PASSAGES FROM THE ENGLISH NOTE-BOOKS, VOLUME II.
By
Nathaniel Hawthorne
LONDON.--MILTON-CLUB DINNER.
April 4th, 1856.--On Tuesday I went to No. 14 Ludgate Hill, to dine with Bennoch at the Milton Club; a club recently founded for dissenters, nonconformists, and people whose ideas, religious or political, are not precisely in train with the establishment in church and state. I was shown into a large reading-room, well provided with periodicals and newspapers, and found two or three persons there; but Bennoch had not yet arrived. In a few moments, a tall gentleman with white hair came in,--a fine and intelligent-looking man, whom I guessed to be one of those who were to meet me. He walked about, glancing at the periodicals; and soon entered Mr. Tupper, and, without seeing me, exchanged warm greetings with the white-haired gentleman. "I suppose," began Mr. Tupper, "you have come to meet--" Now, conscious that my name was going to be spoken, and not knowing but the excellent Mr. Tupper might say something which he would not, quite like me to overhear, I advanced at once, with outstretched hand, and saluted him. He expressed great joy at the recognition, and immediately introduced me to Mr. Hall.
The dining-room was pretty large and lofty, and there were sixteen guests at table, most of them authors, or people connected with the press; so that the party represented a great deal of the working intellect of London at this present day and moment,--the men whose plays, whose songs, whose articles, are just now in vogue. Mr. Tom Taylor was one of the very few whose writings I had known anything about. He is a tall, slender, dark young man, not English-looking, and wearing colored spectacles, so that I should readily have taken him for an American literary man. I did not have much opportunity of talking with him, nor with anybody else, except Dr. ------, who seemed a shrewd, sensible man, with a certain slight acerbity of thought. Mr. Herbert Ingram, recently elected member of Parliament, was likewise present, and sat on Bennoch's left.
It was a very good dinner, with an abundance of wine, which Bennoch sent round faster than was for the next day's comfort of his guests. It is singular that I should thus far have quite forgotten W------ H--------, whose books I know better than those of any other person there. He is a white-headed, stout, firm-looking, and rather wrinkled-faced old gentleman, whose temper, I should imagine, was not the very sweetest in the world. There is all abruptness, a kind of sub-acidity, if not bitterness, in his address; he seemed not to be, in short, so genial as I should have anticipated from his books.
As soon as the cloth was removed, Bennoch, without rising from his chair, made a speech in honor of his eminent and distinguished guest, which illustrious person happened to be sitting in the selfsame chair that I myself occupied. I have no recollection of what he said, nor of what I said in reply, but I remember that both of us were cheered and applauded much more than the occasion deserved. Then followed about fifty other speeches; for every single individual at table was called up (as Tupper said, "toasted and roasted"), and, for my part, I was done entirely brown (to continue T-----'s figure). Everybody said something kind, not a word or idea of which can I find in my memory. Certainly, if I never get any more praise in my life, I have had enough of it for once. I made another little bit of a speech, too, in response to something that was said in reference to the present difficulties between England and America, and ended, as a proof that I deemed war impossible, with drinking success to the British army, and calling on Lieutenant Shaw, of the Aldershott Camp, to reply. I am afraid I must have said something very wrong, for the applause was vociferous, and I could hear the gentlemen whispering about the table, "Good!" "Good!" "Yes, he is a fine fellow,"--and other such ill-earned praises; and I took shame to myself, and held my tongue (publicly) the rest of the evening. But in such cases something must be allowed to the excitement of the moment, and to the effect of kindness and goodwill, so broadly and warmly displayed; and even a sincere man must not be held to speak as if he were under oath.
We separated, in a blessed state of contentment with one
another, at about eleven; and (lest I should starve before morning) I went with
Mr. D------ to take supper at his house in
The principal talk during supper (which consisted of
Welsh-rabbit and biscuits, with champagne and sodawater) was about the Times,
and the two contributors expressed vast admiration of Mr. ------, who has the
chief editorial management of the paper.
It is odd to find how little we outsiders know of men who really
exercise a vast influence on affairs, for this Mr. ------ is certainly of far
more importance in the world than a minister of state. He writes nothing himself; but the character
of the Times seems to depend upon his intuitive, unerring judgment; and if ever
he is absent from his post, even for a day or two, they say that the paper immediately
shows it. In reply to my questions, they
appeared to acknowledge that he was a man of expediency, but of a very high
expediency, and that he gave the public the very best principles which it was
capable of receiving. Perhaps it may be
so: the Times's articles are certainly not written in so high a moral vein as
might be wished; but what they lack in height they gain in breadth. Every sensible man in
Apropos of public speaking, Dr. ------ said that Sir Lytton Bulwer asked him (I think the anecdote was personal to himself) whether he felt his heart beat when he was going to speak. "Yes." "Does your voice frighten you?" "Yes." "Do all your ideas forsake you?" "Yes." "Do you wish the floor to open and swallow you?" "Yes." "Why, then, you'll make an orator!" Dr. ------ told of Canning, too, how once, before rising to speak in the House of Commons, he bade his friend feel his pulse, which was throbbing terrifically. "I know I shall make one of my best speeches," said Canning, "because I'm in such an awful funk!" President Pierce, who has a great deal of oratorical power, is subject to a similar horror and reluctance.
REFORM-CLUB DINNER.
April 5th.--On Thursday, at eight o'clock, I went to the Reform Club, to dine with Dr. ------. The waiter admitted me into a great basement hall, with a tessellated or mosaic or somehow figured floor of stone, and lighted from a dome of lofty height. In a few minutes Dr. ------appeared, and showed me about the edifice, which is very noble and of a substantial magnificence that was most satisfactory to behold,--no wood-work imitating better materials, but pillars and balustrades of marble, and everything what it purports to be. The reading-room is very large, and luxuriously comfortable, and contains an admirable library: there are rooms and conveniences for every possible purpose; and whatever material for enjoyment a bachelor may need, or ought to have, he can surely find it here, and on such reasonable terms that a small income will do as much for him as a far greater one on any other system.
