Chapter 4

'On the other hand, the mistress of the house is charming. One must do women the justice to say, that they never take a pride in ugliness; that they never make elegance to consist in appearing to the greatest possible disadvantage. The woman whom you are visiting, then, is dressed in the best taste. A beautiful lace cap covers her light hair; she wears a soft figured Gros do Naples; her stockings are of exquisite fineness; her shoes irreproachable (we doubt not they bear the mark of either Gros or Müller); her Valenciennes cuffs are irresistible: everything betokens care and fastidious nicety. The freshness of her appearance is a satire on the negligence of yours. One cannot comprehend why this elegant woman should have prepared herself in so costly a manner to receive this man; and in the evening, really the contrast is greater still. Young men no longer wear stockings when they go into a party; yet they dare not just yet present themselves in boots; and therefore they come in _brodequins_, like students. We are in the age of the _juste-milieu_; and this is appropriate enough. The _brodequin_ is in its right place half-way between shoes and boots. These ill-dressed men are surrounded by women blazing in jewels and diamonds, coronets and diadems. It is impossible to believe that such differently dressed beings can be of the same country and station in society; and yet they are all talking and chirping together: and what conversation! what a conflict of subjects! what an inexplicable picture of forethought and thoughtlessness! or rather of apathy!

'"And do you also believe in a revolution, M. de P----?" inquires a charming princess, spreading out her fan.

'"Certainly, madame; and I hope we shall have one sooner than some may think."

'"What! monsieur--you make me tremble."

'"Can you, then, be afraid of a revolution which will bring about what you wish for?"

'"No; but we shall have some cruel moments to pass through."

'"Some may; but not everybody."

'"Bah! revolutions make no selection; and then, when once the scaffold is set up"----

'"How fast you travel, madame: in our day we shall never bear with scaffolds. The days of Terror will never return!"

'"I think with M. de P----," chimes in a young dandy, playing with a Chinese ape on the table: "I rather look for civil war."

'"I do not expect it; we have not energy enough for a civil war." ...

'"But you will have household assassinations, probably, if that will be any comfort."

'"And then, the pillage of Paris!"

'"Pillage!"

'"Certainly." And every one cries:

'"Oh, well, if there is pillage, I will be in it."

'"I shall come to your house, madame," says one. "I shall carry away this beautiful vase."

'"And I, the plate."

'"And I, the charming portrait."

'"I have no fixed idea yet. I shall come to your house to-morrow, madame, to choose," &c.

'"All this will be very amusing; and yet, when the day comes, I shall not be sorry to be in Italy."

'"Well, let us set out, then."

'"Not yet, but soon. I will warn you when it is best to go." And so they talk on of all these horrible things, half buried under canopies of _lampas_, surrounded by flowers, by the light of thousands of wax-candles burning in golden lustres; and these women, who foresee such great catastrophes--tragical events, which may divide them from all they love, from parents, from friends--have beautiful dresses, with trimmings from England, and make the prettiest little gestures while speaking. It is because in France vanity is so deeply rooted that it leads to indifference. Presumption stands in lieu of courage. They believe in disasters, but only for others: they never seem to expect them for themselves.'

So much for national character. If all this be a truthful picture, and really we see no reason for doubt, it does but add another to the many proofs of the springing elasticity of that element of light-hearted short-sightedness which is so proverbially characteristic of the French. But we will say no more, for our paper has already exceeded the limits we had assigned to it; and the things that _are_ must ever prevail in our pages over those that have been.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Perhaps the reader of the above will partake our own feeling of surprise at one circumstance which it records. How happened it, that the accomplished lady of a Parisian salon could not shield her chief guest, and all her guests, from the impertinence of one among them? To us this seems incomprehensible, and excites our suspicion that Mme de Staël could not have been among those mistresses of the science of tact, of whom elsewhere Mme Gay speaks. The whole charm of the evening was here allowed to be spoiled.

THE OLD CASTLES AND MANSIONS OF SCOTLAND.

