on the 6th july, we left the villa, with our enormous luggage, and took our departure from southampton by the noon train. the main street of southampton, though it looks pretty fresh and bright, must be really antique, there being a great many projecting windows, in the old-time style, and these make the vista of the street very picturesque. i have no doubt that i missed seeing many things more interesting than the few that i saw. our journey to london was without any remarkable incident, and at the waterloo station we found one of mr. bennoch's clerks, under whose guidance we took two cabs for the east kent station at london bridge, and there railed to blackheath, where we arrived in the afternoon.
on thursday i went into london by one of the morning trains, and wandered about all day,—visiting the exhibition of the royal academy, and westminster abbey and st. paul's, the two latter of which i have already written about in former journals. on friday, s——-, j——-, and i walked over the heath, and through the park to greenwich, and spent some hours in the hospital. the painted hall struck me much more than at my first view of it; it is very beautiful indeed, and the effect of its frescoed ceiling most rich and magnificent, the assemblage of glowing hues producing a general result of splendor. . . .
in the evening i went with mr. and mrs. ——— to a conversazione at mrs. newton crosland's, who lives on blackheath. . . . i met with one person who interested me,—mr. bailey, the author of festus; and i was surprised to find myself already acquainted with him. it is the same mr. bailey whom i met a few months ago, when i first dined at mr. ——-'s,—a dark, handsome, rather picturesque-looking man, with a gray beard, and dark hair, a little dimmed with gray. he is of quiet and very agreeable deportment, and i liked him and believed in him. . . . there is sadness glooming out of him, but no unkindness nor asperity. mrs. crosland's conversazione was enriched with a supper, and terminated with a dance, in which mr. ——— joined with heart and soul, but mrs. ——— went to sleep in her chair, and i would gladly have followed her example if i could have found a chair to sit upon. in the course of the evening i had some talk with a pale, nervous young lady, who has been a noted spiritual medium.
yesterday i went into town by the steamboat from greenwich to london bridge, with a nephew of mr. ———'s, and, calling at his place of business, he procured us an order from his wine-merchants, by means of which we were admitted into
the wine-vaults of the london docks.
we there found parties, with an acquaintance, who was going, with two french gentlemen, into the vaults. it is a good deal like going down into a mine, each visitor being provided with a lamp at the end of a stick; and following the guide along dismal passages, running beneath the streets, and extending away interminably,—roughly arched overhead with stone, from which depend festoons of a sort of black fungus, caused by the exhalations of the wine. nothing was ever uglier than this fungus. it is strange that the most ethereal effervescence of rich wine can produce nothing better.
the first series of vaults which we entered were filled with port-wine, and occupied a space variously estimated at from eleven to sixteen acres,—which i suppose would hold more port-wine than ever was made. at any rate, the pipes and butts were so thickly piled that in some places we could hardly squeeze past them. we drank from two or three vintages; but i was not impressed with any especial excellence in the wine. we were not the only visitors, for, far in the depths of the vault, we passed a gentleman and two young ladies, wandering about like the ghosts of defunct wine-bibhers, in a tophet specially prepared for then. people employed here sometimes go astray, and, their lamps being extinguished, they remain long in this everlasting gloom. we went likewise to the vaults of sherry-wine, which have the same characteristics as those just described, but are less extensive.
it is no guaranty for the excellence or even for the purity of the wine, that it is kept in these cellars, under the lock and key of the government; for the merchants are allowed to mix different vintages, according to their own pleasure, and to adulterate it as they like. very little of the wine probably comes out as it goes in, or is exactly what it pretends to be. i went back to mr. ———'s office, and we drove together to make some calls jointly and separately. i went alone to mrs. heywood's; afterwards with mr. ——— to the american minister's, whom we found at home; and i requested of him, on the part of the americans at liverpool, to tell me the facts about the american gentleman being refused admittance to the levee. the ambassador did not seem to me to make his point good for having withdrawn with the rejected guest.
july 9th. (our wedding-day.)—we were invited yesterday evening to mrs. s. c. hall's, where jenny lind was to sing; so we left blackheath at about eight o'clock in a brougham, and reached ashley place, as the dusk was gathering, after nine. the halls reside in a handsome suite of apartments, arranged on the new system of flats, each story constituting a separate tenement, and the various families having an entrance-hall in common. the plan is borrowed from the continent, and seems rather alien to the traditionary habits of the english; though, no doubt, a good degree of seclusion is compatible with it. mr. hall received us with the greatest cordiality before we entered the drawing-room. mrs. hall, too, greeted us with most kindly warmth. jenny lind had not yet arrived; but i found dr. mackay there, and i was introduced to miss catherine sinclair, who is a literary lady, though none of her works happen to be known to me. soon the servant announced madam goldschmidt, and this famous lady made her appearance, looking quite different from what i expected. mrs. hall established her in the inner drawing-room, where was a piano and a harp; and shortly after, our hostess came to me, and said that madam goldschmidt wished to be introduced to me. there was a gentle peremptoriness in the summons, that made it something like being commanded into the presence of a princess; a great favor, no doubt, but yet a little humbling to the recipient. however, i acquiesced with due gratitude, and was presented accordingly. she made room for me on the sofa, and i sat down, and began to talk.
