Part 27

"Like other unprejudiced travellers of modern times, (he proceeds) our author is not very much enchanted with the English form of existence--his cordial and sincere admiration is often accompanied by unsparing censure.... He is by no means inclined to favour the faults and weaknesses of the English; and in these cases--(what cases?)--he has the greatest and best among them,--those whose reputation is universal,--on his side.

"The great charm, however, which attaches us to his side, consists in the moral manifestations of his nature, which run through the book: his clear understanding, and simple natural manner, render him highly interesting. We are agreeably affected by the sight of a right-minded and kind-hearted man, who describes with charming frankness the conflict between will and accomplishment!" (What does the Patriarch mean?)

"We represent him to ourselves as of dignified and prepossessing exterior. He knows how instantly to place himself on an equality with high and low, and to be welcome to all;--that he excites the attention of women is natural enough--he attracts and is attracted; but his experience of the world enables him to terminate any little _affaires du cœur_ without violence or indecorum."

We shall presently enable the reader to judge for himself as to some points of this eulogy. Meantime, we turn the leaf, and find a second flourish from--the translator of these wonderful letters.

"A rumour," says this cautious and disinterested critic, "has ascribed them to Prince Puckler-Muskau, a subject of Prussia, who is known to have travelled in England and Ireland about the period at which they were written. He has even been mentioned as the author in the Berlin newspapers: as, however, he has not thought fit to accept the authorship, we have no right to fix it upon him, though the voice of Germany has perhaps sufficiently established his claim to it. At all events, the Letters contain allusions to his rank which fully justify us in ascribing them to a German Prince."

After Goethe and the translator, or, in German phrase, oversetter, comes the editor!--who, in the midst of some would-be-pathetic cant, drops two bits of information, both entirely false; namely, that "the letters, with very few and unimportant exceptions, were written at the moment;" and, secondly, that "the author is dead!" The editor adds that there actually exist four volumes of this correspondence, but from "various circumstances, which cannot be explained, it has been found necessary to publish the two last volumes first;"--the pair, as yet unprinted, containing his highness's opinions and illustrations of London society, as these, now before us, exhibit the "manners and customs" of the provinces, and of Ireland.

As to the alleged demise of the author--Shakspeare mentions a certain class of persons who "die many times before their deaths;" and perhaps his highness may have thought it as well to feel his ground with our provinces before venturing upon what he calls "the _grand foyer_ of European aristocracy." However--unless the whole affair is an impudent juggle--we are justified in fixing this performance upon the Prince Puckler-Muskau; and we only wonder how any English reviewer of the book could have hesitated about doing so, provided he had read as far as page 284 of the first volume, where we find our "German prince" at Limerick, in company with Mr. O'Connell, a relation of the great agitator.

"We quitted the church, and were proceeding to visit the rock near the Shannon, upon which the English signed the treaty after the battle of the Boyne--a treaty which they have not been remarkably scrupulous in observing. I remarked that we were followed by an immense crowd of people, which increased like an avalanche, and testified equal respect and enthusiasm. All on a sudden they shouted, 'Long life to Napoleon and Marshal ----.' 'Good God,' said I, 'for whom do the people take me? As a perfectly unpretending stranger I cannot in the least degree understand why they seem disposed to do me so much honour.' 'Was not your father the Prince of ----?' said O'Connell. 'Oh no,' replied I; 'my father was indeed a nobleman of rather an older date, but very far from being so celebrated.' 'You must forgive us then,' said O'Connell, incredulously; 'for, to tell you the truth, you are believed to be a natural son of Napoleon, whose partiality to your supposed mother was well known.' 'You joke,' said I, laughing: 'I am at least ten years too old to be the son of the great emperor and the beautiful princess.' He shook his head, however, and I reached my inn amid reiterated shouts. Here I shut myself up, and I shall not quit my retreat to-day. The people, however, patiently posted themselves under my windows, and did not disperse until it was nearly dark."

We make no apology for anticipating here the arrival of his highness at Limerick, because, by showing in the outset the mistake that Mr. O'Connell made between the titles of Prince de la Moscowa and Prince Muskau, we establish at once the identity of Goethe's "unprejudiced traveller," and a "right-minded" and "decorous" terminater of _affaires de cœur_--of whom many of our readers have had some personal knowledge--and whose imposing mustachios are still fresh in our own recollection. The cold nights of November do not more surely portend to the anxious sportsman in the country the approach of woodcocks, than do the balmy zephyrs of May foretell the arrival of illustrious foreigners in London; each succeeding season brings its flock of princes, counts, and barons, who go the ordinary round of dinners, assemblies, concerts and balls; yawn each of them one night under the gallery of the House of Commons; one day take their position on the bench at the Old Bailey; visit the Court of Chancery; snatch a glimpse of the House of Peers; mount St. Paul's; dive into the Tunnel; see Windsor; breakfast at Sandhurst; attend a review on a wet morning in Hyde Park; dance at Almack's; try for an heiress--fail; make a tour of the provinces; enjoy a battue in Norfolk; sink into a coal-pit in Northumberland; admire grouse and pibrochs in Scotland; fly along a rail-road; tread the plank of a steam-packet, and so depart,--"and then are heard no more."

