enraptured, the following air, and seems to work himself at least up to such a transport of pa.s.sion as quite overpowers him. He begins, you will observe, with the conjugation, and ends with the declensions and the genders; the whole is inimitably droll:

"Amo, amas, I love a la.s.s, She is so sweet and tender, It is sweet Cowslip's Grace In the Nominative Case.

And in the feminine Gender."

Those two sentences in particular, "in the Nominative Case," and "in the feminine Gender," he affects to sing in a particularly languishing air, as if confident that it was irresistible. This Edwin, in all his comic characters, still preserves something so inexpressibly good-tempered in his countenance, that notwithstanding all his burlesques and even grotesque buffoonery, you cannot but be pleased with him. I own, I felt myself doubly interested for every character which he represented. Nothing could equal the tone and countenance of self-satisfaction with which he answered one who asked him whether he was a scholar? "Why, I was a master of scholars." A Mrs. Webb represented a cheesemonger, and played the part of a woman of the lower cla.s.s so naturally as I have nowhere else ever seen equalled. Her huge, fat, and l.u.s.ty carcase, and the whole of her external appearance seemed quite to be cut out for it.

Poor Edwin was obliged, as school-master, to sing himself almost hoa.r.s.e, as he sometimes was called on to repeat his declension and conjugation songs two or three times, only because it pleased the upper gallery, or "the G.o.ds," as the English call them, to roar out "encore." Add to all this, he was farther forced to thank them with a low bow for the great honour done him by their applause.

One of the highest comic touches in the piece seemed to me to consist in a lie, which always became more and more enormous in the mouths of those who told it again, during the whole of the piece.

This kept the audience in almost a continual fit of laughter. This farce is not yet printed, or I really think I should be tempted to venture to make a translation, or rather an imitation of it.

"The English Merchant, or the Scotchwoman," I have seen much better performed abroad than it was here. Mr. Fleck, at Hamburg, in particular, played the part of the English merchant with more interest, truth, and propriety than one Aickin did here. He seemed to me to fail totally in expressing the peculiar and original character of Freeport; instead of which, by his measured step and deliberate, affected manner of speaking, he converted him into a mere fine gentleman.

The trusty old servant who wishes to give up his life for his master he, too, had the stately walk, or strut, of a minister. The character of the newspaper writer was performed by the same Mr.

Palmer who acted the part of the Nabob, but every one said, what I thought, that he made him far too much of a gentleman. His person, and his dress also, were too handsome for the character.

The character of Amelia was performed by an actress, who made her first appearance on the stage, and from a timidity natural on such an occasion, and not unbecoming, spoke rather low, so that she could not everywhere be heard; "Speak louder! speak louder!" cried out some rude fellow from the upper-gallery, and she immediately, with infinite condescension, did all she could, and not unsuccessfully, to please even an upper gallery critic.

The persons near me, in the pit, were often extravagantly lavish of their applause. They sometimes clapped a single solitary sentiment, that was almost as unmeaning as it was short, if it happened to be p.r.o.nounced only with some little emphasis, or to contain some little point, some popular doctrine, a singularly pathetic stroke, or turn of wit.

"The Agreeable Surprise" was repeated, and I saw it a second time with unabated pleasure. It is become a favourite piece, and always announced with the addition of the favourite musical farce. The theatre appeared to me somewhat larger than the one at Hamburg, and the house was both times very full. Thus much for English plays, play-houses, and players.

English Customs and Education.

A few words more respecting pedantry. I have seen the regulation of one seminary of learning, here called an academy. Of these places of education, there is a prodigious number in London, though, notwithstanding their pompous names, they are in reality nothing more than small schools set up by private persons, for children and young people.

One of the Englishmen who were my travelling companions, made me acquainted with a Dr. G-- who lives near P--, and keeps an academy for the education of twelve young people, which number is here, as well as at our Mr. k.u.mpe's, never exceeded, and the same plan has been adopted and followed by many others, both here and elsewhere.

At the entrance I perceived over the door of the house a large board, and written on it, Dr. G--'s Academy. Dr. G-- received me with great courtesy as a foreigner, and shewed me his school-room, which was furnished just in the same manner as the cla.s.ses in our public schools are, with benches and a professor's chair or pulpit.

The usher at Dr. G--'s is a young clergyman, who, seated also in a chair or desk, instructs the boys in the Greek and Latin grammars.

Such an under-teacher is called an usher, and by what I can learn, is commonly a tormented being, exactly answering the exquisite description given of him in the "Vicar of Wakefield." We went in during the hours of attendance, and he was just hearing the boys decline their Latin, which he did in the old jog-trot way; and I own it had an odd sound to my ears, when instead of p.r.o.nouncing, for example viri veeree I heard them say viri, of the man, exactly according to the English p.r.o.nunciation, and viro, to the man. The case was just the same afterwards with the Greek.

Mr. G-- invited us to dinner, when I became acquainted with his wife, a very genteel young woman, whose behaviour to the children was such that she might be said to contribute more to their education than any one else. The children drank nothing but water.

For every boarder Dr. G-- receives yearly no more than thirty pounds sterling, which however, he complained of as being too little. From forty to fifty pounds is the most that is generally paid in these academies.

I told him of our improvements in the manner of education, and also spoke to him of the apparent great worth of character of his usher.

He listened very attentively, but seemed to have thought little himself on this subject. Before and after dinner the Lord's Prayer was repeated in French, which is done in several places, as if they were eager not to waste without some improvement, even this opportunity also, to practise the French, and thus at once accomplish two points. I afterwards told him my opinion of this species of prayer, which however, he did not take amiss.

After dinner the boys had leave to play in a very small yard, which in most schools or academies, in the city of London, is the ne plus ultra of their playground in their hours of recreation. But Mr. G-- has another garden at the end of the town, where he sometimes takes them to walk.