jenny lind is rather tall,—quite tall, for a woman,—certainly no beauty, but with sense and self-reliance in her aspect and manners. she was suffering under a severe cold, and seemed worn down besides, so probably i saw her under disadvantages. her conversation is quite simple, and i should have great faith in her sincerity; and there is about her the manner of a person who knows the world, and has conquered it. she said something or other about the scarlet letter; and, on my part, i paid her such compliments as a man could pay who had never heard her sing. . . . her conversational voice is an agreeable one, rather deep, and not particularly smooth. she talked about america, and of our unwholesome modes of life, as to eating and exercise, and of the ill-health especially of our women; but i opposed this view as far as i could with any truth, insinuating my opinion that we are about as healthy as other people, and affirming for a certainty that we live longer. in good faith, so far as i have any knowledge of the matter, the women of england are as generally out of health as those of america; always something has gone wrong with them; and as for jenny lind, she looks wan and worn enough to be an american herself. this charge of ill-health is almost universally brought forward against us nowadays,—and, taking the whole country together, i do not believe the statistics will bear it out.
the rooms, which were respectably filled when we arrived, were now getting quite full. i saw mr. stevens, the american man of libraries, and had some talk with him; and durham, the sculptor; and mr. and mrs. hall introduced me to various people, some of whom were of note,—for instance, sir emerson tennent, a man of the world, of some parliamentary distinction, wearing a star; mr. samuel lover, a most good-natured, pleasant irishman, with a shining and twinkling visage; miss jewsbury, whom i found very conversable. she is known in literature, but not to me. we talked about emerson, whom she seems to have been well acquainted with while he was in england; and she mentioned that miss martineau had given him a lock of hair; it was not her own hair, but a mummy's.
after our return, mrs. ——— told us that miss jewsbury had written, among other things, three histories, and as she asked me to introduce her to s——-, and means to cultivate our acquaintance, it would be well to know something of them. we were told that she is now employed in some literary undertaking of lady morgan's, who, at the age of ninety, is still circulating in society, and is as brisk in faculties as ever. i should like to see her ladyship, that is, i should not be sorry to see her; for distinguished people are so much on a par with others, socially, that it would be foolish to be overjoyed at seeing anybody whomsoever.
leaving out the illustrious jenny lind, i suspect that i was myself the greatest lion of the evening; for a good many persons sought the felicity of knowing me, and had little or nothing to say when that honor and happiness was conferred on them. it is surely very wrong and ill-mannered in people to ask for an introduction unless they are prepared to make talk; it throws too great an expense and trouble on the wretched lion, who is compelled, on the spur of the moment, to convert a conversable substance out of thin air, perhaps for the twentieth time that evening. i am sure i did not say—and i think i did not hear said— one rememberable word in the course of this visit; though, nevertheless, it was a rather agreeable one. in due season ices and jellies were handed about; and some ladies and gentlemen—professional, perhaps—were kind enough to sing songs, and play on the piano and harp, while persons in remote corners went on with whatever conversation they had in hand. then came supper; but there were so many people to go into the supper-room that we could not all crowd thither together, and, coming late, i got nothing but some sponge-cake and a glass of champagne, neither of which i care for. after supper, mr. lover sang some irish songs, his own in music and words, with rich, humorous effect, to which the comicality of his face contributed almost as much as his voice and words. the lord mayor looked in for a little while, and though a hard-featured jew enough, was the most picturesque person there.
july 10th.—mrs. heywood had invited me to dinner last evening. . . . her house is very finely situated, overlooking hyde park, and not a great way from where tyburn tree used to stand. when i arrived, there were no guests but mr. and mrs. d———; but by and by came mr. monckton milnes and lady, the bishop of lichfield, mr. tom taylor, mr. ewart, m. p., sir somebody somerville, mr. and mrs. musgrave, and others. mr. milnes, whom i had not seen for more than a year, greeted me very cordially, and so did mr. taylor. i took mrs. musgrave in to dinner. she is an irish lady, and mrs. heywood had recommended her to me as being very conversable; but i had a good deal more talk with mrs. m———, with whom i was already acquainted, than with her. mrs. m——— is of noble blood, and therefore not snobbish,—quite unaffected, gentle, sweet, and easy to get on with, reminding me of the best-mannered american women. but how can anything characteristic be said or done among a dozen people sitting at table in full dress? speaking of full dress, the bishop wore small-clothes and silk stockings, and entered the drawing-room with a three-cornered hat, which he kept flattened out under his arm. he asked the briefest blessing possible, and, sitting at the ultra end of the table, i heard nothing further from him till he officiated as briefly before the cloth was withdrawn. mrs. m——— talked about tennyson, with whom her husband was at the university, and whom he continues to know intimately. she says that he considers maud his best poem. he now lives in the isle of wight, spending all the year round there, and has recently bought the place on which he resides. she was of opinion that he would have been gratified by my calling on him, which i had wished to do, while we were at southampton; but this is a liberty which i should hardly venture upon with a shy man like tennyson,—more especially as he might perhaps suspect me of doing it on the score of my own literary character.