The father of mental philosophy, Aristotle, begins his work on ethics by telling us, that nothing exists without some theory or reason attached to it. The following out of this view leads to classification--that great engine of knowledge. We see things at first in isolated individuality or confused masses. Investigation teaches us to separate them into groups, which have some common and important principle of unity, though each individual of the group may be different from the others in detail. Thus we arrive at the great classifications of natural science, with which every one is more or less familiar. But the works of men have their classification too, for in human effort like causes produce like effects. Most people know what schools of poetry, painting, and music are. In architecture, we know, too, that there are great divisions--such as classic and Gothic. But many have yet to learn how far classification may go; and it is a new feature to have the peculiar national architecture of Scotland separated from that of England, and its peculiarities traced to interesting national events and habits. The common observer is apt to think that all buildings are much alike, or that each is alone in its peculiarities. Before classification can take place, there must be a collection and comparison of leading characteristics; and this is not easily accomplished with the edifices scattered over a whole country. It may be said that it was never done for Scotland, until Mr Billings completed his great series of engravings of the baronial and ecclesiastical antiquities of Scotland.

Taking the former--the baronial--for our text, we find ourselves now for the first time in a condition to discover the leading features of the Scottish school of architecture, and to connect it with the history of Scotland. We know that until the wars of Wallace and Bruce, the two countries, England and Scotland, could scarcely be said to be entirely separated; at all events, they did not stand in open hostility to each other. Endless animosities, however, naturally followed a war in which the one country tried to enslave the other, and where the weaker only escaped annihilation by a desperate struggle. It is not unnatural, therefore, to expect that the habits of the two countries diverged from each other as time passed on; and this process is very distinctly shewn in the character of the edifices used by the barons and lairds of Scotland. A very few of the oldest strongholds resemble those of the same period in England. The English baronial castle of the thirteenth century generally consisted of several massive square or round towers, broad at the base, and tapering upwards, arranged at distances from each other, so that lofty embattled walls or curtains stood between them, making a ground-plan of which the towers formed the angles. The doors and windows were generally in the Gothic or pointed style of architecture, and the vaulted chambers were frequently of the same. There are not above three or four such edifices in Scotland. The most complete, perhaps, is the old part of Caerlaverock, in Dumfriesshire; another fine specimen is Dirleton, in East Lothian; and to these may be added Bothwell, in Clydesdale, and Kildrummie, in Aberdeenshire.

This style was long followed in England. It is known as the baronial, and architects in all parts of the country, when building a modern mansion in the castellated manner, have invariably followed it. It is easy to see, however, that it was early abandoned in Scotland, the people not taking their forms of architecture from a nation with which they had no connection but that of hostility. The first species of national baronial architecture to which they resorted was a very simple one, characteristic of an impoverished people. It consisted of little more than four stone walls, forming what in fortification is called a blockhouse. The walls were extremely thick, with few apertures, and these suspiciously small. But these old towers or keeps were not without some scientific preparations for defence. In the more ancient baronial castles, the large square or round towers at the angles served to flank the walls or curtains between them; that is, supposing an enemy to be approaching the main gate, he could be attacked on either side from the towers at the angles. To serve the same purpose, the Scottish keeps had small bastions or turrets at the corners, which, projecting over the wall, flanked it on each face. The simple expedient here adopted is at the root of all the complex devices of fortification. The main thing is just to build a strong edifice, and then, by flanking outworks, to prevent an enemy from getting up to it. In other respects, these square towers were scarcely to be considered peculiarly Scottish. They are to be found in all parts of the world--along the Wall of China; in the Russian steppes; in Italy, where they are sometimes remains of republican Rome; and in Central India. They constitute, in fact, the most primitive form of a fortified house.

When we come a century or two later, the difference between the English and Scottish styles becomes more distinct and interesting. Almost every one is acquainted with that beautiful style of building called in England the Tudor or Elizabethan, with its decorated chimneys, its ornamented gables, and large oriel or bow windows. It is not well suited for defence, and denotes a rich country, where private warfare has decayed. This class of edifice is rarely, if at all, to be found north of the border; but much as it is to be admired, a contemporary style sprang up in Scotland entirely distinct from it, yet, in our opinion, quite fitted to rival it in interest and beauty. It was derived, in some measure, from Flanders, but chiefly from France. The Scots naturally looked to their friends as an example, rather than to their enemies. Many of the Scottish gentry made their fortunes in the French service, and when they came home, naturally desired to imitate, on such a scale as they could afford, the châteaux of their allies and patrons. The state of the country, too, made it a more suitable pattern than the Tudor style. France was still a country of feudal warfare--so was Scotland; and it was necessary in both to have defence associated with ornament. The chief peculiarity of this new style was, the quantity of sharp-topped turrets, which form a sort of crest to the many details of the lower parts of the buildings. These are not solely ornamental; they succeeded the bastions of the old square towers, and served the same purpose. Among the secondary peculiarities of these buildings, may be counted an extremely rich and profuse ornamentation of the upper parts--probably the only portions out of the way of mischief. Indeed, the edifice is sometimes a mere square block for two or three storeys, while it is crowned, as it were, with a rich group of turrets and minarets, gables, window-tops, ornamented chimneys, and gilded vanes. In many instances, the great square block of older days received this fantastic French termination at a later time--as, for instance, the famous castle of Glammis, in Strathmore.