Such was this Prince Puckler-Muskau; and such were his qualifications and opportunities for depicting that

"strange insular life which" (according to the clear and consistent summary of M. Goethe) "is based in boundless wealth and civil freedom, in universal monotony and manifold diversity--formal and capricious, active and torpid, energetic and dull, comfortable and tedious, the envy and the derision of the world!"

His first letter, addressed, as all his letters are, to his "dear Julia,"--(that is to say, no doubt, his highness's consort, Princess Puckler, to his alliance with whom, we believe, he owed his princeship)--is dated Cheltenham, July 12, 1828; and the first observation which his highness is pleased to make upon his arrival at that popular watering-place is one of a mixed character, political, statistical, and philosophical, whence may be derived a tolerably fair estimate of his highness's accuracy and knowledge of "things in general." He is describing to his "dear Julia" the nature and character of the distress amongst the lower orders in England, and its causes and origin.

"The distress," says his highness, "in truth, consisted in this: that the people, instead of having three or four meals a day, with tea, cold meat, bread and butter, beefsteaks, or roast meat, were now obliged to content themselves with two, consisting only of meat and potatoes. It was, however, just harvest time, and the want of labourers in the fields so great, that the farmers gave almost any wages. Nevertheless, I was assured that the mechanics would rather destroy all the machinery and actually starve, than bring themselves to take a sickle in their hands, or bind a sheaf, so intractable and obstinate are the English common people rendered by their universal comfort, and the certainty of obtaining employment if they vigorously seek it. From what I have now told you, you may imagine what deductions you ought to make from newspaper articles."

This valuable information is followed by an anecdote:--

"Yesterday, '_entre le poire et le fromage_,'"--(at what period of a Cheltenham dinner that might be, his highness does not condescend to explain)--"I received the twice-declined visit of the master of the ceremonies, a gentleman who does the honour of the baths, and exercises a considerable authority over the company of an English watering-place, in virtue of which he welcomes strangers with most anti-English officiousness and pomposity, and manifests great care and zeal for their entertainment. An Englishman invested with such a character has _mauvais jeu_, and vividly recalls the ass in the fable, who tried to imitate the caresses of the lap-dog. I could not get rid of my visitor till he had swallowed some bottles of claret with me, and devoured all the dessert the house afforded. At length he took his leave, first extorting from me a promise that I would honour the ball of the following evening with my presence. However, I had so little inclination for company and new acquaintances, that I made _faux bond_, and left Cheltenham early in the morning."

Who the master of the ceremonies at Cheltenham, thus uncourteously likened by his highness unto an ass, may be, we have not the advantage of knowing; but certain it is that, however derogatory such an office might at first sight appear, the characters and profession of some of the individuals filling it prove that it is not so considered; and it is, at all events, highly improbable that a gentleman, paying an official visit to a foreign prince, would force his society upon his illustrious host for a sufficient length of time to drink several bottles of claret; and still more improbable is it that any man--gentleman or not--could contrive to "devour all the dessert the Plough at Cheltenham afforded," at a sitting. If, however, the _arbiter elegantiarum_ of Cheltenham did really conduct himself in the manner described, he followed the example of Hamlet with the daggers,--he spoke of ceremony, but used none.

At page 14, we reach Llangollen, where his highness is pleased to make an observation, which, coming from a prince, sounds strange. He tells his Julia that "where he pays well, he is always the first person!" "We represent him to ourselves (quoth Goethe) as of a dignified appearance;" but the landlords and waiters seem to have wanted such discrimination. He then informs us--

"that his appetite, enormously sharpened by the mountain air, was most agreeably invited by the aspect of the smoking coffee, fresh guinea-fowls' eggs, deep yellow mountain butter, thick cream, 'toasted muffins' (a delicate sort of cake eaten hot with butter), and lastly, two red spotted trout just caught; all placed on a snow-white table-cloth of Irish damask;--a breakfast which Walter Scott's heroes in 'the highlands' might have been thankful to receive at the hands of that great painter of human necessities. '_Je dévore déjà un œuf._'--Adieu!"