but i should like much to see him mr. tom taylor, during dinner, made some fun for the benefit of the ladies on either side of him. i liked him very well this evening.
when the ladies had not long withdrawn, and after the wine had once gone round, i asked mr. heywood to make my apologies to mrs. heywood, and took leave; all london lying betwixt me and the london bridge station, where i was to take the rail homeward. at the station i found mr. bennoch, who had been dining with the lord mayor to meet sir william williams, and we railed to greenwich, and reached home by midnight. mr. and mrs. bennoch have set out on their continental journey to-day,—leaving us, for a little space, in possession of what will be more like a home than anything that we shall hereafter find in england.
this afternoon i had taken up the fourth volume of jerdan's autobiography,—wretched twaddle, though it records such constant and apparently intimate intercourse with distinguished people,—and was reading it, between asleep and awake, on the sofa, when mr. jerdan himself was announced. i saw him, in company with mr. bennoch, nearly three years ago, at rock park, and wondered then what there was in so uncouth an individual to get him so freely into polished society. he now looks rougher than ever,—time-worn, but not reverend; a thatch of gray hair on his head; an imperfect set of false teeth; a careless apparel, checked trousers, and a stick, for he had walked a mile or two from his own dwelling.
i suspect—and long practice at the consulate has made me keen-sighted— that mr. jerdan contemplated some benefit from my purse; and, to the extent of a sovereign or so, i would not mind contributing to his comfort. he spoke of a secret purpose of mr. ——— and himself to obtain me a degree or diploma in some literary institution,—what one i know not, and did not ask; but the honor cannot be a high one, if this poor old fellow can do aught towards it. i am afraid he is a very disreputable senior, but certainly not the less to be pitied on that account; and there was something very touching in his stiff and infirm movement, as he resumed his stick and took leave, waving me a courteous farewell, and turning upon me a smile, grim with age, as he went down the steps. in that gesture and smile i fancied some trace of the polished man of society, such as he may have once been; though time and hard weather have roughened him, as they have the once polished marble pillars which i saw so rude in aspect at netley abbey.
speaking of dickens last evening, mr. ——— mentioned his domestic tastes,—how he preferred home enjoyments to all others, and did not willingly go much into society. mrs. ———, too, the other day told us of his taking on himself all possible trouble as regards his domestic affairs. . . . there is a great variety of testimony, various and varied, as to the character of dickens. i must see him before i finally leave england.
july 13th.—on friday morning (11th), at nine o'clock, i took the rail into town to breakfast with mr. milnes. as he had named a little after ten as the hour, i could not immediately proceed to his house, and so walked moderately over london bridge and into the city, meaning to take a cab from charing cross, or thereabouts. passing through some street or other, contiguous to cheapside, i saw in a court-yard the entrance to the guildhall, and stepped in to look at it. it is a spacious hall, about one hundred and fifty feet long, and perhaps half as broad, paved with flagstones which look worn and some of them cracked across; the roof is very lofty and was once vaulted, but has been shaped anew in modern times. there is a vast window partly filled with painted glass, extending quite along each end of the hall, and a row of arched windows on either side, throwing their light from far above downward upon the pavement. this fashion of high windows, not reaching within twenty or thirty feet of the floor, serves to give great effect to the large enclosed space of an antique hall. against the walls are several marble monuments; one to the earl of chatham, a statue of white marble, with various allegorical contrivances, fronting an obelisk or pyramid of dark marble; and another to his son, william pitt, of somewhat similar design and of equal size; each of them occupying the whole space, i believe, between pavement and ceiling. there is likewise a statue of beckford, a famous lord mayor,—the most famous except whittington, and that one who killed wat tyler; and like those two, his fame is perhaps somewhat mythological, though he lived and bustled within less than a century. he is said to have made a bold speech to the king; but this i will not believe of any englishman—at least, of any plebeian englishman—until i hear it. but there stands his statue in the guildhall in the act of making his speech, as if the monstrous attempt had petrified him.
lord nelson, too, has a monument, and so, i think, has some other modern worthy. at one end of the hall, under one of the great painted windows, stand three or four old statues of mediaeval kings, whose identities i forget; and in the two corners of the opposite end are two gigantic absurdities of painted wood, with grotesque visages, whom i quickly recognized as gog and magog. they stand each on a pillar, and seem to be about fifteen feet high, and look like enormous playthings for the children of giants; and it is strange to see them in this solemn old hall, among the memorials of dead heroes and statesmen. there is an annual banquet in the guildhall, given by the lord mayor and sheriffs, and i believe it is the very acme of civic feasting.