In a colonnade, on the first floor, surrounding the great
basement hall, there are portraits of distinguished reformers, and black niches
for others yet to come. Joseph Hume, I
believe, is destined to fill one of these blanks; but I remarked that the
larger part of the portraits, already hung up, are of men of high rank,--the
Duke of Sussex, for instance; Lord Durham, Lord Grey; and, indeed, I remember
no commoner. In one room, I saw on the wall the fac-simile, so common in the
Descending again to the basement hall, an elderly gentleman came in, and was warmly welcomed by Dr. ------. He was a very short man, but with breadth enough, and a back excessively bent,--bowed almost to deformity; very gray hair, and a face and expression of remarkable briskness and intelligence. His profile came out pretty boldly, and his eyes had the prominence that indicates, I believe, volubility of speech, nor did he fail to talk from the instant of his appearance; and in the tone of his voice, and in his glance, and in the whole man, there was something racy,--a flavor of the humorist. His step was that of an aged man, and he put his stick down very decidedly at every footfall; though as he afterwards told me that he was only fifty-two, he need not yet have been infirm. But perhaps he has had the gout; his feet, however, are by no means swollen, but unusually small. Dr. ------ introduced him as Mr. Douglas Jerrold, and we went into the coffee-room to dine.
The coffee-room occupies one whole side of the edifice, and is provided with a great many tables, calculated for three or four persons to dine at; and we sat down at one of these, and Dr. ------ ordered some mulligatawny soup, and a bottle of white French wine. The waiters in the coffee-room are very numerous, and most of them dressed in the livery of the Club, comprising plush breeches and white-silk stockings; for these English Reformers do not seem to include Republican simplicity of manners in their system. Neither, perhaps, is it anywise essential.
After the soup, we had turbot, and by and by a bottle of
Chateau Margaux, very delectable; and then some lambs' feet, delicately done,
and some cutlets of I know not what peculiar type; and finally a ptarmigan,
which is of the same race of birds as the grouse, but feeds high up towards the
summits of the Scotch mountains. Then
some cheese, and a bottle of Chambertin.
It was a very pleasant dinner, and my companions were both very
agreeable men; both taking a shrewd, satirical, yet not ill-natured, view of
life and people, and as for Mr. Douglas Jerrold, he often reminded me of E----
C------, in the richer veins of the latter, both by his face and expression,
and by a tincture of something at once wise and humorously absurd in what he
said. But I think he has a kinder, more
genial, wholesomer nature than E----, and under a very thin crust of outward
acerbity I grew sensible of a very warm heart, and even of much simplicity of
character in this man, born in
I wish I had any faculty whatever of remembering what people
say; but, though I appreciate anything good at the moment, it never stays in my
memory; nor do I think, in fact, that anything definite, rounded, pointed,
separable, and transferable from the general lump of conversation was said by
anybody. I recollect that they laughed
at Mr. ------, and at his shedding a tear into a Scottish river, on occasion of
some literary festival. . . . . They spoke approvingly of Bulwer, as valuing
his literary position, and holding himself one of the brotherhood of authors;
and not so approvingly of Charles Dickens, who, born a plebeian, aspires to
aristocratic society. But I said that it
was easy to condescend, and that Bulwer knew he could not put off his rank, and
that he would have all the advantages of it in spite of his authorship. We
talked about the position of men of letters in
Douglas Jerrold talked of Thackeray and his success in
In the course of the evening, Jerrold spoke with high
appreciation of Emerson; and of Longfellow, whose Hiawatha he considered a
wonderful performance; and of
------, who, being connected with the Illustrated News, and otherwise a
writer, might be inclined to draw attention to then. Douglas Jerrold asked why he should not have
them too. I hesitated a little, but as
he pressed me, and would have an answer, I said that I did not feel quite so
sure of his kindly judgment on Thoreau's books; and it so chanced that I used
the word "acrid" for lack of a better, in endeavoring to express my
idea of Jerrold's way of looking at men and books. It was not quite what I meant; but, in fact,
he often is acrid, and has written pages and volumes of acridity, though, no
doubt, with an honest purpose, and from a manly disgust at the cant and humbug
of the world. Jerrold said no more, and
I went on talking with Dr. ------; but, in a minute or two, I became aware that
something had gone wrong, and, looking at Douglas Jerrold, there was an
expression of pain and emotion on his face.
By this time a second bottle of
------ said that he likewise had a reputation for bitterness; and I
assured him, if I might venture to join myself to the brotherhood of two such men, that I was considered a very ill-natured person by many people in my own country. Douglas Jerrold said he was glad of it.
We were now in sweetest harmony, and Jerrold spoke more than it would become me to repeat in praise of my own books, which he said he admired, and he found the man more admirable than his books! I hope so, certainly.
We now went to the Haymarket Theatre, where Douglas Jerrold is on the free list; and after seeing a ballet by some Spanish dancers, we separated, and betook ourselves to our several homes. I like Douglas Jerrold very much.
April 8th.--On Saturday evening, at ten o'clock, I went to a supper-party at Mr. D------'s, and there met five or six people,--Mr. Faed, a young and distinguished artist; Dr. Eliotson, a dark, sombre, taciturn, powerful-looking man, with coal-black hair, and a beard as black, fringing round his face; Mr. Charles Reade, author of Christie Johnstone and other novels, and many plays,--a tall man, more than thirty, fair-haired, and of agreeable talk and demeanor.
On April 6th, I went to the
Our host and hostess had by this time returned from church, and Mrs. Hall came frankly and heartily to the door to greet us, scolding us (kindly) for having got wet. . . . . I liked her simple, easy, gentle, quiet manners, and I liked her husband too.
He has a wide and quick sympathy, and expresses it freely. . . . . The world is the better for him.
