V' . .'^°^ ^o^" :m^' '"^^o^ ?«^^: '^ov* .*'»*.:i;i;!.'^.. ..^\:4.-i!.X J'yJi^r^^ .* ' .'j(\Wa'» "^^^ c-^" v'.i'^aBTik-. - * '^^^'^ '^ ♦^l'* r .'^ •-'*,% ^ «»JL'» ^^o< •^ov* .: . 55°^ V <> *•.»• ,6 /./% I* ..•4«.. *c "^^o^ ,40, ^^^^'^ . • "^^^^' 4:*^ ^J^lf* '^^ \ Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2011 with funding from Tine Library of Congress http://www.arcliive.org/details/ramblessketclies01liead U46 JSAMJBILIIS AMD S3KI^^©IHIISl //JV J. T. HE AD LEY. GARDENS OF THE PALAIS BOYAL. Page 153. N E W - Y O R K : JOHN S. TAYLOR 18=30. ^j^c^^u-rt^r X ^ /^yas held bj the slattern mis- tress, if I had not been caUod to }.mj/ for that esteem. "With all due deference to the good woman, I must say I do not think I got the worth of my money. But soon all was bustle and confusion, as the pas- sengers rushed for the steamboat that lay against the wharf. The tide was fast ebbing, and we must hurry, or the boat would be aground. One would have thought, from the uproar, tluit a seventy-four gun ship had swum into port, and the exact moment of high tide must be seized to get her out, instead of a paltry steamboat, which would not be tolerated on any line between New York and Albany. AVith. this contracted thing, which would have answered to ply on the Hudson between some of the smaller towns, we pushed from the port and stood out to sea. The wind was blowing strongly oft' the shore, and we ex- pected a passage of six or seven hours across the Channel. The shores of France receded, and the little cockle-shell went courtesying over the waves as self-conceited as if she were a gallant ship. Some few fresh-water travelers could not stand even the gentle motion she made going before the wind, and disappeared, one after another, below. I watched the receding shore awhile, and the wliite sails, here and there, that were flocking out to sea, and then sat down near some Englishmen and listened for a while OUT OF PARIS — OVER TO ENGLAND. 115 to their conversation. I soon fell into an agreeable chit-chat with an intelligent and accomplished Irish gentleman, which wore away another hour. During the forenoon I was struck with the different manner an Englishman will assume towards an American and an English stranger. There were two proud and haughty looking men, from Nottingham, as I after- wards learned, who seemed averse to taking part in the conversation. The increased motion of the boat had continued to send the passengers below, till but a few, and those gentlemen, were left on deck. "With nothing to read, and having got thoroughly tired of my own company, I very naturally sought to enlist them in conversation. But, John Bull like, they maintained a stubborn hauteur that nothing seemed able to overthrow. At length, to gratify a mere passing whim, I accidentally let it slip out in a re- mark that I was an American. You. cannot conceive the change that passed over them ; their frozen de- portment became genial at once, and they seemed as anxious to enter into conversation as they were before to avoid it. This sudden transformation puzzle*d me at first, but I was soon able to unriddle it. Taking me for an Englishman, and not knowing what rank I held in English society, they were afraid of putting themselves on too familiar a footing with one below them. Perhaps I was a London tallow chandler or haberdasher, or even tailor, and it was not best to make too free with their dignity ; but, as an Ameri- can, I stood on fair and equal ground. With a repub- lican, one does not commit bimself, for he addresses 116 EAMBLES AND SKETCHES. a man wbxO, if in the lowest, is still in the highest rank. The King of Sweden will invite a charge d'affaires, after he has resigned and become an American citizen, to sit beside the queen at his own table, which he would not allow him to do as a diplo- matic officer of the second rank. One of those Eng- lish gentlemen, before he left me in London, gave me a pressing invitation to visit him at Nottingham — a hospitality as unexpected as it was grateful. But alas for this world of sudden changes ! The wind which had followed in our wake, and sent us swiftly forward, began now to haul around, and finally got directly abeam. The waves were making fast, and the little boat heeled over, as she puffed and blowed along, while the sky became overcast, and dark and ominous. The wind kept constantly moving about from point to point, till at length it got dead ahead, and blew in our very teeth. Acting as if it had now achieved some great feat and fairly out- witted us, it began to blow most furiously, as if to make up for its mildness while creeping stealthily around to head us off. If it had begun a little sooner, it would have driven us back to Dieppe ; but now we were so far across, that by the time the sea was fairly awake, and its waves abroad, we hoped to be under a bold shore. But before the white cliffs of England began to rise over the sea, our little cockle-shell was making wild work in the water. The sea had made fast, and now kept one-half of her constantly drenched. Every wave burst over her forward deck, and the poor deck passengers crowded back to the OUT OF PARIS — OVER TO ENGLAND. IIT farthest limit of their territory, and there, crouching before the fierce sea-blast, took the spray of each spent wave on their shrinking forms. I never saw a boat act so like a fury in my life. She was so small, and the sea was so chopped up, that she bounced about like a mad creature. Now on one side, and now on the other; now rearing up on her stern, shaking the spray from her head, and almost snort- ing in the effort ; and now plunging her forehead into the sea and shiyering like a creature in the ague ; she tumbled, and floundered, and pitched on in such com- plicated movements, that it completely turned my, as I thought, sea-hardened stomach upside down. I had never been very sea-sick in my life, although I had crossed the Atlantic, and sailed almost the length and breadth of the Mediterranean ; but here I was thoroughly so. It was provoking to be so sea-sick on such a strip of water as this, and in a small steam- boat ; but it could not be helped. The frantic boat jerked, and wriggled, and stopped, and started, and plunged, and rolled so abruptly and irregularly, that it made the strongest head turn ; and, months after, I could not recall that drunken gallopade in the waters of the British channel without feeling dizzy. I walked the deck — then sat down — looked off on the distant chalk cliffs that were just visible in the dis- tance, and tried to think it was foolish to be affected by such a small affair. It all would not do, and I at • length rolled myself up in my cloak and flung myself full length on deck, and fairly groaned. But at length Brighton hove in sight, and I stag- 118 KAMBLES AXD SKETCHES. gered up to gladden my eyes once more with the fresh earth and the dwellings of men. As 1 saw the carriages rattling along the streets, and men prome- nading by the sea-shore, I wondered how one could be such a fool as to enter a ship so long as there was a foot of dry land to tread^ upon. To add to the pleasure of my just then not most lucid reflections, the captain told me it would be impossible to land at Brighton, the sea was so high, and we must coast along to Shoreham. "Can't you try it, captain?" I inquired, most beseechingly. He shook his head. The boat was wheeled broadside to land, and began to toil her slow way to Shoreham. Narrowly escaping being driven against the sort of half moles that formed the port, we at length were safe ashore, and the pale, forsaken-looking beings below began to crawl, one after another, upon deck, and looked wistfully towards the green earth. The miserable custom-house esteeming it quite a windfall to have so much unexpected work to do, caused us a great deal of delay and annoyance. The officers felt the consequence " a little brief authority" gives a man, and acted not only like simpletons but villains, taking bribes, and shuffling, and falsifying in a manner that would have made an American custom- house immortal in some Madam Trollope, or Marryat, or Dickens' sketch. I never had my patience so tried, or my indignation so aroused, by any govern- mental meanness on the continent. An Italian policeman exhibits more of the gentleman than did these English custom-house officers. At length I OUT OF PARIS — OVER TO ENGLAND. 119 lost all patience, and bluntly told them I considered the whole of them a pack of cheats, and I would be much obliged to them if thej would give me a gra- duated scale of their system of bribes, that I might publish it for the sake of my friends who would not wish to lose the train for London through ignorance of their peculiar mode of doing business. For my plainness of speech my trunk was overhauled with- out mercy ; and when the officer was satisfied, he commenced tumbling back my things in the most confused manner, on purpose to annoy me. I touched his arm very politely, and told him I would pack my things myself. With a most impudent tone he bade one of the assistants put my trunk on the floor. He stepped forward to do it, when I told him he could not be allowed to touch it, and I was left alone. My English friends by this time had become perfectly furi- ous, and several others getting wind of the trickery that had been practised, there was a general hubbub, amid which the custom-house officers became wonder- fully bland and accommodating, condescending to a world of apologies. We, however, missed that train for London, and sat down to our dinner to wait for the next. It was dark before we approached London, and it was with strange sensations that I looked out through the gloom upon the suburbs of that mighty city. In the deep darkness and fog, the lights past which we fled seemed to come from houses built on high cause- ways, stretching away for miles into the gloom. The mouths of red-hot furnaces would come and go with 120 ' RAMBLES AND SKETCHES; frightful rapidity ; and I could not but think of Dick- ens' description of poor Nelly's wandering at night through the outskirts of London, by the red forges of the workmen. The utter confusion and indistinct- 'ness that comes over one on entering a vast and strange city for the first time, and at night, makes it seem like a world in chaos. He stands blind and be-- wildered, like a lost wanderer in the midst of the pathless forest. London was the first city in Europe I had entered by night, and my inability to catch a single outline, or fix a single feature, produced a feel- ing of restlessness and uncertainty that was really painful. There ^yere long lines of gas-lights before me, between which surged along the mighty mul- titude, while a confused hum and steady jar filled all the air. What a world of human hearts was beat- ing around me, and what a world, too, of joy and suffering they contained ! At home, one may not notice it ; but in a strange city, to stand alone in the midst of a million of people, produces strong and sometimes overwhelming sensations. What a tide of human life was pouring along those streets ; what scenes of sufi'ering and crime that darkness en- veloped ! Could I look into every cellar and gloomy apartment of that vast city that was shaking and roaring around me, what a frightful page I could un- fold ! To Him who sittcth above the 'darkness, and whose eye reacheth not only every dwelling but every heart, what a spectacle does such a city as London exhibit. It was with such thoughts that I rode thi'ough the OUT OF PARIS — OVER TO ENGLAND. 121 streets towards my hotel. As I looked round my snug apartment, and saw something definite on which my eye could rest, I felt as if some mysterious calamity had been evaded, and I could breathe free again. Wearied and excited, I turned to my couch and slept my first night in London. 