Letters from England, 1846-1849 Part 3

I got a note yesterday from the O'Connor Don, enclosing an order to admit me to the House of Commons on Monday. . . . You will be curious to know who is "The O'Connor Don." He is Dennis O'Connor, Esq., but is of the oldest family in Ireland, and the representative of the last kings of Connaught. He is called altogether the O'Connor Don, and begins his note to me with that t.i.tle. You remember Campbell's poem of "O'Connor's Child"?

Sunday, 14th February

. . . Yesterday morning was my breakfast at Sir Robert Inglis's.

The hour was halfpast nine, and as his house is two miles off I had to be up wondrous early for me. The weather has been very cold for this climate for the last few days, though we should think it moderate. They know nothing of extreme cold here. But, to return to or breakfast, where, notwithstanding the cold, the guests were punctually a.s.sembled: The Marquis of Northampton and his sisters, the Bishop of London with his black ap.r.o.n, Sir Stratford Canning, Mr. Rutherford, Lord Advocate for Scotland, the Solicitor-General and one or two others. The conversation was very agreeable and I enjoyed my first specimen of an English breakfast exceedingly. . . .

Our invitations jostle each other, now Parliament has begun, for everybody invites on Wednesday, Sat.u.r.day, or Sunday, when there are no debates. We had three dinner invitations for next Wednesday, from Mr. Harcourt, Marquis of Anglesey, and Mrs. Mansfield. We go to the former. The Queen held a levee on Friday, for gentlemen only. Your father went, of course.

Sunday, February 21st

I left off on Sunday, on which day I got a note from Lady Morgan, saying that she wished us to come and meet some agreeables at her house. . . . There I met Sir William and Lady Molesworth, Sir Benjamin Hall, etc., and had a long talk with "Eothen," who is a quiet, un.o.btrusive person in manner, though his book is quite an effervescence. . . . On Wednesday we dined with Mr. Harcourt, and met there Lord Brougham, who did the talking chiefly, Lord and Lady Mahon, Mr. Labouchere, etc. It was a most agreeable party, and we were very glad to meet Lord Brougham, whom we had not before seen.

Lord Brougham is entertaining, and very much listened to. Indeed, the English habit seems to be to suffer a few people to do up a great part of the talking, such as Macaulay, Brougham, and Sydney Smith and Mackintosh in their day. . . . On Sat.u.r.day evening, at ten o'clock, we went to a little party at Lady Stratheden's. After staying there three-quarters of an hour we went to Lady Palmerston's, where were all the GREAT London world, the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland among the number. She is most n.o.ble, and at the same time lovely. . . . We had an autograph note from Sir Robert Peel, inviting us to dine next Sat.u.r.day, and were engaged. I hope they will ask us again, for I know few things better than to see him, as we should in dining there. I have the same interest in seeing the really distinguished men of England, that I should have in the pictures and statues of Rome, and indeed, much greater. I wish I was better prepared for my life here by a more extensive culture; mere fine ladyism will not do, or prosy bluism, but one needs for a thorough enjoyment of society, a healthy, practical, and extensive culture, and a use of the modern languages in our position would be convenient. I do not know how a gentleman can get on without it here, and I find it so desirable that I devote a good deal of time to speaking French with Louisa's governess. Your father uses French a great deal with his colleagues, who, many of them, speak English with great difficulty, and some not at all. . . . Lady Charlotte Lindsay came one day this week to engage us to dine with her on Wednesday, but yesterday she came to say that she wanted Lord Brougham to meet us, and he could not come till Friday. Fortunately we had no dinner engagement on that day, and we are to meet also the Miss Berrys; Horace Walpole's Miss Berrys, who with Lady Charlotte herself, are the last remnants of the old school here.

LETTER: To I.P.D.

February 21st

My dear Uncle: . . . I wrote [J.D.] a week or two before I heard of his death, but was unable to tell him anything of Lord North, as I had not met Lady Charlotte Lindsay. I have seen her twice this week at Baron Parke's and at Lord Campbell's, and told her how much I had wished to do so before, and on what account. She says her father heard reading with great pleasure, and that one of her sisters could read the cla.s.sics: Latin and, I think, Greek, which he enjoyed to the last. She says that he never complained of losing his sight, but that her mother has told her that it worried him in his old age that he remained Minister during our troubles at a period when he wished, himself, to resign. He sometimes talked of it in the solitude of sleepless nights, her mother has told her.