It almost appears as if this style, which has its own peculiar beauties, had been adopted out of a national antagonism to the contemporary style in England. The Tudor architecture has always a horizontal tendency, spreading itself out in broad open screens or wall-plates, diversified by occasional angular eminences--as, for instance, in the tops of the decorated windows. But in the Gallo-Scottish style everything tends to the perpendicular, not only in the long, narrow shapes of the buildings themselves, and their tall, spiral turrets, but in the many decorations which incrust them. This decoration has an extremely rich look, from the quantity of breaks, and the absence of bare wall or long straight lines. Thus, to save the uniform plainness of the straight gable-line, it is broken into small gradations called 'crow-steps.' Every one who looks at old houses in Scotland must be familiar with this feature, and must have noticed its picturesqueness. It appears to have been derived from the Flemish houses, where, however, the steps or terraces are much larger, and not so effective, since, instead of merely breaking and enriching the line of the gable, they break it up, as it were, into separate pieces.

The Scottish style has not, indeed, slavishly adopted any foreign model. It is, as we have remarked, chiefly adopted from the French; but it has characteristics and beauties of its own. No one, we believe, had any conception of their extent and variety, until they were brought to light by the artistic labours of Mr Billings. In some instances, to bring out the full effect of the ornamental parts of these buildings without overloading his picture with the more cumbrous plain stone-work, he brings forward, by some artistic manoeuvre, the crest of the building, as if the spectator saw it from a scaffold or a balloon level with the highest storey. The effect of the rich Oriental-looking mass of decoration thus concentrated is extremely striking, and one is apt to ask, if it is possible that the country so often characterised as bare, cold, and impoverished, could have produced these gorgeous edifices. Their number and distribution through the most remote parts of the land are equally remarkable. Among Mr Billings's specimens, we have, in the southern part of Scotland, Pinkie, near Musselburgh; Auchans and Kelburn, in Ayrshire; Newark, on the Clyde; Airth and Argyle's Lodging, in Stirling. Going northward, we come to Elcho and Glammis, and to Muchalls and Crathes, in Kincardineshire. It is remarkable, that the further north we go, the French style becomes more conspicuous and complete. Many of the finest specimens are to be found in Aberdeenshire. Fyvie Castle, which was built for a Scottish chancellor--Seton, Earl of Dunfermline--is almost a complete French château of the sixteenth century, such as the traveller may have seen in sunny Guienne or Anjou; and there it stands transplanted, like an exotic, among the bleak hills of the north. It is only natural to find in connection with such a circumstance, that Seton received his education in France, and passed a considerable part of his life there. Whether from such an example or not, the Aberdeenshire lairds seem to have been all ambitious of possessing French châteaux; and thus in the county of primitive rock, where there is certainly little else to remind us of French habits or ideas, we have some admirable specimens of that foreign architectural school in Castle Fraser, Craigievar, Midmar, Tolquhon, Dalpersie, and Udny. Nearer Inverness, we have Balveny, Castle-Stewart, and Cawdor.

The same foreign influence is exhibited in our street architecture, some specimens of which are engraved in the work to which we have referred.[4] Every one knows that the lofty Scottish edifices with common stairs--houses built above each other, in fact--give our large towns a character totally different from those of England; but it is equally clear that the practice was derived from France, where it is still in full observance literally among all classes, since the different social grades occupy separate floors of the same edifices. In the _coup d'état_ of 1851, it will be remembered, that in making the arrests of the leading men supposed to be inimical to Louis Napoleon, one of the difficulties--as the affair took place at midnight--was to know the floors in which they lived; for these great statesmen and generals inhabited houses with common stairs.