The shower being now over, we went out upon the beautiful
lawn before his house, where there were a good many trees of various kinds,
many of which have been set out by persons of great or small distinction, and
are labelled with their names. Thomas
Moore's name was appended to one; Maria Edgeworth's to another; likewise
Fredrika Bremer's, Jenny Lind's; also Grace
We dined early, and had a very pleasant dinner, and, after the cloth was removed, Mr. Hall was graciously pleased to drink my health, following it with a long tribute to my genius. I answered briefly; and one half of my short speech was in all probability very foolish. . . . .
After the ladies (there were three, one being a girl of seventeen, with rich auburn hair, the adopted daughter of the Halls) had retired, Dr.
------ having been toasted himself, proposed Mrs. Hall's health.
I did not have a great deal of conversation with Mrs. Hall;
but enough to make me think her a genuine and good woman, unspoilt by a
literary career, and retaining more sentiment than even most girls keep beyond
seventeen. She told me that it had been
the dream of her life to see Longfellow and myself! . . . . Her dream is half
accomplished now, and, as they say Longfellow is coming over this summer, the
remainder may soon be rounded out. On
taking leave, our kind hosts presented me with some beautiful flowers, and with
three volumes of a work, by themselves, on
[Here follows an account of the Lord Mayor's dinner, taken mostly for Our Old Home; but I think I will copy this more exact description of the lady mentioned in "Civic Banquets."--ED.]
. . . . My eyes were mostly drawn to a young lady, who sat nearly opposite me, across the table. She was, I suppose, dark, and yet not dark, but rather seemed to be of pure white marble, yet not white; but the purest and finest complexion, without a shade of color in it, yet anything but sallow or sickly. Her hair was a wonderful deep raven-black, black as night, black as death; not raven-black, for that has a shiny gloss, and hers had not, but it was hair never to be painted nor described,--wonderful hair, Jewish hair. Her nose had a beautiful outline, though I could see that it was Jewish too; and that, and all her features, were so fine that sculpture seemed a despicable art beside her, and certainly my pen is good for nothing. If any likeness could be given, however; it must be by sculpture, not painting. She was slender and youthful, and yet had a stately and cold, though soft and womanly grace; and, looking at her, I saw what were the wives of the old patriarchs in their maiden or early-married days,--what Judith was, for, womanly as she looked, I doubt, not she could have slain a man in a just cause,--what Bathsheba was, only she seemed to have no sin in her,--perhaps what Eve was, though one could hardly think her weak enough to eat the apple. . . . . Whether owing to distinctness of race, my sense that she was a Jewess, or whatever else, I felt a sort of repugnance, simultaneously with my perception that she was an admirable creature.
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
At ten o'clock the next day [after the Lord Mayor's dinner]
I went to lunch with Bennoch, and afterwards accompanied him to one of the
government offices in
From
We were to dine at the Refectory of the House with the new
member for
The character of the debate, however, did not grow more luminous or vivacious; so we went down into the vestibule, and there waited for Mr. ------, who soon came and led us into the Refectory. It was very much like the coffee-room of a club. The strict rule forbids the entrance of any but members of Parliament; but it seems to be winked at, although there is another room, opening beyond this, where the law of seclusion is strictly enforced.
The dinner was good, not remarkably so, but good enough,--a soup, some turbot or salmon, cutlets, and I know not what else, and claret, sherry, and port; for, as Mr. ------ said, "he did not wish to be stingy." Mr. ------ is a self-made man, and a strong instance of the difference between the Englishman and the American, when self-made, and without early education. He is no more a gentleman now than when he began life, --not a whit more refined, either outwardly or inwardly; while the American would have been, after the same experience, not distinguishable outwardly, and perhaps as refined within, as nine tenths of the gentlemen born, in the House of Commons. And, besides, an American comes naturally to any distinctions to which success in life may bring him; he takes them as if they were his proper inheritance, and in no wise to be wondered at. Mr. ------, on the other hand, took evidently a childish delight in his position, and felt a childish wonder in having arrived at it; nor did it seem real to him, after all. . . . .
We again saw Disraeli, who has risen from the people by modes perhaps somewhat like those of Mr. ------. He came and stood near our table, looking at the bill of fare, and then sat down on the opposite side of the room with another gentleman, and ate his dinner. The story of his marriage does him much credit; and indeed I am inclined to like Disraeli, as a man who has made his own place good among a hostile aristocracy, and leads instead of following them.
From the House of Commons we went to Albert Smith's
exhibition, or lecture, of the ascent of
Nothing of moment happened the next day, at least, not till two o'clock, when I went with Mr. Bowman to Birch's eating-house (it is not Birch's now, but this was the name of the original founder, who became an alderman, and has long been dead) for a basin of turtle-soup. It was very rich, very good, better than we had at the Lord Mayor's, and the best I ever ate.
In the evening, Mr. J. B. Davis, formerly our Secretary of
Legation, called to take us to dine at Mr. ------'s in
In the interim Mr. ------ showed us some rare old books,
which he has in his private collection, a black-letter edition of Chaucer, and
other specimens of the early English printers; and I was impressed, as I have
often been, with the idea that we have made few, if any, improvements in the
art of printing, though we have greatly facilitated the modes of it. He showed
us Dryden's translation of Virgil, with Dr. Johnson's autograph in it and a
large collection of Bibles, of all dates,--church Bibles, family Bibles of the
common translation, and older ones. He
says he has written or is writing a history of the Bible (as a printed work, I
presume). Many of these Bibles had, no
doubt, been in actual and daily use from generation to generation; but they
were now all splendidly bound, and were likewise very clean and smooth,--in
fact, every leaf had been cleansed by a delicate process, a part of which
consisted in soaking the whole book in a tub of water, during several
days. Mr. ------ is likewise rich in
manuscripts, having a Spanish document with the signature of the son of
Mr. Taylor is reckoned a brilliant conversationist; but I suppose he requires somebody to draw him out and assist him; for I could hear nothing that I thought very remarkable on this occasion. He is not a kind of man whom I can talk with, or greatly help to talk; so, though I sat next to him, nothing came of it. He told me some stories of his life in the Temple,--little funny incidents, that he afterwards wrought into his dramas; in short, a sensible, active-minded, clearly perceptive man, with a humorous way of showing up men and matters. . . . . I wish I could know exactly what the English style good conversation. Probably it is something like plum-pudding,--as heavy, but seldom so rich.
