CHAPTER XVI.

_London Society._

I have spoken of my daily occupations with little or no allusion to that, which proved to me the chief charm of life in London, its delightful society. It would be a poor tribute to modern civilization to regard the social pleasures of a brilliant capital, as presenting a secondary topic of remark; and yet so sacred are even the most public of domestic civilities, that whatever goes on under a private roof, seems necessarily invested with a character, to which types cannot do justice, without, at the same time, becoming sacrilegious. The ethics of travel are, even yet, by no means settled; for persons who should be authorities, have been often betrayed into the setting of an example, which, if all were free to follow it, would permit society to be infested with hordes of literary pirates, whose flag would be fatal to the freedoms and confidences of civilized intercourse, everywhere. On both sides of the Atlantic such social corsairs have too frequently paraded their spoils. It is not so much with the fear of their ignominy before mine eyes, as in view of that Golden Rule which they have flagrantly transgressed, that I shall restrict myself, in my narratives, to the most general allusions to social scenes, and to the mention of such names only as are more or less publicly known.

One needs only a few competent letters as a passport to English hospitality. After first introductions, the way of the stranger who behaves himself, is as open as in his own land. Hospitality is, in fact, a truly English virtue. Nowhere else does the word imply so much genuine kindness. Nowhere else does it so completely make the stranger at home. Morning, noon, and night, it follows you up with its benevolent perseverance, and seems to exact the minimum of ceremony in return. It does not satisfy itself with politeness; it shows you the soul of friendship; and that, while it allows you all the freedom of a passenger, when you might otherwise feel embarrassed by your inability to reciprocate such proofs of good will. The truth is, there is real heart in the civilities which are proffered, and where politeness is rooted in sincerity, it is always considerate, inventive and unfailing. An English gentleman, whatever his circumstances, as soon as he knows that you are entitled to his attentions, does all that he can to make you really happy. If his means are small he is not ashamed to offer you the best he can give, and he is pleased with his success, if he feels that you have accepted his hospitality in the spirit which prompted it. Contented, self-respecting, hearty Christian love is the root of the matter, in those true specimens of English nature, which are uppermost in my memory, as I write, and “whatsoever things are lovely” are but the generous product of that sound and healthful stock. Happy is he who has made a genuine Englishman his friend, for such a friendship implies the fullest confidence, and is a tribute to accredited integrity and worth.

In London, during “the season,” there is an incessant round not only of fashionable entertainments, but also of such as are indeed feasts of reason and of soul. You are invited to breakfast at ten or eleven o’clock, and are sure to meet an agreeable company, as few as the Graces, or as many as the Muses. One after another the guests drop in, in morning dress, and among them are a number of ladies who sit at table in their bonnets, and generally add not a little to the liveliness of the company. There is nothing, perhaps, before you besides an egg, with your tea and toast; but the side-board is loaded with substantials, and you have a variety of fruits to conclude the repast. The party conduct themselves as if time were plenty, and easy conversation goes round; your host occasionally drawing you out, on subjects upon which you are supposed to be informed. After an hour or more, there is a general breaking up, and Sir Somebody begs you to take a seat in his carriage, which is waiting at the door, or Mr. Blank proposes walking with you to the “University Club House;” or you draw off to keep some other engagement. Ten to one you breakfast somewhere else to-morrow, as the consequence of making yourself as little disagreeable as possible to-day; and so it goes on to your heart’s content, through the week.

You are invited to dinner, at any hour from five to eight, sometimes, of course, very unceremoniously, and sometimes in full form. You go at the hour appointed, and discover that punctuality has ceased to be fashionable in London. I was often surprised to observe the latitude given to guests, and taken by the cook. At dinners, everything goes on as with us, save that there is some form in announcing the guests, and also in placing them at table. The servant vociferously proclaims “Mr. Green”—as he flings open the door of the drawing-room, and if for a moment you find yourself abashed by the noise which you find yourself making, it is afterwards very agreeable to know who is who, upon the arrival of others. A reverend personage enters in an ecclesiastical coat, with silk apron, or cassock, and you hear him proclaimed as “the Lord Bishop of ——,” or as “the Dean of ——.” A pleasing, but quiet-looking gentleman appears, under the sound of a name familiar as that of one of her Majesty’s Cabinet Ministers. “Lord ——” is announced, and you behold a somewhat _distingué_ figure, wearing a glittering decoration around the neck, or upon the breast. Several literary or professional personages complete the company; and when the ladies are waited upon to the dining-room, you are sure to be paired with the suitable party, and to find yourself placed with careful reference to your insignificance or importance, as the case may be. As to the table, the good old English courses seem to be giving way to foreign customs, as with us. It is not unusual to sit down to flowers and fruits, and confectionary, and to see nothing else for your dinner, except as the soup and other dishes are brought you in succession, the meats being carved by the servants, and all the old-fashioned notions, as to vegetables and side dishes, very much Frenchified, and revolutionized. Grace before meat, and after the removal of the cloth, was always faithfully performed in the circles which I frequented; but I was sorry to hear that this new style of serving the table has somewhat affected those Christian proprieties, by confounding “the _egg_ and the _apples_,” and leaving one in doubt as to where the dinner proper begins, or where it arrives at a legitimate conclusion.