11 122 EAMBLES AND SKETCHES. CHAPTER VIIL RAMBLES IN LONDON. REV. MK. MELVILLE. — MAECHIONESS OF P. — DUKE 01" f WELLINGTON. — THE QUEEN. The first day in a large, strange city always awakens peculiar feelings, for the mind lias not yet adapted itself to its new home, new associations, and new objects. There is a sense of vagueness, inde- finiteness, as if all landmarks and road-marks were mingled in inextricable confusion. As you pass along and fix, one after another, some striking localities, constituting, as it were, points of observation, gra- dually the chaos begins to assume form and arrange- ment, till at length the endless web of streets lies like a map in the mind. I have always had one rule in visiting large cities on the continent. First, I get a map and study it carefully, fixing, at the outset, some principal street as a centre around which I am to gather all other highways and by-ways. This is a capital plan, for all cities have some one great thoroughfare along which the main stream of life flows. Thus you have the Toledo at Naples, the Corso at Rome, the Bou- levards at Paris, Broadway in New York, &c., &c. RAMBLES IN LONDON. 123 After this is done, I select some day, and purposely lose myself, by constant indefinite wandering in the city. Guided by no definite object, following merely the whim of the moment, I am more apt thus to fall in with new and unexpected things, and see every object with the eye of an impartial observer. But London has three or four thoroughfares of almost equal importance. Its millions of souls must have more than one outlet, and hence a person is easier confused in it than in almost any other large city in the world. There is one thing, however, that helps a stranger amazingly in knowing his where- abouts — the three great streets, Eegent street, Oxford street, and the Strand, all empty themselves Bear Cheapside, and thus fix a centre to the mind. There is one peculiarity in foreign cities, especially on the continent, which always strikes a stranger, and that is tablets, etc., fixed in the houses, indicat- ing some great event, and the time it transpired. Thus, in Florence, there are inscriptions fixing the rise of a great flood ; and in the pavement near the Duomo, one which informs the stranger, that Dante used to come and sit there of an evening, and look on the splendid cathedral, as the glorious sunbeams fell upon it. In another direction, you are informed that Corinna inhabited the house before you; and by the Arno, that a man there once boldly leaped into the water and saved a female. So in walking along Aldersgate street, London, I saw a tablet fixed in the walls of a house, stating that there a bloody murder was committed, and warning all good people 124 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. against the crime. Sauntering along, I came to Smithfield, famous for the martyrdom of Rogers and his family ; but I never was so bothered to get up any feeling or sympathy about an interesting locality in my life ; for there before me, in the open space, were countless sheep-pens, composed each of some half a dozen bars, while the incessant bleating of the poor animals within made a perfect chaos of sound. Smith- field is now a sheep market^ in the heart of London — thus changes the world about us — and the old Roman Forum is a cow market. There is nothing I have regretted so much in tra- veling as carelessness in providing myself with letters of introduction ; the most essential of all things, if you wish to know men ; though utterly worthless, if you are anxious only to see things. I do not know that I should have taken a single one to London, had not a friend put it into my head, by offering me a couple, one to Thomas Campbell, and another to William Beattie. These, however, were quite enough for one who wished only to see the literary men of London, for it is one of the excellent traits of an English gentleman that he takes pleasure in intro- ducing you to his friends, and thus you are handed over from one to another, till the circle is complete. But I was unfortunate, for I found neither of these gentlemen in London. A day or two after my ar- rival, I drove down to the residence of the latter, in Park Square, Regent's Park, and was told by the servant that Mr. B. was in Dover. Leaving a little present for him, with which I had been intrusted by EAMBLES IN LONDON. 125 one of his friends, I returned to mj lodgings some- what disappointed. A few days after, I received a letter from Mr. Beattie, saying that he regretted ex- ceedingly that his absence from London prevented him from seeing me, and adding the unpleasant infor- mation that Campbell had just left him for France. This dished all my prospects in that quarter, and I set about amusing myself as I best could, now wandering through Hyde Park at evening, strolling up the Strand, or visiting monuments and works of art. On the Sabbath, I concluded to go to Camberwell, and hear the celebrated Mr. Melville preach. I had read his sermons in America, and been struck with their fervid, glowing eloquence, and hence was ex- ceedingly anxious to hear him. Camberwell, which, though a part of London, is three miles from St. Paul's, resembles more some large and beautiful vil- lage than the fragment of a city. I had been told that it was difficult to get entrace into the church, as crowds thronged to hear him ; and as I entered the humble, unpretending building, packed clear out into the portico, I could not but wonder why he should not choose some more extensive field of labor. By urging my way to the door, and consenting to stand during the whole service, I succeeded in getting both a good view and good hearing. As he rose in the pulpit, his appearance gave no indication of the rousing, thrilling orator I knew him to be, unless it was the expression about the eye. There was that peculiar lifting to the brow, a sort of openness and airiness about the upper part of the face, which be- ll* 126 KAMBLES AND SKETCHES. longs more or less to all your ardent, enthusiastic characters. No man who has a soul with wings to it, on which it now and then mounts upward with a stroke that- carries the eye of the beholder in rapture after it, is without some feature which is capable of lighting up into intense brilhancy. Mr. Melville looks to be about forty-five. His full head of hair, which lies in tufts around his forehead, is slightly turned with gray, while his voice, without being very powerful, is full and rich. His text em- braced those verses which describe the resurrection of Lazarus. The topic promised something rich and striking, and I was expecting a display of his impas- sioned eloquence, but was disappointed. He had divided the subject into two sermons, and the first, which I was to hear, was a train of reasoning. He commenced by taking the infidel side of the question, and argued through the first half of his sermon as I never heard a skeptic reason. He took the ground that the miracle was wholly improbable, from tFe fact that but one of the evangelists had mentioned it. Here was one of the most important mii-acles Christ ever performed — one which, if well established, would authenticate his claim and mission beyond a doubt, and yet but one single evangelist makes mention of it. All the other miracles were open to some criticism. The son of the widow of Nain might have been in a trance, or the functions of life suddenly suspended, as is often witnessed, and the presence and voice of Christ been the occasion only, not the cause, of his awaking at that particular time. As for healing the RAMBLES IN LONDON. 127 sick, that had been done by others, and there were many instances on record where the excited action of the mind in a new channel had produced great bodily effects. But here was a case in which none of these suppositions could be of any weight. Lazarus had lain in his grave four days, and decomposition had already commenced. All the friends knew it, for they had been present at the funeral. They had not only closed his eyes, but laid him in his grave, and placed a huge stone upon it. Shut out from the light and air of heaven, his body had begun to return to its mother earth. In this state of things Christ ar- rives, and going mournfully to the tomb of his friend, calls him from his sleep of death. The dead man moves in his grave-clothes, arises, and comes forth ! Now, in the first place, was it likely that so wonder- ful an occurrence as this should have escaped the knowledge of the disciples, or if known, would have been omitted in their biographies of him ? Did not the unbroken silence of all these writers argue against the occurrence of the miracle ? These disciples men- tion with great minuteness many acts of the Saviour apparently of less importance, and yet this wondrous miracle is unaccountably left out. Mr. Melville went on in this way, bringing forward argument after ar- gument, and applying them with such power and force, that I really began to tremble. That his views were correct, I had no doubt ; but I feared he was not aware of the strong light in which he was putting the case, nor of the impression he was making on his hearers. I knew he designed to meet and overthrow 128 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. this tremendous array of argument, which no infidel could have used with such consummate ability ; but I doubted whether the audience would feel the force of his after reasoning, as they evidently had of his for- mer. To his mind, the logic might be both clear and convincing, but not to the hearer. But I was mis- taken. The giants he had reared around his subject became men of mist before him. They went down, one after another, under his stroke, with such rapidity, that the heart became relieved, as if a burden had been suddenly removed. He denied, in the first place, that there was any thing so peculiar about the miracle as the whole argument of the infidel assumed. He adduced several other miracles giving more convincing proof of Christ's divinity than it — furnishing less grounds for cavil ; and then w^ent on to show that this very omission proved, if not that miracle, the truth of the statements of the evangelists, and their perfect freedom from all collusion, and thus in the end proved the miracle itself. His argument and illustration were both beautiful, and I was very sorry when he was through. I should like to have heard the other part of the subject, when he came to speak, with the faith and love of the believer, of that thrilling scene. I have no doubt it gave occasion to one of his finest efforts, and around that grave he poured light so intense and dazzling, that the hearer became a spectator, and emotion took the place of reason. Mr. Melville is the younger son of a nobleman, and exhibits in his manner and bearing something of the hauteur so pe- RAMBLES IN LONDON. 129 culiar to the English aristocracy. He, however, does not seem to be an ambitious man, or he would not stay in this village-like church in the suburbs of the city. His health may have something to do with it ; but I imagine the half rural aspect and quiet air of Camberwell suit him better than the turmoil, and tumult, and feverish existence of a more metropolitan life. It is quite a long step from this to Hyde Park, and the scene that presents itself is quite different from that of a house of worship. It is a week day, and through this immense park are driving in all direc- tions the gay and luxurious nobility of England. About five o'clock in the evening the throng is the thickest, and along every winding road that intersects these magnificent grounds are passing splendid car- riages, or elegant delicate structures of the wealthy and noble, making the whole scene a moving pano- rama. Here English ladies show their skill with the whip, and drive their high-spirited horses with the rapidity and safety of a New York omnibus driver. Look, there goes a beautiful, light, graceful thing, drawn by two cream-colored ponies, or rather very small horses, with silver manes and tails. Of fault- less form, they tread daintily along, while behind, on two other ponies of the same size and color precisely, are mounted two outriders, who dog that light vehicle as if it were death to lose sight of it. The only occupant of that carriage is a lady, fat and hand- some, with auburn hair, blue eyes, and a full, open face, who, with the reins in one hand, and the whip 130 ^ RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. in the other, is thus taking her airing. As she passes me, a long stretch of road is before her, and with a slight touch the graceful team spring away, while the fair driver, leanly gently forward, with a tight rein guides them in their rapid course. Those two out- riders have hard work to keep up with the carriage of their mistress as it flies onward. That lady is the Marchioness of P., a noted beauty. I give this simply as a specimen of the manner in which the ladies -of the English nobility amuse them- selves. It is no small accomplishment to be a good whip, and the lady who can manage a spirited team is prouder of her achievement than if she performed a thousand domestic duties. What a singular thing custom is ! I have seen women in our frontier settle- ments going to the mill, and driving both horses and oxen with admirable skill, nay, pitching, and loading grain. The Dutch gii'ls in Pennsylvania will rake and bind equal to any man, and many of our western females perform masculine duties with the greatest success ; but we have not generally regarded these things as accomplishments. It makes a great dijBfer- ence, however, whether it is done from necessity or from choice. It is singular to see how our refinement and luxury always tend to the rougher state of so- ciety, and not unfrequently to that bordering, in many respects, on savage life. Gladiatorial shows, bull-fights, &c., spring out from the weariness and ennui of a refined, lazy, volujDtuous life. The want of excitement produces these spectacles ; for when men become insensible to the more refined pleasures, RAMBLES m LONDON. 