After dinner Mr. Tom Taylor and Mr. D------, with their respective ladies, took their leave; but when we returned to the drawing-room, we found it thronged with a good many people. Mr. S. C. Hall was there with his wife, whom I was glad to see again, for this was the third time of meeting her, and, in this whirl of new acquaintances, I felt quite as if she were an old friend. Mr. William Howitt was also there, and introduced me to his wife,--a very natural, kind, and pleasant lady; and she presented me to one or two daughters. Mr. Marston, the dramatist, was also introduced to me; and Mr. Helps, a thin, scholarly, cold sort of a man. Dr. Mackay and his wife were there, too; and a certain Mr. Jones, a sculptor,--a jolly, large, elderly person, with a twinkle in his eye. Also a Mr. Godwin, who impressed me as quite a superior person, gentlemanly, cultivated, a man of sensibility; but it is quite impossible to take a clear imprint from any one character, where so many are stamped upon one's notice at once. This Mr. Godwin, as we were discussing Thackeray, said that he is most beautifully tender and devoted to his wife, whenever she can be sensible of his attentions. He says that Thackeray, in his real self, is a sweet, sad man. I grew weary of so many people, especially of the ladies, who were rather superfluous in their oblations, quite stifling me, indeed, with the incense that they burnt under my nose. So far as I could judge, they had all been invited there to see me. It is ungracious, even hoggish, not to be gratified with the interest they expressed in me; but then it is really a bore, and one does not know what to do or say. I felt like the hippopotamus, or--to use a more modest illustration--like some strange insect imprisoned under a tumbler, with a dozen eyes watching whatever I did. By and by, Mr. Jones, the sculptor, relieved me by standing up against the mantel-piece, and telling an Irish story, not to two or three auditors, but to the whole drawing-room, all attentive as to a set exhibition. It was very funny.
The next day after this I went with Mr. Bowman to call on
our minister, and found that he, and four of the ladies of his family, with his
son, had gone to the Queen's Drawing-room.
We lunched at the
SCOTLAND.--GLASGOW.
May 10th.--Last Friday, May 2d, I took the rail, with Mr.
Bowman, from the
In the morning I rambled largely about
In another part of the High Street, up a pretty steep slope, and on one side of a public green, near an edifice which I think is a medical college, stands St. Mungo's Cathedral. It is hardly of cathedral dimensions, though a large and fine old church. The price of a ticket of admittance is twopence; so small that it might be as well to make the entrance free. The interior is in excellent repair, with the nave and side aisles, and clustered pillars, and intersecting arches, that belong to all these old churches; and a few monuments along the walls. I was going away without seeing any more than this; but the verger, a friendly old gentleman, with a hearty Scotch way of speaking, told me that the crypts were what chiefly interested strangers; and so he guided me down into the foundation-story of the church, where there is an intricacy and entanglement of immensely massive and heavy arches, supporting the structure above. The view through these arches, among the great shafts of the columns, was very striking. In the central part is a monument; a recumbent figure, if I remember rightly, but it is not known whom it commemorates. There is also a monument to a Scotch prelate, which seems to have been purposely defaced, probably in Covenant times. These intricate arches were the locality of one of the scenes in "Rob Roy," when Rob gives Frank Osbaldistone some message or warning, and then escapes from him into the obscurity behind. In one corner is St. Mungo's well, secured with a wooden cover; but I should not care to drink water that comes from among so many old graves.
After viewing the cathedral, I got back to the hotel just in
time to go from thence to the steamer wharf, and take passage up the
Arriving at Balloch, we found it a small village, with no
marked features, and a hotel, where we got some lunch, and then we took a
stroll over the bridge across the Levers, while waiting for the steamer to take
us up
The day was bright and cloudless; but there was a strong,
cold breeze blowing down the lake, so that it was impossible, without vast
discomfort, to stand in the bow of the steamer and look at the scenery. I
looked at it, indeed, along the sides, as we passed, and on our track behind;
and no doubt it was very fine; but from all the experience I have had, I do not
think scenery can be well seen from the water.
At any rate, the shores of
The whole voyage up
We had excellent beds and sleeping-rooms in this new hotel,
and I remember nothing more till morning, when we were astir betimes, and had
some chops for breakfast. Then our host,
Mr. Macregor, who is also the host of our hotel at Glasgow, and has many of the
characteristics of an American landlord, claiming to be a gentleman and the
equal of his guests, took us in a drosky, and drove us to the shore of Loch
Lomond, at a point about four miles from Arroquhar. The lake is here a mile and a half wide, and
it was our object to cross to Inversnaid, on the opposite shore; so first we
waved a handkerchief, and then kindled some straw on the beach, in order to
attract the notice of the ferryman at Inversnaid. It was half an hour before
our signals and shoutings resulted in the putting off of a boat, with two
oarsmen, who made the transit pretty speedily; and thus we got across
We were now in Rob Roy's country, and at the distance of a mile or so, along the shore of the lake, is Rob Roy's cave, where he and his followers are supposed to have made their abode in troublous times. While lunch was getting ready, we again took the boat, and went thither. Landing beneath a precipitous, though not very lofty crag, we clambered up a rude pathway, and came to the mouth of the cave, which is nothing but a fissure or fissures among some great rocks that have tumbled confusedly together. There is hardly anywhere space enough for half a dozen persons to crowd themselves together, nor room to stand upright. On the whole, it is no cave at all, but only a crevice; and, in the deepest and darkest part, you can look up and see the sky. It may have sheltered Rob Roy for a night, and might partially shelter any Christian during a shower.