The conversation at these dinners never seemed to me as animated as that of breakfast parties. Even the half hour after the withdrawal of the ladies, and the disappearance of servants, was less sociable and sprightly. I must say, however, that I entirely disagree with the profound Mr. Boswell, as regards the introduction of children at the dessert, which, in my opinion, greatly enlivens such occasions. In they come, rosy and beautiful, fresh from the nursery toilet, and bringing joy and hilarity in their eyes and faces! The son and heir steals up to his father; a lovely girl is permitted by mamma to come timidly to you. I was, indeed, a little surprised at a nobleman’s table, when his boy, a youth of twelve or fourteen, came to his side, to find the little fellow introduced as “Lord C——,” instead of _Harry_ or _Willie_, as it would have been with us; but, as nothing could exceed the familiar and affectionate manner in which the title was spoken, I saw at once that it was natural enough to others, however unwonted to my Republican ear, to see a mere child so formally announced. After this announcement he was called simply “C——,” as if it had been his Christian name, and I was pleased with his simple and unaffected manners throughout. English children appear to be “under tutors and governors,” and generally behave with becoming deference to elder persons. I remember not a few of my little friends in England, with real affection. Blessings, then, I say, on the children, and may it never be unfashionable for them to be seen amid fruit and flowers, at an American or an English table!

I accepted a few invitations to evening parties, but what to call them I hardly knew. The superb apartments, in which they were given, were crammed with the company; there were perpetual exits and entrances; cries were constantly heard below of—“Lady K——’s carriage stops the way;” while the incessant grinding of wheels in the street proclaimed the arrival and departure of the great and the gay, as they went the rounds of many a similar scene during the same evening. At a splendid residence in Piccadilly, I was presented on such an occasion to the Duke of Wellington. He wore a plain black suit, with a star on the breast of his coat; and when I first saw him he was standing quite apart, with a noiseless and even retiring dignity of appearance, to which his white head gave the chief charm. I had no idea that I was near him, till turning suddenly, his unmistakeable figure was before me. The rooms were one blaze of rank and fashion; but for a while I could see no one but the old hero. When I was introduced, I could do little more than bow, and accept his polite recognition, for he was quite deaf, and I had observed that conversation was evidently distasteful to him.

On another evening, just after the Queen’s State Ball, I was amused to meet, in a similar scene, the dresses and costumes which had lately figured at the Palace. They were of historical character, and hence peculiarly interesting. Here was Henrietta Maria, the Queen of Charles First, and there was a lady of the Court of Charles the Second. The stiff court fashions of the Georges were also represented, and one could easily imagine himself among Chesterfields and Rochesters. But, thank God, the British Peerage, in our day, is dignified by better men, and amid this brilliant masquerading, I first met with young Lord Nelson, so justly beloved for his active interest in all good works, and found him most agreeable in conversation, which, even in such an assembly, was entirely in keeping with his character. Here, too, I saw and conversed with the Duke of Newcastle, since an important member of the British Ministry, but then, and always, as I feel sure from his unaffected tone of remark, not less than from his general reputation, an earnest Christian, anxious to be a faithful steward, and to do what he can for the extension of the kingdom of Christ among all mankind.

The general interest felt in this country in the author of _Ion_, may excuse my particular mention of a party at Lady Talfourd’s, in which the literary and legal professions were more fully represented. Here one saw the Barons of Westminster-Hall in their proper persons, without the burthen of robes and wigs: while moving about the rooms, one encountered a poet or popular novelist, and not least, the amiable host himself. He made kind inquiries concerning several of my distinguished countrymen, and touching upon matters of law, paid a very high compliment to the ability and legal skill with which the trial of Professor Webster had been managed in Boston. Judge Talfourd appeared then in the prime of life, and inspired me with respect by his modest but dignified personal demeanour. He has since died a death, on the bench, more impressive than that of heroes on the field.