131 from their long gratification, they seek the stimula- tion of grosser ones. Exhausted luxury must ter- minate in brutal debasement or brutal ferocity, and just in proportion as the senses are gratified does man seek for the stronger stimulants, which are found in that state of society bordering nearest on animal life. This luxury produces the opposite of true re- finement, say what those will who rule in the high places of fashion. But I will speak of Hyde Park again, and will just step across to St. James's Park, which is laid out with an eye as much to taste as to convenience. A little lake slumbers in the centre, on which ducks are quietly sailing, and green and beautiful trees are shaking their freshness down on the dreamy groups that are ' strolling about, while palaces on every side shut in with their gorgeous fronts the large and de- lightful area. I was sauntering along, musing as I went, when a single horseman came on a plunging trot towards me. It needed no second look to tell me it was the "iron duke." That face, seen in every print-shop in London, with its hooked nose, thin, spare features, and peculiar expression, is never mis- taken by the most indifi"erent observer. He had on a gray tweed overcoat, which cost him probably five or six dollars, and his appearance, manner and all, was that of a common gentleman. He is an ungraceful rider, notwithstanding so much of his life has been passed on horseback, and in the field; but I must confess that the kind of exercise he has been sub- jected to in that department was not the most favor- 132 KAMBLES AND SKETCHES. able to elegance of attitude in the saddle. His long and wearisome campaigns and fierce battles have de- /o manded endurance and toil, and though his seat is not that of a riding-master, he has nevertheless ridden to some purpose in his life: As I turned and watched his receding form, I could not but think of the stormy scenes he had passed through, and the wild tumult amid which he had urged his steed. There are Albuera, Badajos, Salamanca, St. Sebastian, and last of all, Waterloo, about as savage scenes as one would care to recall. Where death reaped down the brave fastest, and the most horrid carnage covered the field ; ^ amid the smoke and thunder of a thousand cannon, and the fearful shocks of cavalry, he has ridden as calmly as I see him now moving away into yonder avenue of trees. The Duke has a house near by, in a most dilapi- dated state, which he, with his accustomed obstinacy, steadily refuses to repair. The mob in their fury thus defaced it, and he is determined it shall stand as a monument of lawless violence. His great influence in the administration of the government, has made him the object of marked hatred to that whole class of men who are starving for want of workj and yet have sense enough to know who are their oppressors. Once he came near being trodden under foot by them. They pressed fiercely upon his steps as he rode along the street, and were just about to drag him from his horse, when a cartman drove his cart right behind him, and kept it steadily there, notwithstanding every efi'ort to push the bold follow aside. His devotion RAMBLES IN LONDON. 138 saved the Duke, and the latter was so grateful for it, that he made every effort afterwards to discover his name, for the purpose of rewarding him, but never did. Soon after, I came to Buckingham Palace, the royal residence, and seeing a crowd at the main en- trance, I asked a sentinel on guard what it meant. He replied that the Queen was every moment ex- pected. This was a sight worth stopping to see, so I fell into the ranks that were arranged on each side of the gate. I had not waited long before several outriders came up on a full gallop, and the ponderous gate swung back on its hinges as if touched by an enchanter's wand, while those horseman reined up on either side, and stood as if suddenly turned into statues. Soon an open carriage, drawn by six horses, came up with a rapid sweep, followed by several men in gold lace on horseback. There was quite a move- ment at the sight of this cortege, yet there was noth- ing particularly imposing in it. The top of the car- riage had been thrown back, giving it the appearance of a barouche, and within sat two ladies and two gen- tlemen, looking for all the world like any other well= dressed people ; yet one of those ladies was the Queen of England, and one of those gentlemen was Prince Albert. The Queen had on a straw hat and a light shawl, and with her very plain face, full and unplea- sant eye, retreating chin, and somewhat cross expres- sion in her look, seemed any thing but an interesting woman. The portraits of her have as little of her features in them as they well could ; for Victoria, as 12 134 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. Queen of England, is a very plain woman, while Vic- toria, a milliner, would be called somewhat ugly. The royal cortege swept* into the coui't, the gates swung back on their hinges, and the blessed vision had departed. The Queen, however, had deigned to bow to me — that is, to us, some fifty or a hundred — and I tui-ned away to my hotel wondering when the farce of queens would end. Here is one of the most powerful empires in the world, sustained by the most powerful intellects it possesses, with a mere stick, a puppet moved by wires, placed over it. A young woman who probably could not manage an ordinary school well, is presented with the reins of govern- ment, because the registry says that her great-grand- father's uncle, or some similar relative, once wore a crown legitimately. So hoary-headed statesmen, the proud, the great, and the wealthy, come and bow the knee, and hail her sovereign who they know really exercises no more sway than a wooden image placed in her stead, with a little royal blood dropped into its mouth by way of consecrating it. This putting up the mere symbol of royalty, and then bowing with such solemn mockery before it, will yet appear as ludicrous as the worship of the Grand Lama, when an infant six months old, by the people of Thibet. RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 135 CHAPTER IX. RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. THE THAMES. — HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. — SIR ROBERT PEEL, LORD LYNDHURST, AND LORD BROUGHAM. — WESTMINSTER ABBEY. I FREQUENTLY stroUed through the streets of Lon- don to the Thames ; for I loved to stand on one of the many noble bridges that span it, and gaze on the graceful arches of the others, and watch the throng of little steamboats that flew about on every side in the most funny manner imaginable, as if worried to death in the effort to keep the multitudinous craft around and the busy wharves in order. They shot and darted hither and thither — now bowing their long pipes to pass under an arch, and now emerging into view, flying along the stream as if possessed with the power of will. And then their names were so pretty— ''Daylight," "Starlight," "Moonlight," " Sunbeam," etc., etc., just fitted for such wee bits of things. This world-renowned Thames is a small affair, and bears about the same proportion to our noble Hudson as our Croton aqueduct does to it. No wonder that an Englishman, born and bred in London, and taught to consider the Thames as a very fine 186 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. river, sliould regard the accounts of our majestic streams with incredulity. An American standing beside the Thames one day with an Englishman, took occasion to speak of the Missouri, a mere tributary of the Mississippi, and in order to convey some defi- nite idea of its size, told how many of the Thames it would hold. When he had finished, the Englishman simply gave a long whistle and turned on his heel, as much as to say, " You don't suppose I'm such a fool as to believe that !" This, by the way, is a fair illus- tration of the manner we this side of the water get wrong impressions of foreign nations from English- men. It must be remembered that an Englishman never looks on any country in the abstract, or by itself, but always in comparison with his own. Eng- land is the standard by which to judge of the size, and state, and degree of civilization of all other countries on the globe. Thus we have heard a thou- sand changes rung on the clear sky of Italy, till every traveler looks up, the moment he touches the Italian coast, to see the aspect of the heavens. He finds them blue and beautiful enough, and immediately goes into ecstasies; when the fact is, the sky that has bent over him from his infancy is as clear and bright an arch as spans any land the sun shines upon. There is a softness in the Italian sky not found in the United States, but no clearness equal to ours. The English, accustomed to everlasting mists, are struck with astonishment at the pure air of Italy, and utter endless exclamations upon it. This is natural, for a Londoner considers a perfectly bright RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 13T and clear day at home as a sort of phenomenon, not expected to occur except at long intervals. The at- mosphere of London is a perpetual fog ; the pleasant days are when this fog is thin and light, and the cloudy days when it soaks you to the skin. As you get up morning after morning and see this jnoveless mist about you, you wish for one of those brisk north- westers that come sweeping down the Hudson, chasing all vapors fiercely out to sea. But let me take a peep at the two houses of Parlia- ment. Our minister, Mr. Everett, has sent me his card with his ambassadorial seal upon it, which gives me the entree to the House of Lords ; while Mr. Macaulay has kindly given me access to the House of Commons. I visited the latter more frequently than the former, for there is always more life in the representation of the people than in that of a mere shadow, nobility. A very fine building for the sessions of Parliament is going up, but the rooms in which the two houses now meet are very ordinary afiairs. The chamber of the House of Commons looks more like one of our mongrel churches — met with in some country places — half church, half school-house, than any thing I can think of. Some of the members are compelled to sit in the gallery, while the seats are of the most common kind. One is struck on approach- ing the House of Commons in seeing so many saddle- horses held by servants, as if^a squadron of troopers had just dismounted ; but on entering, the mystery is dispelled ; for there sit the owners, some with hats on, others with their feet on the backs of benches before 12* 188 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. them, with their riding-whips in their hands. The younger members of Parliament regard the sittings of the House a bore, and come in only now and then and stay a short time, for the sake of propriety ; then mount their horses and away. I heard