after viewing the hall, as it still lacked something of ten, i continued my walk through that entanglement of city streets, and quickly found myself getting beyond my reckoning. i cannot tell whither i went, but i passed through a very dirty region, and i remember a long, narrow, evil-odored street, cluttered up with stalls, in which were vegetables and little bits of meat for sale; and there was a frowzy multitude of buyers and sellers. still i blundered on, and was getting out of the density of the city into broader streets, but still shabby ones, when, looking at my watch, i found it to be past ten, and no cab-stand within sight. it was a quarter past when i finally got into one; and the driver told me that it would take half an hour to go from thence to upper brook street; so that i was likely to exceed the license implied in mr. milnes's invitation. whether i was quite beyond rule i cannot say; but it did not lack more than ten minutes of eleven when i was ushered up stairs, and i found all the company assembled. however, it is of little consequence, except that if i had come early, i should have been introduced to many of the guests, whom now i could only know across the table. mrs. milnes greeted me very kindly, and mr. milnes came towards me with an elderly gentleman in a blue coat and gray pantaloons,—with a long, rather thin, homely visage, exceedingly shaggy eyebrows, though no great weight of brow, and thin gray hair, and introduced me to the marquis of lansdowne. the marquis had his right hand wrapped up in a black-silk handkerchief; so he gave me his left, and, from some awkwardness in meeting it, when i expected the right, i gave him only three of my fingers,—a thing i never did before to any person, and it is droll that i should have done it to a marquis. he addressed me with great simplicity and natural kindness, complimenting me on my works, and speaking about the society of liverpool in former days. lord lansdowne was the friend of moore, and has about him the aroma communicated by the memories of many illustrious people with whom he has associated.
mr. ticknor, the historian of spanish literature, now greeted me. mr. milnes introduced me to mrs. browning, and assigned her to me to conduct into the breakfast-room. she is a small, delicate woman, with ringlets of dark hair, a pleasant, intelligent, and sensitive face, and a low, agreeable voice. she looks youthful and comely, and is very gentle and lady-like. and so we proceeded to the breakfast-room, which is hung round with pictures; and in the middle of it stood a large round table, worthy to have been king arthur's, and here we seated ourselves without any question of precedence or ceremony. on one side of me was an elderly lady, with a very fine countenance, and in the course of breakfast i discovered her to be the mother of florence nightingale. one of her daughters (not florence) was likewise present. mrs. milnes, mrs. browning, mrs. nightingale, and her daughter were the only ladies at table; and i think there were as many as eight or ten gentlemen, whose names—as i came so late—i was left to find out for myself, or to leave unknown.
it was a pleasant and sociable meal, and, thanks to my cold beef and coffee at home, i had no occasion to trouble myself much about the fare; so i just ate some delicate chicken, and a very small cutlet, and a slice of dry toast, and thereupon surceased from my labors. mrs. browning and i talked a good deal during breakfast, for she is of that quickly appreciative and responsive order of women with whom i can talk more freely than with any man; and she has, besides, her own originality, wherewith to help on conversation, though, i should say, not of a loquacious tendency. she introduced the subject of spiritualism, which, she says, interests her very much; indeed, she seems to be a believer. mr. browning, she told me, utterly rejects the subject, and will not believe even in the outward manifestations, of which there is such overwhelming evidence. we also talked of miss bacon; and i developed something of that lady's theory respecting shakespeare, greatly to the horror of mrs. browning, and that of her next neighbor,—a nobleman, whose name i did not hear. on the whole, i like her the better for loving the man shakespeare with a personal love. we talked, too, of margaret fuller, who spent her last night in italy with the brownings; and of william story, with whom they have been intimate, and who, mrs. browning says, is much stirred about spiritualism. really, i cannot help wondering that so fine a spirit as hers should not reject the matter, till, at least, it is forced upon her. i like her very much.
mrs. nightingale had been talking at first with lord lansdowne, who sat next her, but by and by she turned to nee, and began to speak of london smoke then, there being a discussion about lord byron on the other side of the table, she spoke to me about lady byron, whom she knows intimately, characterizing her as a most excellent and exemplary person, high-principled, unselfish, and now devoting herself to the care of her two grandchildren,—their mother, byron's daughter, being dead. lady byron, she says, writes beautiful verses. somehow or other, all this praise, and more of the same kind, gave me an idea of an intolerably irreproachable person; and i asked mrs. nightingale if lady byron were warm-hearted. with some hesitation, or mental reservation,—at all events, not quite outspokenly,—she answered that she was.
i was too much engaged with these personal talks to attend much to what was going on elsewhere; but all through breakfast i had been more and more impressed by the aspect of one of the guests, sitting next to milnes. he was a man of large presence,—a portly personage, gray-haired, but scarcely as yet aged; and his face had a remarkable intelligence, not vivid nor sparkling, but conjoined with great quietude,—and if it gleamed or brightened at one time more than another, it was like the sheen over a broad surface of sea. there was a somewhat careless self-possession, large and broad enough to be called dignity; and the more i looked at him, the more i knew that he was a distinguished person, and wondered who. he might have been a minister of state; only there is not one of them who has any right to such a face and presence. at last,—i do not know how the conviction came,—but i became aware that it was macaulay, and began to see some slight resemblance to his portraits. but i have never seen any that is not wretchedly unworthy of the original. as soon as i knew him, i began to listen to his conversation, but he did not talk a great deal, contrary to his usual custom; for i am told he is apt to engross all the talk to himself. probably he may have been restrained by the presence of ticknor, and mr. palfrey, who were among his auditors and interlocutors; and as the conversation seemed to turn much on american subjects, he could not well have assumed to talk them down. i am glad to have seen him,—a face fit for a scholar, a man of the world, a cultivated intelligence.