Returning to the hotel, we started in a drosky (I do not
know whether this is the right name of the vehicle, or whether it has a right
name, but it is a carriage in which four persons sit back to back, two before
and two behind) for Aberfoyle. The mountain-side
ascends very steeply from the inn door, and, not to damp the horse's courage in
the outset, we went up on foot. The
guide-book says that the prospect from the summit of the ascent is very fine;
but I really believe we forgot to turn round and look at it. All through our drive, however, we had
mountain views in plenty, especially of great Ben Lomond, with his snow-covered
head, round which, since our entrance into the
The day was sunless, and very uncomfortably cold; and we were not sorry to walk whenever the steepness of the road gave us cause. I do not remember what o'clock it was, but not far into the afternoon, when we reached the Baillie Nicol-Jarvie Inn at Aberfoyle; a scene which is much more interesting in the pages of Rob Roy than we found it in reality. Here we got into a sort of cart, and set out, over another hill-path, as dreary as or drearier than the last, for the Trosachs. On our way, we saw Ben Venue, and a good many other famous Bens, and two or three lochs; and when we reached the Trosachs, we should probably have been very much enraptured if our eyes had not already been weary with other mountain shapes. But, in truth, I doubt if anybody ever does really see a mountain, who goes for the set and sole purpose of seeing it. Nature will not let herself be seen in such cases. You must patiently bide her time; and by and by, at some unforeseen moment, she will quietly and suddenly unveil herself, and for a brief space allow you to look right into the heart of her mystery. But if you call out to her peremptorily, "Nature! unveil yourself this very moment!" she only draws her veil the closer; and you may look with all your eyes, and imagine that you see all that she can show, and yet see nothing. Thus, I saw a wild and confused assemblage of heights, crags, precipices, which they call the Trosachs, but I saw them calmly and coldly, and was glad when the drosky was ready to take us on to Callender. The hotel at the Trosachs, by the by, is a very splendid one, in the form of an old feudal castle, with towers and turrets. All among these wild hills there is set preparation for enraptured visitants; and it seems strange that the savage features do not subside of their own accord, and that there should still be cold winds and snow on the top of Ben Lomond, and rocks and heather, and ragged sheep, now that there are so many avenues by which the commonplace world is sluiced in among the Highlands. I think that this fashion of the picturesque will pass away.
We drove along the
After dinner, as dusk was coming on and we had still a long
drive before us (eighteen miles, I believe), we took a close carriage and two
horses, and set off for
In the morning we were stirring betimes, and found
Then we mounted the castle wall, where it broods over a precipice of many hundred feet perpendicular, looking down upon a level plain below, and forth upon a landscape, every foot of which is richly studded with historic events. There is a small peep-hole in the wall, which Queen Mary is said to have been in the habit of looking through. It is a most splendid view; in the distance, the blue Highlands, with a variety of mountain outlines that I could have studied unweariably; and in another direction, beginning almost at the foot of the Castle Hill, were the Links of Forth, where, over a plain of miles in extent the river meandered, and circled about, and returned upon itself again and again and again, as if knotted into a silver chain, which it was difficult to imagine to be all one stream. The history of Scotland might be read from this castle wall, as on a book of mighty page; for here, within the compass of a few miles, we see the field where Wallace won the battle of Stirling, and likewise the battle-field of Bannockburn, and that of Falkirk, and Sheriffmuir, and I know not how many besides.
Around the Castle Hill there is a walk, with seats for old and infirm persons, at points sheltered from the wind. We followed it downward, and I think we passed over the site where the games used to be held, and where, this morning, some of the soldiers of the garrison were going through their exercises. I ought to have mentioned, that, passing through the inner gateway of the castle, we saw the round tower, and glanced into the dungeon, where the Roderic Dhu of Scott's poem was left to die. It is one of the two round towers, between which the portcullis rose and fell.
EDINBURGH.--THE
At eleven o'clock we took the rail for
Thence we passed into the old historic rooms of the Palace,--Darnley's and Queen Mary's apartments, which everybody has seen and described. They are very dreary and shabby-looking rooms, with bare floors, and here and there a piece of tapestry, faded into a neutral tint; and carved and ornamented ceilings, looking shabbier than plain whitewash. We saw Queen Mary's old bedstead, low, with four tall posts,--and her looking-glass, which she brought with her from France, and which has often reflected the beauty that set everybody mad,--and some needlework and other womanly matters of hers; and we went into the little closet where she was having such a cosey supper-party with two or three friends, when the conspirators broke in, and stabbed Rizzio before her face. We saw, too, the blood-stain at the threshold of the door in the next room, opening upon the stairs. The body of Rizzio was flung down here, and the attendant told us that it lay in that spot all night. The blood-stain covers a large space,--much larger than I supposed,--and it gives the impression that there must have been a great pool and sop of blood on all the spot covered by Rizzio's body, staining the floor deeply enough never to be washed out. It is now of a dark brown hue; and I do not see why it may not be the genuine, veritable stain. The floor, thereabouts, appears not to have been scrubbed much; for I touched it with my finger, and found it slightly rough; but it is strange that the many footsteps should not have smoothed it, in three hundred years.
One of the articles shown us in Queen Mary's apartments was the breastplate supposed to have been worn by Lord Ruthven at the murder, a heavy plate of iron, and doubtless a very uncomfortable waistcoat.
HOLYROOD ABBEY.
From the Palace, we passed into the contiguous ruin of Holyrood Abbey; which is roofless, although the front, and some broken columns along the nave, and fragments of architecture here and there, afford hints of a magnificent Gothic church in bygone times. It deserved to be magnificent; for here have been stately ceremonials, marriages of kings, coronations, investitures, before the high altar, which has now been overthrown or crumbled away; and the floor--so far as there is any floor --consists of tombstones of the old Scottish nobility. There are likewise monuments, bearing the names of illustrious Scotch families; and inscriptions, in the Scotch dialect, on the walls.
In one of the front towers,--the only remaining one, indeed,--we saw the marble tomb of a nobleman, Lord Belhaven, who is represented reclining on the top,--with a bruised nose, of course. Except in Westminster Abbey, I do not remember ever to have seen an old monumental statue with the nose entire. In all political or religious outbreaks, the mob's first impulse is to hit the illustrious dead on their noses.