On Tuesday morning we were invited by Dr. Buckland, the Dean of Westminster, to go to his house, and from thence to the Abbey, to witness the funeral of the Duke of Northumberland. The Dean, who has control of everything in the Abbey, issued tickets to several hundred persons to go and witness the funeral, but only Lord Northampton's family, the Bunsens (the Prussian Minister), and ourselves, went to his house, and into the Dean's little gallery.

After the ceremony there were a crowd of visitors at the Dean's, and I met many old acquaintances, and made many new ones, among whom were Lady Chantrey, a nice person. After the crowd cleared off, we sat down to a long table at lunch, always an important meal here, and afterward the Dean took me on his arm and showed me everything within the Abbey precincts. He took us first to the Percy Chapel to see the vault of the Percys. . . . From thence the Dean took us to the Jerusalem chamber where Henry IV died, then all over the Westminster school. We first went to the hall where the young men were eating their dinner. . . . We then went to the school-room, where every inch of the wall and benches is covered with names, some of them most ill.u.s.trious, as Dryden's. There were two bunches of rods, which the Dean a.s.sured me were not mere symbols of power, but were daily used, as, indeed, the broken twigs scattered upon the floor plainly showed. Our ferules are thought rather barbarous, but a gentle touch from a slender twig not at all so. These young men looked to me as old as our collegians. We then went to their study- rooms, play-rooms, and sleeping-rooms. The whole forty sleep in one long and well-ventilated room, the walls of which were also covered with names. At the foot of each bed was a large chest covered with leather, as mouldering and time-worn as the Abbey itself. Here are educated the sons of some of the n.o.blest families, and the Archbishop of York has had six sons here, and all of them were in succession the Captain of the school. . . .

On Wednesday evening we went first to our friends, the Bunsens, where we were invited to meet the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland with a few other persons. Bunsen is very popular here. He is learned and accomplished, and was so much praised in the Biography of Dr.

Arnold, the late historian of Rome, that he has great reputation in the world of letters. . . . Although we have great pleasure in the society of Chevalier and Madam Bunsen, and in those whom we meet at their house. On this occasion we only stayed half an hour, which I pa.s.sed in talking with the Bishop of Norwich and his wife, Mrs.

Stanley, and went to Lady Morgan's without waiting till the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland came. There we found her little rooms full of agreeable people. . . . The next day, Thursday, there was a grand opera for the benefit of the Irish, and all the Diplomatic Corps were obliged to take boxes. Lady Palmerston, who was one of the three patronesses, secured a very good box for us, directly opposite the Queen, and only three from the stage.

We took with us Mrs. Milman and W.T. Davis, to whom it gave a grand opportunity of seeing the Queen and the a.s.sembled aristocracy, at least all who are now in London. "G.o.d save the Queen," sung with the whole audience standing, was a n.o.ble sight. The Queen also stood, and at the end gave three curtsies. On Friday Captain and Mrs. Wormeley, with Miss Wormeley, dined with us, with Mr. and Mrs.

Carlyle, Miss Murray, the Maid of Honor, Mr. and Mrs. Pell of New York, with William T. and Mr. Brodhead. William was very glad to see Carlyle, who showed himself off to perfection, uttering his paradoxes in broad Scotch.

Last evening we dined at Mr. Thomas Baring's, and a most agreeable dinner it was. The company consisted of twelve persons, Lord and Lady Ashburton, etc. I like Lady Ashburton extremely. She is full of intelligence, reads everything, talks most agreeably, and still loves America. She is by no means one of those who abjure their country. I have seen few persons in England whom I should esteem a more delightful friend or companion than Lady Ashburton, and I do not know why, but I had received a different impression of her.

Lord Ashburton, by whom I sat at dinner, struck me as still one of the wisest men I have seen in England. Lady Ashburton, who was sitting by Mr. Bancroft, leant forward and said to her husband, "WE can bring bushels of corn this year to England." "Who do you mean by WE?" said he. "Why, we Americans, to be sure."

Monday Evening

Yesterday we dined at Count St. Aulair's, the French Amba.s.sador, who is a charming old man of the old French school, at a sort of amicable dinner given to Lord and Lady Palmerston. Lord John Russell was of the party, with the Russian Amba.s.sador and lady, Mr.

and Madam Van de Weyer, the Prussian and Turkish Ministers. The house of the French Emba.s.sy is fine, but these formal grand dinners are not so charming as the small ones. The present state of feeling between Lord Palmerston and the French Government gave it a kind of interest, however, and it certainly went off in a much better spirit than Lady Normanby's famous party, which Guizot would not attend.