after we left the table, and went into the library, mr. browning introduced himself to me,—a younger man than i expected to see, handsome, with brown hair. he is very simple and agreeable in manner, gently impulsive, talking as if his heart were uppermost. he spoke of his pleasure in meeting me, and his appreciation of my books; and—which has not often happened to me—mentioned that the blithedale romance was the one he admired most. i wonder why. i hope i showed as much pleasure at his praise as he did at mine; for i was glad to see how pleasantly it moved him. after this, i talked with ticknor and miles, and with mr. palfrey, to whom i had been introduced very long ago by george hillard, and had never seen him since. we looked at some autographs, of which mr. milnes has two or three large volumes. i recollect a leaf from swift's journal to stella; a letter from addison; one from chatterton, in a most neat and legible hand; and a characteristic sentence or two and signature of oliver cromwell, written in a religious book. there were many curious volumes in the library, but i had not time to look at them.
i liked greatly the manners of almost all,—yes, as far as i observed,— all the people at this breakfast, and it was doubtless owing to their being all people either of high rank or remarkable intellect, or both. an englishman can hardly be a gentleman, unless he enjoy one or other of these advantages; and perhaps the surest way to give him good manners is to make a lord of him, or rather of his grandfather or great-grandfather. in the third generation, scarcely sooner, he will be polished into simplicity and elegance, and his deportment will be all the better for the homely material out of which it is wrought and refined. the marquis of lansdowne, for instance, would have been a very commonplace man in the common ranks of life; but it has done him good to be a nobleman. not that his tact is quite perfect. in going up to breakfast, he made me precede him; in returning to the library, he did the same, although i drew back, till he impelled me up the first stair, with gentle persistence. by insisting upon it, he showed his sense of condescension much more than if, when he saw me unwilling to take precedence, he had passed forward, as if the point were not worth either asserting or yielding. heaven knows, it was in no humility that i would have trodden behind him. but he is a kind old man; and i am willing to believe of the english aristocracy generally that they are kind, and of beautiful deportment; for certainly there never can have been mortals in a position more advantageous for becoming so. i hope there will come a time when we shall be so; and i already know a few americans, whose noble and delicate manners may compare well with any i have seen.
i left the house with mr. palfrey. he has cone to england to make some researches in the state paper office, for the purposes of a work which he has in hand. he mentioned to me a letter which he had seen, written from new england in the time of charles ii. and referring to the order sent by the minister of that day for the appearance of governor bellingham and my ancestor on this side of the water. the signature of this letter is an anagram of my ancestor's name. the letter itself is a very bold and able one, controverting the propriety of the measure above indicated; and mr. palfrey feels certain that it was written by my aforesaid ancestor. i mentioned my wish to ascertain the place in england whence the family emigrated; and mr. palfrey took me to the record office, and introduced me to mr. joseph hunter,—a venerable and courteous gentleman, of antiquarian pursuits. the office was odorous of musty parchments, hundreds of years old. mr. hunter received me with great kindness, and gave me various old records and rolls of parchment, in which to seek for my family name; but i was perplexed with the crabbed characters, and soon grew weary and gave up the quest. he says that it is very seldom that an american family, springing from the early settlers, can be satisfactorily traced back to their english ancestry.
july 16th.—monday morning i took the rail from blackheath to london. it is a very pleasant place, blackheath, and far more rural than one would expect, within five or six miles of london,—a great many trees, making quite a mass of foliage in the distance; green enclosures; pretty villas, with their nicely kept lawns, and gardens, with grass-plots and flower borders; and village streets, set along the sidewalks with ornamental trees; and the houses standing a little back, and separated one from another,—all this within what is called the park, which has its gateways, and the sort of semi-privacy with which i first became acquainted at rock park.
from the london bridge station i took a cab for paddington, and then had to wait above two hours before a train started for birkenhead. meanwhile i walked a little about the neighborhood, which is very dull and uninteresting; made up of crescents and terraces, and rows of houses that have no individuality, and second-rate shops,—in short, the outskirts of the vast city, when it begins to have a kind of village character but no rurality or sylvan aspect, as at blackheath. my journey, when at last we started, was quite unmarked by incident, and extremely tedious; it being a slow train, which plods on without haste and without rest. at about ten o'clock we reached birkenhead, and there crossed the familiar and detestable mersey, which, as usual, had a cloudy sky brooding over it. mrs. blodgett received me most hospitably, but was impelled, by an overflow of guests, to put me into a little back room, looking into the court, and formerly occupied by my predecessor, general armstrong. . . . she expressed a hope that i might not see his ghost,—nor have i, as yet.