At the other end of the Abbey, near the high altar, is the vault where the old Scottish kings used to be buried; but, looking in through the window, I saw only a vacant space,--no skull, nor bone, nor the least fragment of a coffin. In fact, I believe the royal dead were turned out of their last home, on occasion of the Revolutionary movements, at the accession of William III.
HIGH STREET AND THE GRASS-MARKET.
Quitting the Abbey and the Palace, we turned into the
Canongate, and passed thence into High Street, which, I think, is a
continuation of the Canongate; and being now in the old town of Edinburgh, we
saw those immensely tall houses, seven stories high, where the people live in
tiers, all the way from earth to middle air.
They were not so quaint and strange looking as I expected; but there
were some houses of very antique individuality, and among them that of John
Knox, which looks still in good repair.
One thing did not in the least fall short of my expectations,--the evil
odor, for which
From the High Street we turned aside into the Grass-Market, the scene of the Porteous Mob; and we found in the pavement a cross on the site where the execution of Porteous is supposed to have taken place.
THE CASTLE.
Returning thence to the High Street, we followed it up to
the Castle, which is nearer the town, and of more easy access from it, than I
had supposed. There is a large court or
parade before the castle gate, with a parapet on the abrupt side of the hill,
looking towards Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, mud overhanging a portion of
the old town. As we leaned over this
parapet, my nose was conscious of the bad odor of
The
After the soldier had shown us to the extent of his jurisdiction, we went into a suite of rooms, in one of which I saw a portrait of Queen Mary, which gave me, for the first time, an idea that she was really a very beautiful woman. In this picture she is wonderfully so,--a tender womanly grace, which was none the less tender and graceful for being equally imbued with queenly dignity and spirit. It was too lovely a head to be cut off. I should be glad to know the authenticity of this picture.
I do not know that we did anything else worthy of note,
before leaving
Our first object, of course, was to see the Abbey, which stands just on the outskirts of the village, and is attainable only by applying at a neighboring house, the inhabitant of which probably supports himself, and most comfortably, too, as a showman of the ruin. He unlocked the wooden gate, and admitted us into what is left of the Abbey, comprising only the ruins of the church, although the refectory, the dormitories, and the other parts of the establishment, formerly covered the space now occupied by a dozen village houses. Melrose Abbey is a very satisfactory ruin, all carpeted along its nave and transepts with green grass; and there are some well-grown trees within the walls. We saw the window, now empty, through which the tints of the painted glass fell on the tombstone of Michael Scott, and the tombstone itself, broken in three pieces, but with a cross engraven along its whole length. It must have been the monument of an old monk or abbot, rather than a wizard. There, too, is still the "marble stone" on which the monk and warrior sat them down, and which is supposed to mark the resting-place of Alexander of Scotland. There are remains, both without and within the Abbey, of most curious and wonderfully minute old sculpture,--foliage, in places where it is almost impossible to see them, and where the sculptor could not have supposed that they would be seen, but which yet are finished faithfully, to the very veins of each leaf, in stone; and there is a continual variety of this accurate toil. On the exterior of the edifice there is equal minuteness of finish, and a great many niches for statues; all of which, I believe, are now gone, although there are carved faces at some points and angles. The graveyard around the Abbey is still the only one which the village has, and is crowded with gravestones, among which I read the inscription of one erected by Sir Walter Scott to the memory of Thomas Pardy, one of his servants. Some sable birds--either rooks or jackdaws--were flitting about the ruins, inside and out.
Mr. Bowman and I talked about revisiting
Leaving the Abbey, we took a path or a road which led us to the river Tweed, perhaps a quarter of a mile off; and we crossed it by a foot-bridge,--a pretty wide stream, a dimpling breadth of transparent water flowing between low banks, with a margin of pebbles. We then returned to our inn, and had tea, and passed a quiet evening by the fireside. This is a good, unpretentious inn; and its visitors' book indicates that it affords general satisfaction to those who come here.
In the morning we breakfasted on broiled salmon, taken, no
doubt, in the neighboring
After breakfast we took a drosky, or whatever these fore-and-aft-seated vehicles are called, and set out for
DRYBURGH ABBEY,
three miles distant.
It was a cold though rather bright morning, with a most shrewd and
bitter wind, which blew directly in my face as I sat beside the driver. An English wind is bad enough, but methinks a
Scotch one, is rather worse; at any rate, I was half frozen, and wished
Dryburgh Abbey in Tophet, where it would have been warmer work to go and see
it. Some of the border hills were striking, especially the Cowden Knowe, which
ascends into a prominent and lofty peak.
Such villages as we passed did not greatly differ from English
villages. By and by we came to the banks
of the
The ferryman here is a young girl; and, stepping into the boat, she shoved off, and so skilfully took advantage of the eddies of the stream, which is here deep and rapid, that we were soon on the other side. She was by no means an uncomely maiden, with pleasant Scotch features, and a quiet intelligence of aspect, gleaming into a smile when spoken to; much tanned with all kinds of weather, and, though slender, yet so agile and muscular that it was no shame for a man to let himself be rowed by her.
From the ferry we had a walk of half a mile, more or less, to a cottage, where we found another young girl, whose business it is to show the Abbey. She was of another mould than the ferry-maiden,--a queer, shy, plaintive sort of a body,--and answered all our questions in a low, wailing tone. Passing through an apple-orchard, we were not long in reaching the Abbey, the ruins of which are much more extensive and more picturesque than those of Melrose, being overrun with bushes and shrubbery, and twined about with ivy, and all such vegetation as belongs, naturally, to old walls. There are the remains of the refectory, and other domestic parts of the Abbey, as well as the church, and all in delightful state of decay,--not so far gone but that we had bits of its former grandeur in the columns and broken arches, and in some portions of the edifice that still retain a roof.