Robert Peel speak here one evening, in reply to young O'Connell, nephew of Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell, a short, thick-set man, was full of fire and ardor, like his race, and dealt his blows on the right hand and on the left with downright good-will, if not always with the greatest skill. Peel's whole manner and reply were characteristic of the well-bred Englishman. He was carefully dressed, and his entire speech was marked by that urbanity and good sense which usually distinguish him. He had on light-colored pantaloons, a light vest, and brown coat ; and, with his full fresh face, looked the perfect picture of health and good living. Probably there is not a man in England that does more thinking and down- right hard work than he, and yet his appearance indicates one who lives a life of ease and comfort, sets a fine table, and enjoys a good glass of wine. How, amid the harassing cares of his station, and the incessant toil to which he is subject, he manages to retain that florid complexion, full habit, and bland expression, I cannot divine. I believe it is a mere physical habit, that is, the expression of his face; but still that does not explain how he is able to keep in sucli good bodily condition. There is much com- plaint of the rude manners of our representatiijes in Congress ; and they are an unruly, rough set of men RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 139 as one would wish to see in any legislative hall ; but the members of England's House of Commons are quite as uncouth and ill-bred in their behavior. The House of Lords, like the Senate, has more dignity, but the room in which it sits is inferior even to that of the Lower House. It would make a re- spectable session room for some church, and nothing more. Lord Lyndhurst was on the woolsack when I went in, and, with his immense powdered wig and gown, looked comical enough to. my republican eyes. I could hardly divest myself of the impression that I was looking on some old picture, till he opened his mouth to speak. This same Lord Lyndhurst, Lord High Chancellor of England, was once a poor boy in the streets of Boston. His father was a painter in the city, but managed to give his son a good educa- tion ; and industry and genius did the rest. A law- yer in England, he went up, step after step, till he finally found himself on the '•'■ woolsack^'' which, by the way, is simply a huge red cushion somewhere near the centre of the House of Lords. I had also a fair look at Lord Brougham, whose face indicates any thing but greatness. But with all his genius, he bids fair to make a wreck of himself. His misfor- tunes or own evil nature have made him a dissipated man ; and there are stories told of him in London which would disgrace a member of the Empire Club of New York. It is stupid, sitting in the House of Lords when no exciting topic is on the .tapis, for it is simply a dull routine* of business. 140 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. Westminster Abbey is close by, and let us step up into it a moment, and walk amid the tombs of the mighty dead. This old structure has stood the wear and tear of centuries, witnessed the rise and fall of kingdoms, and seen changes that have altered the face of the world. Yet still it stands in its ancient strength, the sepulchre of England's kings, and poets, and historians, and warriors. Its exterior would ar- rest the eye as a fine specimen of architecture. It is built in the form of a cross, four hundred and sixteen feet in length, and nearly two hundred feet in breath. Two noble towers rise from the west end, and are two hundred and twenty feet high. But the interest is all within. The choir occupies the centre of the building, and hence destroys the effect of the nave, and indeed lessen to the eye the magnitude of the building. All around the sides are small chapels, in which lie kings and queens in great abundance, each surmounted by monuments characteristic of the age in Avhich he or she lived. Here lies an old Saxon king, and near by sleeps Henry Y. The chapel of Henry YII. is the greatest curiosity in the Abbey, being built itself in the form of a cathedral, Avith nave and side aisles, and is adorned with Gothic towers, while the ceiling is wrought into a variety of designs, and all from the solid stone. Two heavy brass gates open into it, and one feels, as he stands amid its strange architecture, as if he were in the presence of the ancient centuries. But let us stroll around this old Abbey, whose at- mosphere is so different from that of the busy world RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 141 without. It is all tombs, tombs, tombs — standing silent and mournful in tbe "dim religious light;" and one treads at every step on the ashes of greatness and pride. Here is a monument to Shakspeare, and there lies Milton, the poet of heaven, whose Ijre rang with strains that had never before fallen on mortal ears. Underneath him sleeps Grray, and on the tablet above him stands the Muse, pointing to the bust of Milton, with this inscription : — " No more the Grecian mu'se unrivaled reigns. . To Britian let the nations homage pay ; She felt a Homer's power in Milton's strains, A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray." Near by is Dry den's monument, and a little farther away that of Chaucer and Spenser. Here, too, are Thomson— sweet poet of the Seasons — and Addison, and Butler, the author of "Hudibras." But what a contrast do the monuments of John Gay and Handel exhibit ! On the former, is the epitaph written by himself, for himself : — " Life is a jest, and all things show it ; I thought so once, and now I know it." Before the figure of the other is placed the " Mes- siah," opened at the passage " I know that my Re- deemer liveth." Can any thing illustrate more forcibly the difference between the views of the wicked man and those of the Christian — one saying, even in his grave, "Life is a jest, and now I know it;" and the other uttering in exulting accents, " I know that my 142 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. Redeemer liveth?" With what different hope and feelings, must two men of whom one can utter these sentiments in sincerity, go 'out of the world ! Which is most likely to have his knowledge prove false ? A little further on is a monimient to Andre, the spy, and Garrick, the actor. Here, too, are sleeping, side by side, Pitt and Fox, rivals no more ; and here also are Grattan, and Canning, and Sheridan, and more than all, Isaac Newton. But step once more into this side chapel. There are sleeping, almost within reach of each other, Mary and Elizabeth. The beautiful but erring queen of the Scots, rests in her mouldering tomb as quietly as her proud and success- ful rival. The haughty Elizabeth sent her to the scaffold, and held her proud sceptre in security, and vainly thought that her reputation was secure. Years rolled by, and she, too, was compelled to lie down in death. A nation mourned her departui*e — princes and nobles followed her to the tomb, and there were all the pageantry and pomp of a kingly funeral when she was borne to her resting-place. Centuries have passed away, and history has drawn the curtain from before her throne ; and now pilgrims come from every land to visit her tomb and that of her rival. Ah, could she listen" to the words spoken over her grave, hear the sighs breathed over the beautiful Mary, and the scorn and contempt poured on her own queenly head, she would learn that the act by which she thought to have humbled her rival, has covered her own head with infamy. The two queens sleep side by side ; but who thinks of Elizabeth over the tomb RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 143 of Mary but to scorn her ? Had she let her rival live, her errors would have ruined her fame ; but now the mournful and cruel fate to which she fell a victim covers her faults, and fills the heart with sympathy rather than condemnation. Oh ! what a contrast the interior of this old Abbey presents to the world without ! London, great, busy, tumultuous London, is shaking to the tread of her million of people, while here all is sad, mournful, and silent. The waves of human life surge up against the walls, but cannot enter; the dead reign here. From the throne, the halls of state, and the heights of fame, men have come hither in their coffins, and disappeared from the world they helped to change^ As one stands beneath these old arches, it seems as if a monarch whose word was fate, had sat enthroned here century after century, and slowly beckoned to the great to descend from their eminences, and lay their proud foreheads in the dust at his feet. Overlooking all the common herd, he would have none but the lordly as his victims. He beckons the king, and he lays aside his sceptre and royal apparel, and with a mournful countenance obeys, and descends into the tomb. He waves his imperial hand to the statesman whose single intellect rules- the nation, and he ceases his toil, and lies down beside his monarch. He nods to the orator, and his eloquence dies away in indis- tinct murmurs, and with a palsied tongue, he too, yields to the irresistible decreS. The poet is stopped in the midst of his song, and with lyre snapped in his hand, hastens to this great charnel-house. Thus, 144 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. century after century, has this invisible being stood under the gloomy arches of Westminster Abbey, and called the great and the kingly to him ; and lo ! what a rich harvest lies at his feet 1 and still he is calling, and still they come, one after another, and the mar- ble falls over them. What a congregation of dead are here ! Some of the noblest hearts that ever beat are mouldering under my feet, and I tread over more greatness than ever did the haughtiest tread upon when alive. After wandering for an hour in this sombre place, I emerged into the daylight once more, with strange feelings. For a moment, I could not shake off the belief I had been dreaming. I had lived so com- pletely with the past, that the present had been for- gotten ; and now, as it came back again, it seemed that one or the other must be a dream. Carriages were rattling around, and the hasty multitude went pouting on, and the jar and hum of London went up like the confused noise from some great battle-field. The tide of human life rolled fiercely on, shaking the gray Abbey on its ancient foundations ; but none of it reached the ears of the mighty sleepers within. Theii^ work was long since done. I do not remember ever to have had such feelings but once in my life before, and that v^as in emerging from the tombs of the ScipioSj_near Rome. The sun was just sinking in the west as I entered the gloomy portals by torch- light, and roamed through the damp and sombre apartments. As I saw the names of those anciient Romans above the place where they had reposed, time RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 145 seemed suddenly to have been annihilated, and I felt as if standing in the burial-ground of those who had but just died. The familiarity of the scene made it appear real, and when I again stood at the mouth of the tomb and looked off on the landscape, it was some time before I could fairly recall my scattered senses. The fields appeared strange, and the glorious light that glowed where the sun had gone doYfn, looked mysterious and new. With my heart full of mournful reflections on the fleeting nature of all human greatness, and with a deeper awe of the tomb that crowds such great souls into its portals, I strolled homeward, scarce mindful of the throng through which I passed, and noticing it only to sigh over its evanescence, still sweeping on to the dark inane, wave after wave striking on the un- seen shore of the future, but sending back no echo. Flowing ever onward, and no returning wave. "We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a slee^" 13 146 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. CHAPTER X. RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. STARVING CHILDREN. — LONDON BRIDGES. — MADAME TUSSAUD'S EXHIBITION. — BONAPARTE' S CARRIAGE. WINDSOR CASTLE. — THE QUEEN'S STABLES. I WAS constantly meeting in London evidences of tlie miserable condition of the poor. Though there is a law forbidding street begging, it cannot prevent the poor wretches from asking for bread. I was struck with the character of many of the beggars that accosted me, so unlike those I had been accustomed to meet. I had just come from Italy, where the whining tone, pitiful look, and drawling " me misera- bile !" "fame!" ''per carita !" and the ostentatious display of deformed limbs, had rendered me somewhat hardened to all such appeals. But here it was quite different. Men of stout frames, upright bearing, and manly voices, woul\cj\ One of the most peculiar things that strikes the eye ^^^ of the beholder when looking on Buckingham Palace, ^^ t is a huge bronze lion standing on the top, with head . , (.