It is laid down by Hannah, in "Hamilton's Bawn," that a captain of a horse

"has never a hand that is idle; For the right holds the sword, and the left holds the bridle;"

and we infer, from the animated account given by his highness of his own activity, that he must have been either a dragoon or a hussar, for, while with one hand he is describing to the sentimental Julia the delights of his breakfast, he is, by his own showing, actually eating an egg with the other.--His notion of being served with guinea-fowls' eggs we presume to have arisen from the price which the innkeeper charged for them, for although eggs are plenty in Wales, princes are scarce; but what his highness means by describing Sir Walter Scott as a great painter of human necessities, is quite beyond us.--After breakfast, he impudently intrudes himself on Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby, and quizzes them and their pretty cottage in a style which, all the circumstances considered, one might almost be tempted to call brutal. Those amiable spinsters are, however, no more--and we may pass on.

By a reference to page 27, we find that his highness slept "admirably," on the night of the 15th of August, at his inn in Wales, where he describes himself sitting at the window, looking at the sea, and the ships thereon. "On the landward"--whatever that means--he says, "rises a castle of black marble, surrounded by ancient oaks." And in this retirement he finds, "very unexpectedly,"--we should think so,--a "thin" friend of his, with "magnificent calves, elegantly dressed;" a gentleman who is "so good-natured and yet so sarcastic, so English and yet so German," etc., etc.; and this so delightful personage tells him a story, which, in order to fill up a certain number of pages, his highness is good enough to repeat, though it contains nothing worthy of notice, except an ill-natured slap at the poor Duke of St. Albans, who treated him with every mark of civility when he was in England.

His highness is tempted to visit the marble castle which he has seen from his window, and is "remarkably well received there."

"The bells of the various rooms," says his highness, "are suspended in a row on the wall, numbered, so that it is immediately seen in what room any one has rung; the sort of pendulum which is attached to each wire continues to vibrate for ten minutes after the sound has ceased, to remind the sluggish of their duty."

"The females of the establishment," continues his highness, "have also a large common room, in which, when they have nothing else to do, they sew, knit, and spin; close to this is a closet for washing the glass and china, which comes within their province. Each of them, as well as of the man-servants, has her separate bed-chamber in the highest story. Only the housekeeper and the butler have distinct apartments below. Immediately adjoining that of the housekeeper, is a room where coffee is made, and the store-room, containing everything requisite for breakfast, which important meal, in England, belongs specially to her department.... Near the butler's room is his pantry, a spacious fire-proof room with closets on every side for the reception of the plate, which he cleans here, and the glass and china used at dinner, which must be delivered back into his custody as soon as it is washed by the women. All these arrangements are executed with the greatest punctuality. A locked staircase leads from the pantry into the beer and wine cellar, which is likewise under the butler's jurisdiction."

Of the cordiality of his highness's reception at the marble castle we have no doubt; but he leaves us in the dark as to whether he had been the guest of the housekeeper or the butler, though we confess we rather incline to the former, not only because, according to his guarantee, the author of the "Sorrows of Werter," he attracted women and was attracted by them, because he refers, with something of a regretful feeling, to the "locked staircase" of the wine-cellar: had the butler been at home, there is every reason to hope that his highness would not have found it closed against him, but, like another Archer, would have been kindly welcomed by the Cambrian Scrub.

His highness next visits a slate-quarry, over which he tells us it "took him a considerable time to take even a hasty glance." He then gives us the average of casualties which happen annually, and breaks off into a profane medley of nonsense, impiously entitled "Reflections of a Pious Soul," upon which we decline commenting, lest we should be compelled to extract even the smallest portion of it.

In his highness's account of Carnarvon Castle we are favoured with an historical fact so interesting and so new withal, that we must extract it bodily, from page 77; which page is moreover ostentatiously headed, "Origin of the Prince of Wales's Motto."

"On descending, my guide showed me the remains of a vaulted chamber, in which, according to tradition, Edward II., the first Prince of Wales, was born. The Welsh, in consequence of the oppressions of English governors in the earlier times of partial and momentary conquest, had declared to the king that they would obey none but a prince of their own nation. Edward therefore sent for his wife Eleanor in the depth of winter, that she might lie-in in Caernarvon Castle. She bore a prince; upon which the king summoned the nobles and chiefs of the land, and asked them solemnly whether they would submit to the rule of a prince who was born in Wales, and could not speak a word of English. On their giving a joyful and surprised assent, he presented to them his newborn son, exclaiming in broken Welsh, _Eich dyn!_ _i.e._, 'This is your man!' which has been corrupted into the present motto of the English arms, _Ich Dien_."

It seems hardly worth while detailing the true history of this motto, since every child knows it--yet to prove, on the spot, the deplorable ignorance of this pretender, every child does know that the distinguishing device of the Prince of Wales (having nothing to do with the English arms), viz., the plume of three ostrich feathers, with the motto Ich Dien, which, in Prince Puckler's own mother-tongue, signifies 'I serve,' was assumed by Edward the Second's grandson, the Black Prince, in memory of the death of John, king of Bohemia, the lawful owner of the said device, in the battle of Cressy. One might have expected a little heraldry at least from the Château of Thonderdentronck.