In the chapter-house we saw a marble statue of
On one side of the church, within an arched recess, are the
monuments of Sir Walter Scott and his family,--three ponderous tombstones of
Dryburgh Abbey must be a most beautiful spot of a summer
afternoon; and it was beautiful even on this not very genial morning,
especially when the sun blinked out upon the ivy, and upon the shrubberied
paths that wound about the ruins. I
think I recollect the birds chirruping in this neighborhood of it. After viewing it sufficiently,--sufficiently
for this one time,--we went back to the ferry, and, being set across by the
same Undine, we drove back to
ABBOTSFORD,
three miles off. The
neighborhood of
We were not long in reaching Abbotsford. The house, which is more compact, and of considerably less extent than I anticipated, stands in full view from the road, and at only a short distance from it, lower down towards the river. Its aspect disappointed me; but so does everything. It is but a villa, after all; no castle, nor even a large manor-house, and very unsatisfactory when you consider it in that light. Indeed, it impressed me, not as a real house, intended for the home of human beings,--a house to die in or to be born in,--but as a plaything,--something in the same category as Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill. The present owner seems to have found it insufficient for the actual purposes of life; for he is adding a wing, which promises to be as extensive as the original structure.
We rang at the front door (the family being now absent), and were speedily admitted by a middle-aged or somewhat elderly man,--the butler, I suppose, or some upper servant,--who at once acceded to our request to be permitted to see the house. We stepped from the porch immediately into the entrance-hall; and having the great Hall of Battle Abbey in my memory, and the ideal of a baronial hall in my mind, I was quite taken aback at the smallness and narrowness and lowness of this; which, however, is a very fine one, on its own little scale. In truth, it is not much more than a vestibule. The ceiling is carved; and every inch of the walls is covered with claymores, targets, and other weapons and armor, or old-time curiosities, tastefully arranged, many of which, no doubt, have a history attached to them,--or had, in Sir Walter's own mind. Our attendant was a very intelligent person, and pointed out much that was interesting; but in such a multitudinous variety it was almost impossible to fix the eye upon any one thing. Probably the apartment looked smaller than it really was, on account of being so wainscoted and festooned with curiosities. I remember nothing particularly, unless it be the coal-grate in the fireplace, which was one formerly used by Archbishop Sharpe, the prelate whom Balfour of Burley murdered. Either in this room or the next one, there was a glass case containing the suit of clothes last worn by Scott,--a short green coat, somewhat worn, with silvered buttons, a pair of gray tartan trousers, and a white hat. It was in the hall that we saw these things; for there too, I recollect, were a good many walking-sticks that had been used by Scott, and the hatchet with which he was in the habit of lopping branches from his trees, as he walked among them.
From the hall we passed into the study;--a small room, lined with the books which Sir Walter, no doubt, was most frequently accustomed to refer to; and our guide pointed out some volumes of the Moniteur, which he used while writing the history of Napoleon. Probably these were the driest and dullest volumes in his whole library. About mid-height of the walls of the study there is a gallery, with a short flight of steps for the convenience of getting at the upper books. A study-table occupied the centre of the room, and at one end of the table stands an easy-chair, covered with morocco, and with ample space to fling one's self back. The servant told me that I might sit down in this chair, for that Sir Walter sat there while writing his romances, "and perhaps," quoth the man, smiling, "you may catch some inspiration." What a bitter word this would have been if he had known me to be a romance-writer! "No, I never shall be inspired to write romances!" I answered, as if such an idea had never occurred to me. I sat down, however. This study quite satisfied me, being planned on principles of common-sense, and made to work in, and without any fantastic adaptation of old forms to modern uses.
Next to the study is the library, an apartment of respectable size, and containing as many books as it can hold, all protected by wire-work. I did not observe what or whose works were here; but the attendant showed us one whole compartment full of volumes having reference to ghosts, witchcraft, and the supernatural generally. It is remarkable that Scott should have felt interested in such subjects, being such a worldly and earthly man as he was; but then, indeed, almost all forms of popular superstition do clothe the ethereal with earthly attributes, and so make it grossly perceptible.
The library, like the study, suited me well,--merely the fashion of the apartment, I mean,--and I doubt not it contains as many curious volumes as are anywhere to be met with within a similar space. The drawing-room adjoins it; and here we saw a beautiful ebony cabinet, which was presented to Sir Walter by George IV.; and some pictures of much interest,--one of Scott himself at thirty-five, rather portly, with a heavy face, but shrewd eyes, which seem to observe you closely. There is a full-length of his eldest son, an officer of dragoons, leaning on his charger; and a portrait of Lady Scott,--a brunette, with black hair and eyes, very pretty, warm, vivacious, and un-English in her aspect. I am not quite sure whether I saw all these pictures in the drawing-room, or some of them in the dining-room; but the one that struck me most--and very much indeed--was the head of Mary, Queen of Scots, literally the head cut off and lying on a dish. It is said to have been painted by an Italian or French artist, two days after her death. The hair curls or flows all about it; the face is of a death-like hue, but has an expression of quiet, after much pain and trouble,--very beautiful, very sweet and sad; and it affected me strongly with the horror and strangeness of such a head being severed from its body. Methinks I should not like to have it always in the room with me. I thought of the lovely picture of Mary that I had seen at Edinburgh Castle, and reflected what a symbol it would be,--how expressive of a human being having her destiny in her own hands,--if that beautiful young Queen were painted as carrying this dish, containing her own woful head, and perhaps casting a curious and pitiful glance down upon it, as if it were not her own.
Also, in the drawing-room, there was a plaster cast of Sir Walter's face, taken after death; the only one in existence, as our guide assured us. It is not often that one sees a homelier set of features than this; no elevation, no dignity, whether bestowed by nature or thrown over them by age or death; sunken cheeks, the bridge of the nose depressed, and the end turned up; the mouth puckered, and no chin whatever, or hardly any. The expression was not calm and happy; but rather as if he were in a perturbed slumber, perhaps nothing short of nightmare. I wonder that the family allow this cast to be shown,--the last record that there is of Scott's personal reality, and conveying such a wretched and unworthy idea of it.