^e* and tail erect. The rampant attitude, as it is pre- sented in such strong relief against the sky, has a singular efiect. It is quite characteristic, however, of the nation it represents, for rampant enough it has been, as the history of the world will testify. France, Spain, the East, America, and the islands of the sea, can all bear testimony to the appropriateness of the symbol. This Anglo-Saxon race is strangely aggres- sive ; no people, except the ancient Romans, ever equaled them. Without being cruel, their thirst for conquest and desire of territory are insatiable. This evil trait has not disappeared in the children, but exhibits itself just as strongly on our side of the water, and under a republican form of government. One of the curiosities of London was Madame Tussaud's exhibition of wax figures. She has nearly all the distinguished characters of the present age, as large as life, and executed with remarkable fidelity. Robbers, murderers, &c., figure in this strange collec- tion. As I was strolling around, I came upon Cob- bett, in his plain, Quaker-like garb, without noticing him. As I cast my eye down, I saw a man with a gray coat and a white hat sitting with a snufi'-box in his hand, his head gently nodding, as if in approval of something he saw ; and it never occurred to m.e he was not a live man, and I passed him a step without 152 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. suspecting I was giving a wax figure sucti a Tvide berth. Among other things, was a corpse of some woman, I forget who, the most Jiiouan k'>oking thing I ever saw not made of flesh and blood. In an ad- joining apartment were several relics of Bonaparte, among otliers, two of his teeth and his traveling car- riage. This carriage Napoleon had made on purpose for himself and Berthier, and was used by him during all his later campaigns. It was divided into two compartments, one for himself and one for his chief of the stafl\ Napoleon had it so arranged that he could lie down and sleep when weary, or when tra- veling all night, with a little secretary, which he could by a touch, spread open before him, and seve- ral drawers for his dispatches and papers of all kinds. He had also made arrangements for a traveling library, which he designed to fill with small editions of the most select books in the world. I could not but think, as I sat in it, what vast plans had been formed in its narrow apartments — plans changing the fate of the world, and what mental agitation and sufiering it had also witnessed. As it was whii'led onward along the road, the restless spirit within dis- posed of crowns and thrones, changed dynasties, and made the earth tremble. From thence issued decrees that sent half a million of men into the field of battle, and from thence, too, terms have been dictated to humbled kings. Another of the exhibitions in this same building was '*■ artijieial /tv," a curious thing, by the way, to manufacture. Windsor Castle is some twelve or fifteen miles from RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 153 London, and of course is visited by every traveler. It was a pleasant morning — that is, as pleasant as it ever is in London — v^hen I jumped into the cars of the great western railway, and shot off towards Wind- sor. I roamed over this magnificent castle with feel- ings very different from those I had experienced as I mused amid the ruins of feudal times on the continent Here was an old castle, yet perfect in all its parts, enjoying a fresh old age, and blending the present with the past, just enough to mellow the one and give life to the other. William the Conqueror laid the foundation of this structure when he built a fortress here, and the kings of England have, from time to time, enlarged and repaired it, till it now stands one oT the finest castles in the world. The Queen being at Buckingham Palace, visitors were allowed to pass through it without trouble. I am not going to de- scribe it ; but there it stands on that eminence, with its gray turrets, and round towers and walls, and stern aspect, as haughty and imposing an object as you could wish to look upon. There are no jousts and tournaments to-day in its courts — no floating banners that tell of knights gathered for battle ; but the sentinel is quietly pacing up and down, and here and there a soldier informs you that you are in the precincts of royalty. I will not speak of the ante- room, vestibule, throne room, with their paintings both in fresco and on canvass ; nor of the Waterloo chamber, where William IV. gave dinners in honor of the battle of Waterloo ; nor of St. George's Hall, two hundred feet long ; nor of the Queen's presence 154 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. and audience chamber ; nor of the choice paintings that cover the walls of these apartments. One must see them, to appreciate their effect on the mind. But you may, if strong of limb, wind up and up the stone staircase of the Round tower, and look off on the extended landscape. The mist is not thick to-day, and the parks and trees, nay, forests, below, shaven lawns, pools, and lakes, are scattered about in endless variety. Twelve shii-es are visible from the summit of this tower, and the limitless landscape melts away in the distance, for there are no mountains to bound the vision. Windsor town is below, and a little far- ther away the white walls of Eton College rise amid the green foliage. Descending from the tower, I left the castle and entered St. George's Chapel. The architecture of this building is fine. The roof is richly carved, and the western window is a magnificent specimen of stained glass. But one of the most singular things to an American eye is the stalls of the knights of the garter, on each side of the choir. As all the knights of this order have been installed here, each one of course has his stall appropriated to him, and there, beneath a carved canopy, hangs his sword, mantle, crest, helmet, and mouldering banner. I looked upon these silent symbols, covered with dust, with strange and blended feelings. Noble names are in that list of knights ; but where is the strong arm and stalwart frame ? Gone, leaving but these perish- ing symbols behind. Their effect on the mind is like that of an elegy on the dead — a world of mournful RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 155 associations cluster around them, and their motionless aspect and unbroken silence are more eloquent than words. There is a beautiful cenatoph here of the Princess Charlotte, erected bj Wyatt. The body of the Princess is lying on a bier, covered with the habili- ments of death, while the face, too, is shrouded in drapery. Around her, with faces also veiled, kneel the mourners, while the soul of the Princess, in the form of an angelic being, is soaring exultingly home- wards. As a group of statuary, it has great merits as well as some great defects. I turned from old Windsor Castle and its feudal associations, from St. George's Chapel and its solemn and sombre choir, to the Queen's stables. A special permit is required to get access to these ; but as I had seen how Victoria and her nobles lived, I was curious to see also how her horses fared. I do not know how many there were in the stables, but I should think thirty or forty. Here were beautiful carriage horses, saddle horses, and ponies, lodged in apartments that tens of thousands of her subjects would thank God if they could occupy. Thus goes the world. Parliament could reject a bill which appro- priated a small sum of money to the purposes of edu- cation, and yet vote thirty- thousand dollars to re- plenish and repair the Queen's stables. Here, too, are carriages of every variety, from the delicate, fairy-like thing which is drawn by ponies, to the heavy traveling carriage ; and bridles and sadilles of the choicest kind. I could not but think, as I looked on these fine apartments for the horses, and the use- 156 EAMBLES AND SKETCHES. less expenditm-e in carriages, &c., of the starving population of London and the thousands of poor children in the factories. What kind of government is that which will tax the wretched human being, nay, deprive him of education, to lavish the money on horses and stables ? The English government is well fitted for national strength and greatness, but most miserably arranged to secure competence to the lower classes. However, she is slowly changing be- fore that mighty movement that no power can resist — the onward progress of the principle of freedom. One of these days, these now apparently sluggish and wretched masses will rise in their strength and terror, and by one terrible blow settle the long arrears of guilt with the luxurious, profligate nobility of Eng- land, and begin to reap the fields they have so long sown. Woe to her when that day shall come ! BAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 157 CHAPTER XL RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. THE TOWER OF LONDON. It is said that Webster had scarcely arrived in London, before he ordered a carriage, and drove to the Tower. There is probably no building in the world so fraught with history, and around which cluster so many and varied associations as this. — - Kings have held their courts there ; and there, too, lain in chains. Queens, princes, nobles, and menials have by turns occupied its gloomy dungeons. .The shout of revelry, triumphant strains of music, and groans of the dying, and shrieks of murdered victims, have successively and together made its massive walls ring. Every stone in that gray old structure has a history to tell— it stands the grand and gloomy trea- sure-house of England's feudal and military glory. Centuries have come and gone, whole dynasties dis- appeared, and yet that old tower still rises in its strength. It has -seen old monarchies crumble to pieces, and new ones rise — the feeble town become the gorgeous and far extending city — the Roman galley give place to the - fleets of commerce — the heavy-armed knight, with his hauberk, and helmet, 14 158 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. and shield, disappear before the cabman and omnibus driver of London. The pomp and glorj of knightly days have vanished before the spirit of trade and the thirst for gain. The living tide rolls like the sea around it ; yet there it stands, silent yet eloquent — unwasted by time, unchanged by the changes that destroy or modify all things human. It has a double effect, standing as it does amid modern improve- ments. The moment one crosses the ditch and passes un- der the gloomy arch, he seems in another world — breathing a different atmosphere, and watching the l^rogress of a different life. All the armor ever worn in ancient days — every instrument of torture or of death, used in the dark ages — crowns and sceptres and jewels, are gathered here with a prodigality that astonishes the beholder. We enter by the "Lyons' Gate," and crossing what was once occupied as the royal menagerie, pass to the Middle Tower, near which is the Bell Tower, where hangs the alarm-bell, whose toll is seldom heard. Here, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was im- prisoned for refusing to acknowledge the supremacy of Henry VIII., and afterwards executed. A little farther on is the " Traitor's Gate," and near by, the Bloody Tower, where, it is said, the two princes — nephews of Richard III. — were suffocated by their uncle. The armory is mostly gone, having been de- stroyed in the conflagration which took place a few years ago. But here