Ten pages of stupid blasphemy bring us to page 88, where the baser propensities of his mind give place to its overweening passion--personal vanity. The hero of "moral manifestations" thus confides to his dear princess the conquest he has made of a bar-maid at Bangor:--

"I had read thus far when the little Eliza appeared with my breakfast, and with an arch good-nature bid me good morning 'after my long sleep.' She had just been to church, had all the consciousness of being well dressed, and was waiting upon a foreigner; three things which greatly incline women to be tender-hearted. She accordingly seemed almost embarrassed when I inquired about my departure early the following morning.... After dinner I went, under her guidance, to visit the walks round the town. One of these is most romantically placed on a large rock. We saw from hence Snowdon, in almost transparent clearness, undimmed by a single cloud.... After this pastoral walk, tender mutton closed the day."

Who is not inclined to exclaim with the Welsh, according to his highness's version, "Eich dyn!" This is your man!

Skipping some more blasphemies, we find ourselves at Kennell Park, the seat of Colonel Hughes.

"Towards evening," says his highness, "I arrived at the house of my worthy colonel--a true Englishman in the best sense of the word" (from being a Welshman, we presume). "He and his amiable family received me in the friendliest manner. Country gentlemen of his class, who are in easy circumstances, (with us they would be thought rich,) and fill a respectable station in society; who are not eager and anxious pursuers of fashion in London, but seek to win the affection of their neighbours and tenants; whose hospitality is not mere ostentation; whose manners are neither 'exclusive' nor outlandish, but who find their dignity in a domestic life polished by education and adorned by affluence, and in the observance of the strictest integrity; such form the most truly respectable class of Englishmen. In the great world of London, indeed, they play an obscure part; but on the wide stage of humanity, one of the most noble and elevated that can be allotted to man. Unfortunately, however, the predominance and the arrogance of the English aristocracy is so great, and that of fashion yet so much more absolute and tyrannous, that such families, if my tribute of praise and admiration were ever to fall under their eye, would probably feel less flattered by it, than they would be if I enumerated them among the leaders of _ton_."--Pp. 137, 138.

Little did his highness think that a few short months only would elapse before the brow of his "worthy colonel, filling a respectable station in society," would be encircled with a baronial coronet; little did he imagine that his "country gentleman," who "played an obscure part" in London, was so soon to be converted into one of the "leaders of _ton_," from amongst whom he had so flatteringly excluded him; little did he think that his hospitable friend was destined so soon to adorn the British peerage as Lord Dinorben.

On the 5th of August he walked, while all the rest of the family were yet in bed, "with the charming little Fanny, the youngest daughter of the house, who is not yet out."--"She took me," says his highness, "round the park and garden, and showed me her dairy and aviary." His highness then describes the dairy, which, we presume, from a laudable desire of the "worthy colonel" to bring the article into fashion, is surrounded with lumps of copper, forming "a gorgeous bed for rare and curious plants." His highness enumerates the comforts of the colonel's cocks and hens, and the ducks and the pigeons--he feels at the sight thereof a fit of "pastoral sensibility" come over him, and "turns homewards to get rid of his fit of romance before breakfast:"--"Miss Fanny," he adds, "exclaimed, with true English pathos,

'We do but row, And we are steered by fate.'"

"Yes, indeed, thought I," says the prince, "the little philosopher is right--things always turn out differently from what one intends, even in such small events as these." What "the little philosopher" meant by her pathetic exclamation, we cannot, of course, divine; nor what his highness alludes to as an event; but the story, as his highness has here printed and published it, may serve as a caution to Lord Dinorben how he suffers the familiar visits of princes, and subjects himself to the jokes of such illustrious personages as feel themselves privileged, in return for the honour they confer upon him by their presence, to laugh at his "want of _ton_," and ridicule the kindnesses which "people of his class" are so apt to bestow.

After dinner the prince tells us that he mounted the colonel's horse--"unwearied as a machine of steel,"--(copper would have been as fair a simile):--he gallops over the stones, up hill and down,--

"leaps with undisturbed composure over the gates which continually intercept my way across the fields and tires me long before he feels the least fatigue himself. This, to me, is the true pleasure of riding--[a friend's horse]--I love to traverse mile after mile of country which I had never seen before, where I know not whither I am going, and must find out my way back as I can."

But will it be believed, notwithstanding the comfort, the good cheer, the aviary, the dairy, the untireable horse, etc., etc.,--the prince, although he had promised to stay with the "worthy colonel" for some weeks, gets amazingly bored, and "therefore took leave;" and had been, as he intimates, so _genêd_ by Kennell Park, that, proceeding from it to the house of "another gentleman who had invited him," he makes his visit "of some hours instead of days."