Adjoining the drawing-room is the dining-room, in one corner
of which, between two windows, Scott died.
It was now a quarter of a century since his death; but it seemed to me
that we spoke with a sort of hush in our voices, as if he were still dying
here, or had but just departed. I
remember nothing else in this room. The
next one is the armory, which is the smallest of all that we had passed
through; but its walls gleam with the steel blades of swords, and the barrels
of pistols, matchlocks, firelocks, and all manner of deadly weapons, whether
European or Oriental; for there are many trophies here of East Indian
warfare. I saw Rob Roy's gun, rifled and
of very large bore; and a beautiful pistol, formerly Claverhouse's; and the
sword of Montrose, given him by King Charles, the silver hilt of which I
grasped. There was also a superb
claymore, in an elaborately wrought silver sheath, made for Sir Walter Scott,
and presented to him by the Highland Society, for his services in marshalling
the clans when George IV. came to
We had now gone through all the show-rooms; and the next
door admitted us again into the entrance-hall, where we recorded our names in
the visitors' book. It contains more
names of Americans, I should judge, from casting my eyes back over last year's
record, than of all other people in the world, including
Bidding farewell to Abbotsford, I cannot but confess a sentiment of remorse for having visited the dwelling-place--as just before I visited the grave of the mighty minstrel and romancer with so cold a heart and in so critical a mood,--his dwelling-place and his grave whom I had so admired and loved, and who had done so much for my happiness when I was young. But I, and the world generally, now look at him from a different point of view; and, besides, these visits to the actual haunts of famous people, though long dead, have the effect of making us sensible, in some degree, of their human imperfections, as if we actually saw them alive. I felt this effect, to a certain extent, even with respect to Shakespeare, when I visited Stratford-on-Avon. As for Scott, I still cherish him in a warm place, and I do not know that I have any pleasanter anticipation, as regards books, than that of reading all his novels over again after we get back to the Wayside.
[This Mr. Hawthorne did, aloud to his family, the year following his return to America.--ED.]
It was now one or two o'clock, and time for us to take the
rail across the borders. Many a mile
behind us, as we rushed onward, we could see the threefold Eildon Hill, and probably
every pant of the engine carried us over some spot of ground which Scott has
made fertile with poetry. For
BERWICK,
a town which seems to belong both to
the way to which, for a considerable distance, lies within
sight of the sea; and in close vicinity to the shore we saw Holy Isle, on which
are the ruins of an abbey.
We established ourselves at the Station Hotel, and then
walked out to see something of the town; but I remember only a few streets of
duskiness and dinginess, with a glimpse of the turrets of a castle to which we
could not find our way. So, as it was
getting twilightish and very cold, we went back to the hotel, which is a very
good one, better than any one I have seen in the South of England, and almost
or quite as good as those of Scotland.
The coffee-room is a spacious and handsome apartment, adorned with a
full-length portrait of
An old
The next morning, May 8th, I rose and breakfasted early, and
took the rail soon after eight o'clock, leaving Mr. Bowman behind; for he had
business in
crooked, narrow, or of unequal width, puzzling, and many of
them bearing the name of the particular gate in the old walls of the city to
which they lead. There were no such
fine, ancient, stately houses as some of those in
I found my way by a sort of instinct, as directly as possible, to
It stands in the midst of a small open space,--or a space that looks small in comparison with the vast bulk of the cathedral. I was not so much impressed by its exterior as I have usually been by Gothic buildings; because it is rectangular in its general outline and in its towers, and seems to lack the complexity and mysterious plan which perplexes and wonder-strikes me in most cathedrals. Doubtless, however, if I had known better how to admire it, I should have found it wholly admirable. At all events, it has a satisfactory hugeness. Seeking my way in, I at first intruded upon the Registry of Deeds, which occupies a building patched up against the mighty side of the cathedral, and hardly discernible, so small the one and so large the other. I finally hit upon the right door, and I felt no disappointment in my first glance around at the immensity of enclosed space;--I see now in my mind's eye a dim length of nave, a breadth in the transepts like a great plain, and such an airy height beneath the central tower that a worshipper could certainly get a good way towards heaven without rising above it. I only wish that the screen, or whatever they call it, between the choir and nave, could be thrown down, so as to give us leave to take in the whole vastitude at once. I never could understand why, after building a great church, they choose to sunder it in halves by this mid-partition. But let me be thankful for what I got, and especially for the height and massiveness of the clustered pillars that support the arches on which rests the central tower. I remember at Furness Abbey I saw two tall pillars supporting a broken arch, and thought it, the most majestic fragment of architecture that could possibly be. But these pillars have a nobler height, and these arches a greater sweep. What nonsense to try to write about a cathedral!
There is a great, cold bareness and bleakness about the interior; for there are very few monuments, and those seem chiefly to be of ecclesiastical people. I saw no armed knights, asleep on the tops of their tombs; but there was a curious representation of a skeleton, at full length, under the table-slab of one of the monuments. The walls are of a grayish hue, not so agreeable as the rich dark tint of the inside of Westminster Abbey; but a great many of the windows are still filled with ancient painted glass, the very small squares and pieces of which are composed into splendid designs of saints and angels, and scenes from Scripture.
There were a few watery blinks of sunshine out of doors, and whenever these came through the old painted windows, some of the more vivid colors were faintly thrown upon the pavement of the cathedral,--very faintly, it is true; for, in the first place, the sunshine was not brilliant; and painted glass, too, fades in the course of the ages, perhaps, like all man's other works. There were two or three windows of modern manufacture, and far more magnificent, as to brightness of color and material beauty, than the ancient ones; but yet they looked vulgar, glaring, and impertinent in comparison, because such revivals or imitations of a long-disused art cannot have the good faith and earnestness of the originals. Indeed, in the very coloring, I felt the same difference as between heart's blood and a scarlet dye. It is a pity, however, that the old windows cannot be washed, both inside and out, for now they have the dust of centuries upon them.