It seems very odd to me to be in the midst of these European affairs, which I have all my life looked upon from so great a distance.

LETTER: To Mrs. W.W. Story LONDON, March 23, 1847

My dear Mrs. Story: I should have thanked you by the last steamer for your note and the charming volume which accompanied it, but my thoughts and feelings were so much occupied by the sad tidings I heard from my own family that I wrote to no one out of it. The poems, which would at all times have given me great pleasure, gave me still more here than they would if I were with you on the other side of the Atlantic. I am not cosmopolitan enough to love any nature so well as our American nature, and in addition to the charm of its poetry, every piece brought up to me the scenes amidst which it had been written. . . . How dear these a.s.sociations are your husband will soon know when he too is separated from his native sh.o.r.es and from those he loves. . . . I shall look forward with great pleasure to seeing him here, and only wish you were to accompany him, for your own sake, for his, and for ours. His various culture will enable him to enjoy most fully all that Europe can yield him in every department. My own regret ever since I have been here has been that the seed has not "fallen upon better ground," for though I thought myself not ignorant wholly, I certainly lose much that I might enjoy more keenly if I were better prepared for it. I envy the pleasure which Mr. Story will receive from music, painting, and sculpture in Europe, even if he were dest.i.tute of the creative inspiration which he will take with him.

For ourselves, we have everything to make us happy here, and I should be quite so, if I could forget that I had a country and children with very dear friends 3,000 miles away. . . . There are certain sympathies of country which one cannot overcome. On the other hand I certainly enjoy pleasures of the highest kind, and am every day floated like one in a dream into the midst of persons and scenes that make my life seem more like a drama than a reality.

Nothing is more unreal than the actual presence of persons of whom one has heard much, and long wished to see. One day I find myself at dinner by the side of Sir Robert Peel, another by Lord John Russell, or at Lord Lansdowne's table, with Mrs. Norton, or at a charming breakfast with Mr. Rogers, surrounded by pictures and marbles, or with tall feathers and a long train, making curtsies to a queen.

LETTER: To W.D.B. and A.B.

LONDON, April 2 [1847]

Here it is the day before the despatches leave and I have not written a single line to you. . . . On Friday we dined at Lady Charlotte Lindsay's, where were Lord Brougham and Lady Mallet, Mr.

Rogers and the Bishop of Norwich and his wife. In the evening Miss Agnes Berry, who never goes out now, came on purpose to appoint an evening to go and see her sister, who is the one that Horace Walpole wished to marry, and to whom so many of his later letters are addressed. She is eighty-four, her sister a few years younger, and Lady Charlotte not much their junior.

These remnants of the BELLES-ESPRITS of the last age are charming to me. They have a vast and long experience of the best social circles, with native wit, and constant practice in the conversation of society. . . . On Wednesday, we dined at Sir Robert Peel's, with whom I was more charmed than with anybody I have seen yet. I sat between him and the Speaker of the House of Commons. I was told that he was stiff and stately in his manners, but did not think him so, and am inclined to imagine that free from the burden of the Premiers.h.i.+p, he unbends more. He talked constantly with me, and in speaking of a certain picture said, "When you come to Drayton Manor I shall show it to you." I should like to go there, but to see himself even more than his pictures. Lady Peel is still a very handsome woman.

The next morning we breakfasted with Mr. Rogers. He lives, as you probably know, in [a] beautiful house, though small, whose rooms look upon the Green Park, and filled with pictures and marbles. We stayed an hour or more after the other guests, listening to his stores of literary anecdote and pleasant talk. In the evening we went to the Miss Berrys', where we found Lord Morpeth, who is much attached to them. Miss Berry put her hand on his head, which is getting a little gray, and said: "Ah, George, and I remember the day you were born, your grandmother brought you and put you in my arms." Now this grandmother of Lord Morpeth's was the celebrated d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re, who electioneered for Fox, and he led her to tell me all about her. "Eothen" was also there, Lady Lewis and many of my friends. . . . Aunty wishes to know who is "Eothen." She has probably read his book, "Eothen, or Traces of Travel," which was very popular two or three years since. He is a young lawyer, Mr.

Kinglake, the most modest, una.s.suming person in his manners, very shy and altogether very unlike the das.h.i.+ng, spirited young Englishman I figured to myself, whom nothing could daunt from the Arab even to the plague, which he defied.

LETTER: To I.P.D.