is the Horse Armory, a hun- RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 159 dred and fifty feet long, and thirty-three wide, with a line of equestrian figures, as if in battle array, stretching through the centre. A banner is over the head of each — the ceiling is covered with arms and accoutrements — the walls with armor and figures of ancient warriors ; and over all rest the dust and rust of time. That row of twenty-two horsemen, large as life, armed to the teeth, with helmet and cuirass and breastplate and coats of mail, and lances and swords and battle-axes and shields, sitting grim and silent there, is a sight one will not easily forget. They seem ready to charge on the foe, and their atti- tude and aspect are so fierce, that one almost trembles to walk in front of the steeds. But pass along these dusty kings and knights of old. Here sits Edward I., of 1272, clad in mail worn in the time of the crusades, and bearing a shield in his left hand. So, haughty king, thou didst look when the brave and gallant Wallace lay a prisoner in these dungeons, from whence he was dragged by thy order, tied to the tails of horses, and quartered and torn asunder with fiendish cruelty. Next to the tyrant and brute sits Henry VI., who, too. feeble to rule the turbulent times, became the in- mate of a dungeon here, and was one night darkly murdered in his cell. Gay Edward IV., in his dash- ing armor we pass by, for here sits an ancient knight in a suit of ribbed mail, with ear-guards to his helmet and rondelles for the armpits, and altogether one of the finest suits of armor in the world. Beside him is another knight, his horse clad in complete armor, and 160 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. a battleaxe hanging at the saddle-how. Beware, 3^u are crowding against the horse of old Henry VIII. That is the very armor the bloody monarch wore. His relentless hand has grasped that short sword, and around his brutal form that very belt once passed, and beneath that 'solid breastplate his wild and ferocious heart did beat. Horse and horse- man are clad in steel from head to heel ; and, as I gazed on him there, I wanted to whisper in his ears the names of his murdered wives. Here all the pomp of royal magnificence honored the nuptials of Anne Boleyn, and here, three years after, she lay a pri- soner — the beautiful, the honored, and rejected — and wrote from her dungeon to her relentless lord, say- ing :— " Let not your Grace ever imagine that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, when not so much as a thought thereof, ever proceeded * =^ * Try me, good king, but let me have a lawfull tryall; and let not my sworn enemies sit as- my accusers and judges, yea, let me receive an open tryall, for my truth shall fear no open shames # ^ * But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander must bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness, then I desire of Cod that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instru- ments thereof, and that he will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me at his general judg- ment-seat, where both you and me myself, must shortly appear, and in whose judgment, I doubt not, (whatsoever the world may think of me,) mine innocence shall be openly recorded and sufficiently cleared. " From my dolefuU prison in the Tower, this 6th of May. " Your most loyall and ever faith full wife, "ANNE BOLEYN." RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 161 It availed not, proud king, and that beautiful neck was severed at thy command ; but, at that dread judg- ment to which she summons thee, her tremulous voice — lost here on earth in the whirlwind of passion — shall be to thy ear louder than a peal of thunder. Katharine Howard is another swift witness ; last, though not least, the Countess of Salisbury. This high-spirited woman, though seventy years of age, was condemned to death for treason. When brought out for execution, she refused to place her head on the block, declaring she was no traitress, and the ex- ecutioner followed her around on the scaffold, striking at her hoary head with his axe until she fell. But I will not dwell on these separate figures. As I looked on this long line of kings sitting motionless on their motionless steeds, the sinewy hand strained over the battleaxe, the identical sword they wielded centuries ago flashing on my sight, and the very spurs on their heels that were once driven into their war steeds as they thundered over the battle plain, the plumes seemed to wave before my eyes, and the shout of kings to roll through the arches. The hand grasp- ing the reins on the horses' necks seemed a live hand, and the clash of the sword, the shield, and the battle- axe, and the mailed armor, rung in my ear. I looked again, and the dream was dispelled. Motionless as the walls around them they sat, mere effigies of the past. Yet how significant ! Each figure there was a history, and all monuments of England's glory as she was. At the farther end of the adjoining room sat a solitary " crusader on his barbed horse, said to 14* 162 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. be 700 years old." Stern old grim figure ! on tlie very trappings of thy steed, and on that thick plaited mail, has flashed the sun of Palestine. Thou didst stand perchance with that gallant host led on by the wondrous hermit, on the last hill that overlooked Je- rusalem, and when the Holy City was seen lying like a beautiful vision below, glittering in the soft light of an eastern sunset, that flooded Mount Moriah, Mount Zion, and Mount Olivet, with its garden of sufi'ering, and more than all. Mount Calvary, the voice from out that visor did go up with the mighty murmur of the bannered host, ''Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" On that very helmet perchance has the cimeter broke, and from that mailed breast the spear of the Infidel rebounded. Methinks I hear thy battle shout, " To the rescue !" as thy gallant steed is borne into the thickest of the fight, where thy brave brethi-en are struggling for the Cross and the Sepulchre. But crusades and crusaders are well-nigh forgotten. For centuries the dust of the desert has drifted over the bones of the chivalry of Europe. The Arab still spurs his steed through the forsaken streets of ancient Jerusalem, and the Muezzin's voice rings over the sepulchre of the Saviour. But let these grim figures pass. Here is the room in which Sir Walter Raleigh lay a prisoner. By his gross flatteries he had won the favor of Elizabeth, ^ who lavished honors upon him until she at length discovered his amour with the beautiful EHzabeth Throckmorton. Her rage then knew no bounds, and was worthy of her character, and she cast the RAMBLES ABOUT LONDON. 163 luckless, accomplislied courtier into the Tower. Up and down this very stone floor he has paced day after day, pondering on the sad change that has befallen him, and sighing heavily for the splendor and luxury he has lost. He did not, however, despair ; he knew too well the weakness of his termagant mistress, and so, one day, as he saw from that window the queen's barge passing by, he tlirew himself into a paroxysm of passion, and in his ravings besought the jailer to let him go forth in disguise, and get but one look of his dear mistress. His request being refused, he fell upon the keeper, and finally "drew his dagger. Good care was taken that this extraordinary mad fit should be reported to EHzabeth. Raleigh followed up the news with a well-timed letter, which so won upon the vixen that she liberated him. Said he, in this rare epistle : " My heart was never broken till this day, that I hear the queen goes away so far off, whom I- have followed so many years with so great love and desire in so many journeys, and am now left behind in a dark prison, all alone. While she was yet near at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three days, my sorrows were the less, but even now my heart is cast into the depth of misery. I, that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure face like a nymph — sometimes sitting in the shade like a god- dess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus. Behold the sorrows of tliis world once amiss, hath bereaved me of all." lt>4 E AMBLES AND SKETCHES. Elizabeth was at this time sivfi/ i/ears old, ugly as death's head, and yet the foolish old thing swallowed it all. Her tiger heart relented, and she released her cunning lover. It seems strange that a woman of her strength of intellect could have a weakness so perfectly ridicu- lous and childlike. But flattery was never too gross for her, and Ealeigh knew it. He had often filled her royal ear with such nonsense before, and seen her wrinkled face relax into a smile of tenderness — com- ical from its very ugliness. So goes the world ; every man has his weak side, and the strongest cha- racter is assailable in some one direction. Pride, or vanity, or envy, or covetousness, or passion, furnishes an inlet to the citadel, and it falls. RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. 165 CHAPTER XII. RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. THE EEGALIA. — BANK OF ENGLAND. — THAMES TUNNEL. OUT OF LONDON. — MURDERING OF THE KING'S ENG- LISH. — OXFORD. — STRATFORD-ON-AVON. I INTENDED, in mj last, to go more into details of the Tower ; but I will mention only one or two things. In Queen Elizabeth's armory are stored all the va- rieties of ancient weapons of warfare. There are the glaive, giusarne, the bill, catchpole, Lochaber axe, two-handed battleaxe, halberd, crossbows, &c. Pass- ing over the rooms and instruments of torture, let us drop for a moment into the tower house containing the regalia. Plere, in a single glass case, are gathered all the crown jewels, diadems, sceptres, &c., of rich old England. There are five crowns in all, and five royal sceptres, heavy with gold and flashing with diamonds. The queen's diadem, made for the wife of James II., is a single circlet of gold, yet, with its large, richly set diamonds and edging of pearls, it cost a half million of dollars. Victoria's crown has a large cross in front entirely frosted with brilliants, and in the centre a single sapphire, two inches long, and blue as heaven — it is the size of a small egg. 166 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. There leans St. Edward's staff, four feet and a lialf long, and of pure gold, and near it a royal sceptre, three feet and a half in length, radiant with its own jeweled light. There, too, are the golden eagle, which holds, the anointing oil for their most gracious sovereigns — the anointing spoon — the great golden salt-cellar of state, surrounded with twelve smaller ones, all of gold — the baptismal font, in which Vic- toria and the present Prince of Wales were both baptized, silver-gilt, four feet high — and the heavy sacramental plate — two massive tankards, all of solid gold. '^ Only sixpence a sight," and lo ! the eye feasts on this profusion of diamonds, and jewels, and pre- cious stones. ' Millions of money have been wasted on these baubles, and there they idly flash year after year, while their worth expended on famishing Ir'b- land, would give bread to every starving family, or instruction to every ignorant and depraved child of the kingdom. But this is the way of the world — millions for show, but not a cent for wretched, starving men. With a mere glance at the Bank of England and the Thames Tunnel, and we will away to the open country — to the green hedge-rows "and rolling fields of merry old England. The Bank of England is a fine building : " It is an immense and very extensive stone edifice, situated a short distance north-west of Corn Hill. The principal entrance is from Thread- needle street. It is said this building covers five acres of ground. Business hours from nine o'clock EAMBLES IN ENGLAND. 