speaking of ghosts, mr. h. a. b——— told me a singular story to-day of an apparition that haunts the times office, in printing-house square. a mr. w——— is the engineer of the establishment, and has his residence in the edifice, which is built, i believe, on the site of merchant taylor's school,—an old house that was no longer occupied for its original purpose, and, being supposed haunted, was left untenanted. the father-in-law of mr. w———, an old sea-captain, came on a visit to him and his wife, and was put into their guest-chamber, where he passed the night. the next morning, assigning no very satisfactory reason, he cut his visit short and went away. shortly afterwards, a young lady came to visit the w———'s; but she too went away the next morning,—going first to make a call, as she said, to a friend, and sending thence for her trunks. mrs. w——— wrote to this young lady, asking an explanation. the young lady replied, and gave a singular account of an apparition,— how she was awakened in the night by a bright light shining through the window, which was parallel to the bed; then, if i remember rightly, her curtains were withdrawn, and a shape looked in upon her,—a woman's shape, she called it; but it was a skeleton, with lambent flames playing about its bones, and in and out among the ribs. other persons have since slept in this chamber, and some have seen the shape, others not. mr. w——— has slept there himself without seeing anything. he has had investigations by scientific people, apparently under the idea that the phenomenon might have been caused by some of the times's work-people, playing tricks on the magic-lantern principle; but nothing satisfactory has thus far been elucidated. mr. b——— had this story from mrs. gaskell. . . . supposing it a ghost, nothing else is so remarkable as its choosing to haunt the precincts of the times newspaper.
july 29th.—on saturday, 26th, i took the rail from the lime street station for london, via the trent valley, and reached blackheath in the evening. . . .
sunday morning my wife and i, with j——-, railed into london, and drove to the essex street chapel, where mr. channing was to preach. the chapel is the same where priestley and belsham used to preach,—one of the plainest houses of worship i was ever in, as simple and undecorated as the faith there inculcated. they retain, however, all the form and ceremonial of the english established church, though so modified as to meet the doctrinal views of the unitarians. there may be good sense in this, inasmuch as it greatly lessens the ministerial labor to have a stated form of prayer, instead of a necessity for extempore outpourings; but it must be, i should think, excessively tedious to the congregation, especially as, having made alterations in these prayers, they cannot attach much idea of sanctity to them.
[here follows a long record of mr. hawthorne's visit to miss bacon,— condensed in our old hone, in the paper called "recollections of a gifted woman."]
august 2d.—on wednesday (30th july) we went to marlborough house to see the vernon gallery of pictures. they are the works, almost entirely of english artists of the last and present century, and comprise many famous paintings; and i must acknowledge that i had more enjoyment of them than of those portions of the national gallery which i had before seen,— including specimens of the grand old masters. my comprehension has not reached their height. i think nothing pleased me more than a picture by sir david wilkie,—the parish beadle, with a vagrant boy and a monkey in custody; it is exceedingly good and true throughout, and especially the monkey's face is a wonderful production of genius, condensing within itself the whole moral and pathos of the picture.
marlborough house was the residence of the great duke, and is to be that of the prince of wales, when another place is found for the pictures. it adjoins st. james's palace. in its present state it is not a very splendid mansion, the rooms being small, though handsomely shaped, with vaulted ceilings, and carved white-marble fireplaces. i left s——- here after an hour or two, and walked forth into the hot and busy city with j——-. . . . i called at routledge's bookshop, in hopes to make an arrangement with him about miss bacon's business. but routledge himself is making a journey in the north, and neither of the partners was there, so that i shall have to go thither some other day. then we stepped into st. paul's cathedral to cool ourselves, and it was delightful so to escape from the sunny, sultry turmoil of fleet street and ludgate, and find ourselves at once in this remote, solemn, shadowy seclusion, marble-cool. o that we had cathedrals in america, were it only for the sensuous luxury! we strolled round the cathedral, and i delighted j——- much by pointing out the monuments of three british generals, who were slain in america in the last war,—the naughty and bloodthirsty little man! we then went to guildhall, where i thought j——- would like to see gog and magog; but he had never heard of those illustrious personages, and took no interest in them. . . . but truly i am grateful to the piety of former times for raising this vast, cool canopy of marble [st. paul's] in the midst of the feverish city. i wandered quite round it, and saw, in a remote corner, a monument to the officers of the coldstream guards, slain in the crimea. it was a mural tablet, with the names of the officers on an escutcheon; and two privates of the guards, in marble bas-relief, were mourning over them. over the tablet hung two silken banners, new and glossy, with the battles in which the regiment has been engaged inscribed on them,—not merely crimean but peninsular battles. these banners will bang there till they drop away in tatters.
after thus refreshing myself in the cathedral, i went again to routledge's in farrington street, and saw one of the firm. he expressed great pleasure at seeing me, as indeed he might, having published and sold, without any profit on my part, uncounted thousands of my books. i introduced the subject of miss bacon's work; and he expressed the utmost willingness to do everything in his power towards bringing it before the world, but thought that his firm—it being their business to publish for the largest circle of readers—was not the most eligible for the publication of such a book. very likely this may be so. at all events, however, i am to send him the manuscript, and he will at least give me his advice and assistance in finding a publisher. he was good enough to express great regret that i had no work of my own to give him for publication; and, truly, i regret it too, since, being a resident in england, i could now have all the publishing privileges of a native author. he presented me with a copy of an illustrated edition of longfellow's poems, and i took my leave.