With regard to the tone of society in general, I think every stranger must be struck with its elevation, whether intellectually or morally considered. An English gentleman is generally highly educated. Society consists of cultivated persons, male and female, whose accomplishments are not displayed, but exist as a matter of course, and as essential to one’s part in the duties and civilities of life. No one ventures to feel better informed than his neighbour, and hence there is a general deference to other men’s opinions, and a reserve in expressing one’s own, which is highly significant of extreme civilization and refinement. Such a state of society, however, has its drawbacks. Character often becomes neutralized, and genius itself dulled and flattened, where to distinguish one’s self is felt to be an impropriety, and where the manifestation of decided thought or feeling would be eccentric, and even rude. Hence I observed a sort of uniformity in manner and expression, which is sometimes depressing; and when upon some private occasion, I discovered that the smooth, quiet personage whom I had seen only in the dull propriety in which the pressure of company had held him, like a single stone in an arch, was a man of feeling, of taste, of varied information, and accurate learning, I said to myself—‘what a lamentable waste is here!’ This man who should have been enriching the world with his stores of erudition and of reflection, has never conceived of himself as having anything to impart, or by which his fellow-man should profit. His accomplishments are, like his fortune and respectability, his mere personal qualifications for a position in society, in which he is contented merely to move, without shining, or dispensing anything more than the genial warmth of good humour and benevolence. There are thousands of such men in England, living and dying in the most exquisite relish of social pleasures, and deriving daily satisfaction from their own mental resources, but contributing nothing to the increase of the world’s intellectual wealth, and never dreaming of their attainments as talents which they are bound to employ. They live among educated men—knowledge is a drug in their market: of course they know this or that, but so does everybody else, and what have they to confer? It would be an impertinence for them (so they seem to feel) to teach or to dictate an opinion. Dr. Johnson has left a remark, in the records of his biographer, upon this tendency of refinement to abase individual merit, and I am sure a dogmatist like himself would not now be supported in English society. So very odd and unaccountable a phenomenon, even were his manners less forbidding, would be intolerable in intelligent circles, to say nothing of those of splendour and fashion. England exhibits just now the smooth and polished surface of a social condition which has no marked inequalities. Even rank fails to create those chasms and elevations which were once so striking and formidable. Gentlemen are very nearly alike, whatever their antecedents. All are well-informed, all have travelled, all are well-bred, and alike familiar with the world. The Universities, too, have done not a little to assimilate characters. Minds have been fashioned in one mould, and opinions shaped by one pattern. Even language and expression, and personal carriage are reduced to a common formula. I closely watched the pronunciation of thorough-bred men, and often drew them into classical quotations, to observe their delicacy in prosody, and their manner of pronouncing the Latin. I prefer very much the German or Italian theories of classical orthoepy; but for mere _longs and shorts_, there is no such adept as an English tongue. They carry it into the vernacular, however, against all analogy, and often startle an American by what seems elaborate pedantry and affectation. You are confounded by an allusion to Longfellow’s _Hyperion_—accent on the penultimate; or you are puzzled by the inquiry whether any _doctrinal_ differences exist between the English and American Churches—second syllable made studiously long! Yet the man would be thought an intolerable ass who should display his knowledge of purely French or Teutonic derivatives, by a similar deference to etymology: and no one thinks of carrying out this principle in all words of like analogy. Usage, however, with all its caprices, settles every dispute; and we Americans have no resource but conformity, unless we prefer to appear provincial. English usage must be the law of the English tongue, and the fashions of the court and capital are the standard of usage.

Among the authors of England, I had desired to see especially Mr. Samuel Rogers, who is now the last survivor of a brilliant literary epoch, and whose long familiarity with the historical personages of a past generation, would of itself be enough to make him a man of note, and a patriarch in the republic of letters. Though now above ninety years of age, he still renders his elegant habitation an attractive resort, and I was indebted to him for attentions which were the more valuable, as he was, at that time, suffering from an accident, and hence peculiarly entitled to deny himself entirely to strangers. His house, in St. James’s-street, has been often described, and its beautiful opening on the Green Park is familiar from engravings. Here every Englishman of literary note, during the last half century, has been at some time a guest, and if its walls could but _Boswellize_ the wit which they have heard around the table of its hospitable master, no collection of _Memorabilia_ with which the world is acquainted, could at all be compared with it. Here I met the aged poet, at breakfast; Sir Charles and Lady Lyell completing the party. He talked of the past as one to whom the present was less a reality, and it seemed strange to hear him speak of Mrs. Piozzi, as if he had been one of the old circle at Thrale’s. When a boy, he rang Dr. Johnson’s bell, in Bolt Court, in a fit of ambition to see the literary colossus of the time, but his heart failed him at the sticking point, and he ran away before the door was opened. Possibly the old sage himself responded to the call, and as he retired in a fit of indignation, moralizing on the growing impertinence of the age, how little did he imagine that the interruption was a signal tribute to his genius, from one who, in the middle of the nineteenth century, should be himself an object of veneration as the Nestor of Literature!