167 until five P. M. There are no windows opening on the street ; light is admitted through open courts ; no mob could take the bank, therefore, without cannon to batter the immense walls. There are nine hundred clerks employed in the bank, and not one foreigner among the whole. Should a clerk be too old for ser- vice, he is discharged on half-pay for life. The clock in the centre of the bank has fifty dials attached to it; each of the rooms has a dial, in order that all in the bank should know the true time. Large cis- terns are sunk in the courts, and engines in perfect order, always in readiness in case of fire. The bank was incorporated in 1694. Capital £18,000,000 ster- ling, or $90,000,000." The Tunnel is one of the chief wonders of London. This subterranean passage is thirty feet beneath the bed of the Thames River, and twenty-two feet high. It is thirteen hundred feet long and thirty-eight wide, and lighted with gas. One has strange emotions in standing under these dark, damp arches, Over his head is rushing a deep river, and vessels are floating, and steamboats are ploughing the water, and he can- not but think of the effect a small leak would produce, and Avhat his chance would be in a general break-down of the arches above.. The Tunnel is composed of two arches, with a row of immense columns in the centre. It is designed for carriages, but is not yet sufficiently completed to receive them. You descend by a winding staircase, and passing under the river emerge into daylight by a similar staircase on the farther side. Little hand 168 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. printing-presses, fruit and candy tables, and nick- nacks of various kinds, are strung through this passage. As I was sauntering along, suddenly I heard a low humming sound which startled me prodigiously. The first thought was that the masonry above had given way, and that ringing was the steady pressure of the down-rushing waters. The bare possibility of being buried up there was too horrible to entertain ,for a moment. I looked anxiously round ; but find- ing no one, not even those who lived there, the least alarmed, I concluded it was all right, and walked on. But thaf strange humming-ringing grew louder and louder, and completely bewildered me. It had no rising swell, or sinking cadence, but monotonous, deep, and constant, kept rising every moment louder and clearer. Hastening forward, I came to the far- ther entrance of the Tunnel, and there sat a man and boy, one with a violin and the other with a harp — the innocent authors of all the strange, indescrib- able sounds that had so confused me. The endless reverberations amid those long arches so completely mingled them together — one overtaking, and blend- ing in with another, and the whole bounding back in a mass to be again split asunder, and tossed about, , created such a jargon as I never before listened to. The sounds could not escape, and in their struggles to do so — hitting along the roof and sides of the Tunnel — they at length lost all distinctness of utter- ance, and became tangled up in the most astonishing manner. RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. 169 At length I bade smoky London adieu, and driv- ing early one morning to a stage-office, booked my- self for Oxford. As I was waiting for the stage to start, I stepped into a shop near by for some crack- ers, thinking perhaps my early breakfast would leave me with something of an appetite before it was time to dine. But, to my surprise, the keeper told me he had no '' crackers," and looked as though he regarded me a lunatic, or fresh from some remote region. I returned his look of surprise, for there before me were bushels of crackers. All at once I remembered that cracJcer was an Americanism, and that English- men call every thing of the kind biscuit. This put matters right. In a short time we were trundling through the long streets of London, and at length passing from the dirty suburbs, found ourselves in the open country. For a while it was pleasant, but we soon came to a barren, desolate tract, which quite damped the hopes with which we had set out. But this being passed, we entered on the beauti- ful farming districts of England. The roads were perfect, and the long green hedge-rows gently rolling over the slopes ; the masses of dark foliage sprinkled here and there through the fields ; and the fine brac- ing air, combined to lift our spirits up to the enjoying point. I had taken a seat on the top of the coach, and hence could overlook the whole country. Marlow, which we passed, is a pretty place, and the seats of English gentlemen along the road are picturesque and beautiful. 15 170 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. As we were descending a gentle inclination to Henlej-on-tlie-Tliames, the valley that opened on our view was lovely beyond description. But just here an accident overtook us; one of our wheels broke, and we were compelled to foot it into town. The driver immediately sent one of those hangers-on, around taverns and stables, to a coachmaker to see if he could obtain a coach or extra wheel. As he came slouching back, I was struck with his reply. English people are always ridiculing the language spoken in this country ; but that loafer beat a down- easter out and out. He had been unsuccessful, and as he came up he drawled out, "• He hain't got nary coach nor nary wheel!" Now, an ignorant Yankee might have said, " He hain't got nary coach nor wheel," but he never would have doubled the "nary" —this was wholly English. I had often noticed a similar dreadful use of the English language among the cabmen of London; they are altogether worse than our cabmen at home. We, however, succeeded in getting under way at last, and reached Oxford just as the clouds began to pour their gathered treasures down. I will not attempt to describe old Oxford. It is a venerable place, and the pile of buildings which compose the University, one of the most imposing I have ever seen. Old and time-worn, with their grave architectui-e and ancient look, they present a striking appearance amid the green-sward that surrounds them. Of the Bodleian and Radcliffe libraries I shall say nothing. In conversing with one of the RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. ITl tutors of the University, I was surprised to learn tliat Pusey was regarded there rather as an honest old granny than an able and profound man. The morning I left Oxford for Stratford-on-the- Avon was as beautiful a one as ever smiled over New England. The fragmentary clouds went troop- ing over the sky, the fresh, cool wind swept cheer- fully by, and the newly- washed meadows and fields looked as if just preparing themselves for a holiday. Again I took my seat on the top of the coach, with two or three others, and started away. We soon picked up an additional companion — a pretty young woman — who also climbed to the roof of the coach. The inside was full, and you must know that an Englishman never gives up his seat to a lady. He takes the place he has paid for, and expects all others, of whatever sex, to do the same. If it rains, he says it is unfortunate, but supposes that the lady knew the risk when she took her seat, and expects her to bear her misfortune like a philosopher. This lady, I should think, from her general appear- ance and conversation, was a governess. She had evidently traveled a good deal, and was very talka- tive and somewhat inquisitive. When she discovered I was an American, she very gravely remarked, that she mistrusted it before from my complexion. Now it must be remembered that I have naturally the tinge of a man belonging to a southern clime, which had been considerably deepened by my recent expo- sures in the open air in Italy and along the Rhine. Supposing that all Americans were tawny from their 172 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. close relationship to the aborigines of our country, she attributed my swarthiness to the Indian blood in my veins. I confessed myself sufficiently surprised at her penetration, and humored her inquisitiveness'. She left us at Stratford, bidding my friend and my- self good-by with a dignified shake of the hand. We of course regarded this great condescension on her part to two Indians, with proper respect, attributing it to the comparative fluency with which we spoke English. She evidently thought us savages of more than ordinary education. After dinner, I stroUed out to the house of Shaks- peare, a low, miserable affair at the best, and hardly large enough for three persons. Yet here the great dramatist was born. After going thi'ough it, I went to the chui'ch where his bones repose, and read, with strange feelings, the odd inscription he du^ected to be placed over his tomb. It was a beautiful day, and I went out and sat down on the banks of the Avon, beside the church, and gazed long on the rippling waters and green slopes of the neighboring hills and greener hedges. Cattle were lazily browsing in the fields ; the ancient trees beside the church bent and sighed as the fresh breeze swept by, and all was tranquillity and beauty. I had never seen so pure a sky in England. The air was clear and bracing, and, although it was the middle of August, it seemed like a bright June day at home. How many fancies a man will sometimes weave, and yet scarce know why ! A single chord of memory RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. ITS is, perhaps, touched, or some slight association will arise, followed bj a hundred others, as one bird, start- ing from the brake, will arouse a whole flock, and away they go swarming together. It was thus as I sat on the banks of the Avon, soothed by the ripple of its waters. Along this stream Shakspeare had wandered in his boyhood, and cast his dark eye over this same landscape. What gorgeous dreams here wrapped his youthful imagination, and strange, wild vagaries crossed his mind. Old England then was merry, and plenty reigned in her halls,^and good cheer was every where to be found. But now want and poverty cover the land. Discontent is written on half the faces you meet, and the murmurs of a coming storm are heard over the distant heavens. Farewell, sweet Avon ! your bright waters, bor- dered with green fields, and sparkling in light, are like a pleasant dream. 15= 174 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. CHAPTER XIIL RAMBLES IN ENOLAND. guy's cliff. — WAEWICK CASTLE. — ZENILWORTH CAS- TLE. — COVENTEY. — PEEPING TOM. — CHARTISTS. I WILL not speak of Woodstock, wMch Scott has made immortal ; for the village of that name is merely a collection of dirty-looking hovels, arranged along the street in blocks, like houses. Guy's Cliff is distinguished as the home of the stern old Sir Guy, renowned in the feudal wars. A mile farther on are Warwick and Warwick Castle. The village itself looks like a fragment of antiquity, though the streets were somewhat enlivened, the day I passed through them, by multitudes of men, women, children, cows, horses, and sheep, to say nothing of vegetables and saleables of all kinds and quality. One of those fairs so common in England, and so " characteristic of the people, was being held, and I had a good view of the peasantry. The yeomanry collected at one of our cattle-shows are gentlemen compared to them. I will not describe the castle, with its massive walls ^and ancient look, for the impression such things make does not result from this or that striking object, but RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. 