thence i went to the picture gallery at the british institution, where there are three rooms full of paintings by the first masters, the property of private persons. every one of them, no doubt, was worth studying for a long, long time; and i suppose i may have given, on an average, a minute to each. what an absurdity it would seem, to pretend to read two or three hundred poems, of all degrees between an epic and a ballad, in an hour or two! and a picture is a poem, only requiring the greater study to be felt and comprehended; because the spectator must necessarily do much for himself towards that end. i saw many beautiful things,—among them some landscapes by claude, which to the eye were like the flavor of a rich, ripe melon to the palate.
august 7th.—yesterday we took the rail for london, it being a fine, sunny day, though not so very warm as many of the preceding days have been. . . . we went along piccadilly as far as the egyptian hall. it is quite remarkable how comparatively quiet the town has become, now that the season is over. one can see the difference in all the region west of temple bar; and, indeed, either the hot weather or some other cause seems to have operated in assuaging the turmoil in the city itself. i never saw london bridge so little thronged as yesterday. at the egyptian hall, or in the same edifice, there is a gallery of pictures, the property of lord ward, who allows the public to see them, five days of the week, without any trouble or restriction,—a great kindness on his lordship's part, it must be owned. it is a very valuable collection, i presume, containing specimens of many famous old masters; some of the early and hard pictures by raphael and his master and fellow-pupils,—very curious, and nowise beautiful; a perfect, sunny glimpse of venice, by canaletto; and saints, and scriptural, allegorical, and mythological people, by titian, guido, correggio, and many more names than i can remember. there is likewise a dead magdalen by canova, and a venus by the same, very pretty, and with a vivid light of joyous expression in her face; . . . . also powers's greek slave, in which i see little beauty or merit; and two or three other statues.
we then drove to ashley place, to call on mrs. s. c. hall, whom we found at home. in fact, wednesday is her reception-day; although, as now everybody is out of town, we were the only callers. she is an agreeable and kindly woman. she told us that her husband and herself propose going to america next year, and i heartily wish they may meet with a warm and friendly reception. i have been seldom more assured of the existence of a heart than in her; also a good deal of sentiment. she had been visiting bessie, the widow of moore, at sloperton, and gave s——- a rose from his cottage. such things are very true and unaffected in her. the only wonder is that she has not lost such girlish freshness of feeling as prompts them. we did not see mr. hall, he having gone to the crystal palace.
taking our leave, we returned along victoria street—a new street, penetrating through what was recently one of the worst parts of the town, and now bordered with large blocks of buildings, in a dreary, half-finished state, and left so for want of funds—till we came to westminster abbey. we went in and spent an hour there, wandering all round the nave and aisles, admiring the grand old edifice itself, but finding more to smile at than to admire in the monuments. . . . the interior view of the abbey is better than can be described; the heart aches, as one gazes at it, for lack of power and breadth enough to take its beauty and grandeur in. the effect was heightened by the sun shining through the painted window in the western end, and by the bright sunshine that came through the open portal, and lay on the pavement,—that space so bright, the rest of the vast floor so solemn and sombre. at the western end, in a corner from which spectators are barred out, there is a statue of wordsworth, which i do not recollect seeing at any former visit. its only companion in the same nook is pope's friend, secretary craggs.
downing street, that famous official precinct, took its name from sir george downing, who was proprietor or lessee of property there. he was a native of my own old native town, and his descendants still reside there,—collateral descendants, i suppose,—and follow the drygoods business (drapers).
august 10th.—i journeyed to liverpool via chester. . . . one sees a variety of climate, temperature, and season in a ride of two hundred miles, north and south, through england. near london, for instance, the grain was reaped, and stood in sheaves in the stubble-fields, over which girls and children might be seen gleaning; farther north, the golden, or greenish-golden, crops were waving in the wind. in one part of our way the atmosphere was hot and dry; at another point it had been cooled and refreshed by a heavy thunder-shower, the pools of which still lay along our track. it seems to me that local varieties of weather are more common in this island, and within narrower precincts, than in america. . . . i never saw england of such a dusky and dusty green before,—almost sunbrowned, indeed. sometimes the green hedges formed a marked framework to a broad sheet of golden grain-field. as we drew near oxford, just before reaching the station i had a good view of its domes, towers, and spires,—better, i think, than when j——- and i rambled through the town a month or two ago.
mr. frank scott haydon, of the record office, london, writes me that he has found a "henry atte hawthorne" on a roll which he is transcribing, of the first edward iii. he belonged to the parish of aldremeston, in the hundred of blakenhurste, worcester county.
august 21st.—yesterday, at twelve o'clock, i took the steamer for runcorn, from the pier-head. in the streets, i had noticed that it was a breezy day; but on the river there was a very stiff breeze from the northeast, right ahead, blowing directly in our face the whole way; and truly this river mersey is never without a breeze, and generally in the direction of its course,—an evil-tempered, unkindly, blustering wind, that you cannot meet without being exasperated by it. as it came straight against us, it was impossible to find a shelter anywhere on deck, except it were behind the stove-pipe; and, besides, the day was overcast and threatening rain.