We have here discussed one special feature of Mr Billings's work, on account of the remarks which it suggests; but it is only right to mention, before parting with it, that it contains engravings of every thing that is remarkable in the ancient architecture of Scotland, whether it be called civil and baronial or ecclesiastical. Certainly, the remains of antiquity in North Britain were never previously so amply and completely illustrated. Nor is it without reason, that some contemporary critics have maintained this to be the most entire collection of the sort which any nation possesses. The chief merits of the views consist in their accuracy and effect. They are wonderfully clear and minute, so that every detail of the least importance is brought out as distinctly as in a model, while this is accomplished without sacrifice of their artistic effect as pictures.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland. By William Burn and W. Billings. 4 vols. 4to. Blackwoods, Edinburgh.

AMERICAN HONOUR.

About seventy-five years ago, there was at Charleston, in South Carolina, a family consisting of several members. It belonged to the middle class--that is to say, contained barristers, bankers, merchants, solicitors, and so on--all of them animated, at least so far as appears, by a high sense of honour and integrity. But noble sentiments are no certain guarantee against poverty. One of the members of the family in question became embarrassed, borrowed L.1000 of one of his relatives, but was soon after seized with paralysis, and, having kept his bed five years, died, leaving behind him a widow with several children. He could bequeath them no property, instead of which they received as their inheritance high principles, and a strong affection for the memory of their father. The widow also was, in this respect, perfectly in harmony with her sons. By dint, therefore, of prudence, industry, and economy, they amassed among them the sum of L.400, which they rigidly appropriated to the repayment of a part of their father's debt. The old man had, indeed, called them together around his death-bed, and told them that, instead of a fortune, he left them a duty to perform; and that if it could not be accomplished in one generation, it must be handed down from father to son, until the descendants of the B----s had paid every farthing to the descendants of the S----s.

While matters stood in this predicament, the creditor part of the family removed to England, and the debtors remained at Charleston, struggling with difficulties and embarrassments, which not only disabled them from paying the paternal debt, but kept them perpetually in honourable poverty. Of course, the wish to pay in such minds survived the ability. It would have been to them an enjoyment of a high order to hunt out their relatives in England, and place in their hands the owing L.600. This pleasure, which they were destined never to taste, often formed the subject of conversation around their fireside; and the children, as they grew up, were initiated into the mystery of the L.600.

But that generation passed away, and another succeeded to the liability; not that there existed any liability in law, for though a deed had been executed, it had lapsed in the course of time, so that there was really no obligation but that which was the strongest of all--an uneradicable sense of right. Often and often did the B----s of Charleston meet and consult together on this famous debt, which every one wished, but no one could afford, to pay. The sons were married, and had children whom it was incumbent on them to support; the daughters had married, too, but their husbands possibly did not acquire with their wives the chivalrous sense of duty which possessed the breast of every member, male and female, of the B. family, and inspired them with a wish to do justice when fortune permitted.

It would be infinitely agreeable to collect and peruse the letters and records of consultations which passed or took place between the members of this family on the subject of the L.600. These documents would form the materials of one of the most delightful romances in the world--the romance of honour, which never dies in some families, but is transmitted from generation to generation like a treasure above all price. When this brief notice is read in Charleston, it may possibly lead to the collection of these materials, which, with the proper names of all the persons engaged, should, we think, be laid before the world as a pleasing record of hereditary nobility of sentiment.

After the lapse of many years, a widow and her three nephews found themselves in possession of the necessary means for paying the family debt. Three-quarters of a century had elapsed. The children and the children's children of the original borrower had passed away; but the honour of the B. family had been transmitted intact to the fourth generation, and a search was immediately commenced to discover the creditors in England. This, however, as may well be supposed, was no easy task. The members of the S. family had multiplied and separated, married and intermarried, become poor and wealthy, distinguished and obscure by turns, changed their topographical as well as their social position, and disappeared entirely from the spot they had occupied on their first arrival from America.

But honour is indefatigable, and by degrees a letter reached a person in Kensington, who happened to possess some knowledge of a lady of the S. family, married to a solicitor practising with great success and distinction in London. When the letter came to hand, she at first doubted whether it might not be a sort of grave hoax, intended to excite expectation for the pleasure of witnessing its disappointment. However, the English solicitor, accustomed to the incidents of life, thought there would at least be no harm in replying to the letter from Charleston, and discovering in this way the real state of the affair.