Dear Uncle and Aunt: On Thursday [the 25th] we were invited to Sir John Pakington's, whose wife is the Bishop of Rochester's daughter, but were engaged to Mr. Senior, who had asked us to meet the Archbishop of Dublin, the celebrated Dr. Whately. He had come over from Ireland to make a speech in the House of Lords upon the Irish Poor Law. He is full of learning [and] simplicity, and with most genial hearty manners. Rogers was also there and said more fine things than I have heard him say before at dinner, as he is now so deaf that he does not hear general conversation, and cannot tell where to send his shaft, which is always pointed. He retains all his sarcasm and epigrammatic point, but he s.h.i.+nes now especially at breakfast, where he has his audience to himself.

We went from Mr. Senior's to Mr. Milman's, but nearly all the guests there were departed or departing, though one or two returned with us to the drawing-room to stay the few minutes we did. Among the lingerers we found Sir William and Lady Duff Gordon, the two Warburtons, "Hochelaga" and "Crescent and Cross," and "Eothen."

Mrs. Milman I really love, and we see much of them.

On Sat.u.r.day was the dreaded Drawing-Room, on which occasion I was to be presented to the Queen. . . . Mr. Bancroft and I left home at a quarter past one. On our arrival we pa.s.sed through one or two corridors, lined by attendants with battle-axes and picturesque costumes, looking very much like the supernumeraries on the stage, and were ushered into the ante-room, a large and splendid room, where only the Ministers and Privy Councillors, with their families, are allowed to go with the Diplomatic Corps. Here we found Lady Palmerston, who showed me a list she had got Sir Edward Cust, the master of ceremonies, to make out of the order of precedence of the Diplomatic Corps, and when the turn would come for us who were to be newly presented. The room soon filled up and it was like a pleasant party, only more amusing, as the costumes of both gentlemen and ladies were so splendid. I got a seat in the window with Madam Van de Weyer and saw the Queen's train drive up. At the end of this room are two doors: at the left hand everybody enters the next apartment where the Queen and her suite stand, and after going round the circle, come out at the right-hand door. After those who are privileged to go FIRST into the ANTE-ROOM leave it, the general circle pa.s.s in, and they also go in and out the same doors. But to go back. The left-hand door opens and Sir Edward Cust leads in the Countess Dietrichstein, who is the eldest Amba.s.sadress, as the Countess St. Aulair is in Paris. As she enters she drops her train and the gentlemen ushers open it out like a peac.o.c.k's tail. Then Madam Van de Weyer, who comes next, follows close upon the train of the former, then Baroness Brunnow, the Madam Bunsen, then Madam Lisboa, then Lady Palmerston, who, as the wife of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, is to introduce the Princess Callimachi, Baroness de Beust, and myself. She stations herself by the side of the Queen and names us as we pa.s.s. The Queen spoke to none of us, but gave me a very gracious smile, and when Mr. Bancroft came by, she said: "I am very glad to have had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Bancroft to- day." I was not [at] all frightened and gathered up my train with as much self-possession as if I were alone. I found it very entertaining afterward to watch the reception of the others. The Diplomatic Corps remain through the whole, the ladies standing on the left of the Queen and the gentlemen in the centre, but all others pa.s.s out immediately. . . . On Sunday evening Mr. Bancroft set off for Paris to pa.s.s the Easter recess of Parliament. . . . I got a very interesting letter yesterday from Mr. Bancroft. It seems that the Countess Circourt, whose husband has reviewed his book and Prescott's, is a most charming person, and makes her house one of the most brilliant and attractive in Paris. Since he left, a note came from Mr. Hallam, the contents of which pleased me as they will you. It announced that Mr. Bancroft was chosen an Honorary Member of the Society of Antiquaries, of which Lord Mahon is president, Hallam, vice-president. Hallam says the society is very old and that he is the first citizen of the United States upon whom it has been conferred, but that he will not long possess it exclusively, as his "highly distinguished countryman, Mr. Prescott, has also been proposed."

LETTER: To W.D.B. and A.B.

Tuesday

My dear Sons: . . . On Monday morning came the dear Miss Berrys, to beg me to come that evening to join their circle. They have always the best people in London about them, young as well as old.

The old and the middle-aged are more attended to here than with us, where the young are all in all. As Hayward said to me the other evening, "it takes time to make PEOPLE, like cathedrals," and Mr.

Rogers and Miss Berry could not have been what they are now, forty years ago. A long life of experience in the midst constantly of the highest and most cultivated circles, and with several generations of distinguished men gives what can be acquired in no other way. Mr.