i have undergone very miserable hours on the mersey, where, in the space of two years, i voyaged thousands of miles,—and this trip to runcorn reminded me of them, though it was less disagreeable after more than a twelvemonth's respite. we had a good many passengers on board, most of whom were of the second class, and congregated on the forward deck; more women than men, i think, and some of them with their husbands and children. several produced lunch and bottles, and refreshed themselves very soon after we started. by and by the wind became so disagreeable that i went below, and sat in the cabin, only occasionally looking out, to get a peep at the shores of the river, which i had never before seen above eastham. however, they are not worth looking at; level and monotonous, without trees or beauty of any kind,—here and there a village, and a modern church, on the low ridge behind; perhaps, a windmill, which the gusty day had set busily to work. the river continues very wide—no river indeed, but an estuary—during almost the whole distance to runcorn; and nearly at the end of our voyage we approached some abrupt and prominent hills, which, many a time, i have seen on my passages to rock ferry, looking blue and dim, and serving for prophets of the weather; for when they can be distinctly seen adown the river, it is a token of coming rain. we met many vessels, and passed many which were beating up against the wind, and which keeled over, so that their decks must have dipped,—schooners and vessels that come from the bridgewater canal. we shipped a sea ourselves, which gave the fore-deck passengers a wetting.
before reaching runcorn, we stopped to land some passengers at another little port, where there was a pier and a lighthouse, and a church within a few yards of the river-side,—a good many of the river-craft, too, in dock, forming quite a crowd of masts. about ten minutes' further steaming brought us to runcorn, where were two or three tall manufacturing chimneys, with a pennant of black smoke from each; two vessels of considerable size on the stocks; a church or two; and a meagre, uninteresting, shabby, brick-built town, rising from the edge of the river, with irregular streets,—not village-like, but paved, and looking like a dwarfed, stunted city. i wandered through it till i came to a tall, high-pedestalled windmill on the outer verge, the vans of which were going briskly round. thence retracing my steps, i stopped at a poor hotel, and took lunch, and, finding that i was in time to take the steamer back, i hurried on board, and we set sail (or steam) before three. i have heard of an old castle at runcorn, but could discover nothing of it. it was well that i returned so promptly, for we had hardly left the pier before it began to rain, and there was a heavy downfall throughout the voyage homeward. runcorn is fourteen miles from liverpool, and is the farthest point to which a steamer runs. i had intended to come home by rail,—a circuitous route,—but the advice of the landlady of the hotel, and the aspect of the weather, and a feeling of general discouragement prevented me.
an incident in s. c. hall's ireland, of a stone cross, buried in cromwell's time, to prevent its destruction by his soldiers. it was forgotten, and became a mere doubtful tradition, but one old man had been told by his father, and he by his father, etc., that it was buried near a certain spot; and at last, two hundred years after the cross was buried, the vicar of the parish dug in that spot and found it. in my (english) romance, an american might bring the tradition from over the sea, and so discover the cross, which had been altogether forgotten.
august 24th.—day before yesterday i took the rail for southport,—a cool, generally overcast day, with glimmers of faint sunshine. the ride is through a most uninteresting tract of country, at first, glimpses of the river, with the thousands of masts in the docks; the dismal outskirts of a great town, still spreading onward, with beginnings of streets, and insulated brick buildings and blocks; farther on, a wide monotony of level plain, and here and there a village and a church; almost always a windmill in sight, there being plenty of breeze to turn its vans on this windy coast. the railway skirts along the sea the whole distance, but is shut out from the sight of it by the low sand-hills, which seem to have been heaped up by the waves. there are one or two lighthouses on the shore. i have not seen a drearier landscape, even in lancashire.
reaching southport at three, i rambled about, with a view to discover whether it be a suitable residence for my family during september. it is a large village, or rather more than a village, which seems to be almost entirely made up of lodging-houses, and, at any rate, has been built up by the influx of summer visitors,—a sandy soil, level, and laid out with well-paved streets, the principal of which are enlivened with bazaars, markets, shops, hotels of various degrees, and a showy vivacity of aspect. there are a great many donkey-carriages,—large vehicles, drawn by a pair of donkeys; bath-chairs, with invalid ladies; refreshment-rooms in great numbers,—a place where everybody seems to be a transitory guest, nobody at home. the main street leads directly down to the sea-shore, along which there is an elevated embankment, with a promenade on the top, and seats, and the toll of a penny. the shore itself, the tide being then low, stretched out interminably seaward, a wide waste of glistering sands; and on the dry border, people were riding on donkeys, with the drivers whipping behind; and children were digging with their little wooden spades; and there were donkey-carriages far out on the sands,—a pleasant and breezy drive. a whole city of bathing-machines was stationed near the shore, and i saw others in the seaward distance. the sea-air was refreshing and exhilarating, and if s——- needs a seaside residence, i should think this might do as well as any other.
i saw a large brick edifice, enclosed within a wall, and with somewhat the look of an almshouse or hospital; and it proved to be an infirmary, charitably established for the reception of poor invalids, who need sea-air and cannot afford to pay for it. two or three of such persons were sitting under its windows. i do not think that the visitors of southport are generally of a very opulent class, but of the middle rank, from manchester and other parts of this northern region. the lodging-houses, however, are of sufficiently handsome style and arrangement.