175 from tlie whole combined. The walls may be thick, the moat deep, the turrets high and hoary, and the rusty armor within massy and dinted — it is not either of these that arrests your footsteps and makes you stand and dream, but the history they altogether un- roll, and the images your own imagination calls up from the past. The rusty sword of this strong-limbed old earl is five feet long, and weighs twenty pounds, his shield thirty pounds, breastplate alone fifty-six pounds, and helmet seven pounds, to say nothing of his mas- sive coat of mail. It was no baby hand which wield- ed that sword or held that shield. A strong heart beat under that breastplate of fifty-six pounds in weight ; and when, mounted on his gigantic war-horse, clad also in steel from head to foot, he spurred into the battle, the strongest knights went down in his path, and his mufiled shout was like the trumpet of victory. Thence we proceeded to Kenilworth Castle, a mere ruin, standing solitary and broken amid the green fields. Gone are its beautiful lake, drawbridge, port- cullis, and moat — its strong turrets have crumbled, while over the decayed and decaying walls the ivy creeps unchecked. It is one of the most picturesque ruin^ I have ever seen. Here and there a portion remains almost entire, while in other places a heap of rubbish alone tells where a magnificent apartment once rung to the shout of wassailers. The bow- win- dow, in which sat the flattered Earl of Leicester and the proud Elizabeth, and looked down on the grand 176 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. tournament, is still entire. As I stood liere and gazed below on the green-sward, now spreading where the gay and noble once trod in pride, and around on the ruin whose battlements once glittered with deco- rations in honor of the haughty queen, and before me, through the gateway, where the gorgeous pro- cession passed, the pageantry of life soemed a dream. There chargers had careered, and trumpets rung, and helmets bowed in homage ; and there now swung an old gate, kept by a solitary old porter. The snake and lizard occupy the proud halls of Leicester, and of all the beautiful and brave who once thronged these courts, not one remains. The old walls and crum- bling stones have outlasted them all, and serve only as a tombstone to what has been. What wild heart- throbbings, and dizzy hopes, and bitter griefs, have been within these ruined inclosures ! But now all is still and deserted — the banners flutter no more from the battlements ; the armed knight spurs no more over the claj;tering drawbridge ; lord and vassal have dis- appeared. Time has outwatched each warder, and hung his mouldering hatchet over all who have lived and struggled here. As I behold in imagination the stern, severe Elizabeth, passing beneath yonder arch on her gallant steed, and princes and nobles of every degree pressing on her steps, and then turn to the deserted ruin, I involuntarily exclaim, "ghosts are we all." Ah, proud Leicester ! what deeds of thine could these dumb walls, had they a tongue, tell ! What re- cords are registered in their mouldering forms against RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. 177 thee ! Kenilworth, thy Kenilworth, is apparently de- serted ; but around it still linger, methinks, the spirits of those thou host wronged, nay, perchance, murdered. It was with strange feelings I turned away from this beautiful ruin. The heavens were gathering blackness, and now and then a big drop came danc- ing to the earth, and all betokened a storm at hand. Had the fading sunlight gilded its dilapidated turrets as I passed from under its silent arches, it would not have seemed so mournful ; but, amid this suspense of the elements and increasing gloom, its irregular form had a sad aspect, and left a sad impression. When I first approached the castle, I was stmck with the curious English used by a girl, perhaps thir- teen years of age, who had little pamphlets, describ- ing the ruin and giving its history, to sell. As she advanced to meet me, holding the book in her hand, she exclaimed: "A shilling, sir, for the book, or a sixpence for the lend.'' '^ A sixpence for the lend,'' I replied ; ''what do you mean by that ?" On inquiry, I discovered that the price of the book was a shilling, but that she would lend it to me to go over the castle with for half price. Thinks I to myself, you might travel the length and breadth of the Atlantic States, and not hear such an uncouth English sentence as that. Coventry is on the railroad that connects Liver- pool and London. It has a quaint old church, and a quaint look about it altogether. As I strolled through the graveyard, I seemed to be among the fragments of a past world — the very tombstones 17'8 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. looked as if they had withstood the deluge. As I wandered about, dreaming rather than thinking, strains of music stole out from the antiqurted struc- ture, soothing mj feelings, and filling my heart with a pleasm-e composed half of sadness. One of the greatest curiosities of this place, it is well known, is "Peeping Tom." The story of Lady Godiva has been woven into poetry as well as prose, and is known the world over. Her husband, Earl Leofric, was captain-general of all the forces under King Canute, and exercised his power in laying heavy taxes on his subjects. Those of Coventry were ground to the earth by his oppression, and though their sufferings could not move his iron heart, they filled the soul of the gentle Godiva with the deepest sorrow. Impelled by her sympathies, she constantly, but in vain, besought her lord to lessen the burdens of the people. But once, being received after a long absence with enthusiastic affection, he in his sudden joy asked her to make any request, and he would grant it. Taking advantage of his kind- ness, she petitioned for his subjects. The stern old earl was fairly caught, but he hoped to extricate him- self by imposing a condition as brutal as it was cruel. Knowing the modesty of his lovely wife, he promised to griant her request, provided she would ride naked through the streets of Coventry. "Any thing," she replied, " for my suffering people." He was aston- ished ; but, thinking she would fail in the hour of trial, promised to fulfil his part of the contract. Godiva appointed a day ; and Leofric, finding she was deter- RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. 1T9 mined, ordered the people to darken the fronts of their houses and shut themselves up, while the Lady Godiva was passing. They joyfully obeyed, and the blushing, frightened benefactress, with her long tresses streaming over her form, rode unclad through the streets. All was silent and deserted ; but one man, a tailor, could not restrain his curiosity, and peeped forth from an upper window to get sight of her. In a moment, Godiva's charger stopped and neighed. The fair rider, being startled, turned her face and saw the unfortunate tailor. Instantly the poor fel- low's eyes dropped out of his head, in punishment of his meanness. So runs the tradition, and so it has run from time immemorial. In the time of Richard II., a painting was placed in Trinity Church, representing the earl and his wife — the former holding in his hand a char- ter, on which is inscribed, " I, Leofric, for the love of thee, Doe make Coventrie tol-free." I had heard of " Peeping Tom." and went in search of him. I had forgotten, however, that he occupied the upper story of a house, and went the whole length of the street in which I was informed he was placed, without finding him. I expected to see a statue standing in some corner upon the ground, and hence was compelled to inquire more particularly of his whereabouts. When at length I caught a glimpse of him, with his cocked hat on, peeping from an aper- ^ ture in the corner of a house standing at the inter- 180 KAMBLES AND SKETCHES. section of two streets, I had a long^ and hearty laugh. His appearance was comical in the extreme, as it stood looking down on the throng of promenadjers. The man who owns the house receives an annual sti- pend for allowing it to remain there, and every two years it is clad in a new suit, made after the fashion of the tenth century. On these occasions, the shops are closed as. on Sundays, and a procession of the citizens, with the mayor at their head, passes through the principal streets of the place, accompanied by a woman dressed in white or flesh-colored tights, on horseback. When they come opposite '' Tom," the procession halts, the high sheriff invests the effigy in its new suit, and the imposing ceremonies are ended. This was the year for the procession, but I arrived too late to witness it. A woman of rather easy virtue, clad in a flesh-colored suit, fitting tight to her skin, was placed on a horse, and, with a quantity of false hair falling around her form, represented the lovely Godiva. I could not but think how such a procession with such comical ceremonies, would appear in New York, and what the good people of that practical city would do on such an occasion. As I was strolling about, I came upon three or four hardy, weather-beaten men, one of whom came up to me, and said : " Sir, I am not in the habit of begging, but my master in Stafford has broke, and I am left without work. I came here with my family to find work, but cannot, and have sold my last bed and blanket to buy provisions. If you could give me something, I should be much obliged to you." This RAMBLES IN LONDON. 181 was said in a manly tone — so unlike the whining ac- cents of a continental beggar, that I was struck with it. "Why," said I, "this is very strange — here you are, a strong man, with two good arms, and a pair of stout hands at the end of them, and yet are starving in the richest kingdom of the world. This is very strange — what is it all coming to?" He turned his eye upon me with the look of a tiger, and exclaimed : " What is it all coming? Why it is coming to this, one of these days," and he struck his brawny fists together with a report like that of a pistol. 1 need not say that I gave him money. A strong man, willing to work for his daily bread, and yet denied the privilege, is the saddest sight under the sun. 16 182 EAMBLES AND SKETCHES. CHAPTER XIV. KAMBLES IN ENGLAND. BIRMINGHAM. — LIVERPOOL. — A TALL WOMAN. — BEG- GARS. — CHESTER. — NORTH WALES. It is only eighteen miles from Coventry to Bir- mingham, and by the great London and Liverpool railway the distance is made in forty minutes. So, just at evening, myself and friend jumped in the cars, and soon found ourselves amid the tall chimneys of this great manufacturing city of England. It is use- less to repeat, the story of factory life, or describe over again, for the fortieth time, the sickly children and girls who spend their days (few enough) at the looms and in the unhealthy apartments of those im- mense cotton-mills. Money is coined out of human life ; and degradation, and want, and misery are the price this great kingdopi pays for its huge manufac- turing cities. But one thing in my hotel struck me especially^ It is well known, notwithstanding the complaints of English travelers of our love of money, that, next to Italy, England is the most dishonest country in the world to travel in. The hackman cheats you — the landlord cheats you, and the servants cheat you. RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. 183 You are fleeced the length and breadth of the king- dom. Such outrages as you are compelled to submit to would not be tolerated for a moment in the United States. You are not only charged enormously for your board, but are compelled to make up the ser- vants' wages — each man paying such a sum that servants give the landlord a large price for their places, demanding nothing for their labor. In travel- ing, you not only pay your fare, but every time the horses are changed, or once in, fifteen or twenty miles, are expected to give the driver an English shilling, or about twenty-five cents our money. But this land- lord of Birmingham was none of your swindlers— he scorned to fleece travelers — and would have no one in his house who practised it. So he had regulations printed and neatly framed, hung up in the apartments, on purpose, it was stated, to prevent those who stop- ped at his house from being imposed upon. Servants were not allowed to demand any thing, and it was contrary to the rules of the house to charge more than four shillings (a dollar) for a bed, the same for dinner and breakfast ; or, in other words, it was not permitted to ask more than about four dollars a day from any person, unless he had extras. I could not but exclaim, as I turned towards my bed — " Honest man ! how grateful travelers must feel for the interest you take in their welfare ! No cheating here ; and one can lay his head on his pillow in peace, knowing that in the morning there will be no trickery in the account — ^a dollar for his sleep, a dollar for his break- fast, and he can depart in peace!" 184 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. The approach to Liverpool through the tunnel is any thing but pleasant — this subterranean traveling is unnatural — it seems a great deal worse to be killed under ground than in the clear air of heaven, and beneath the calm, quiet sky, Liverpool is an un- pleasant city to stop in ; yet, before I embarked, I vras compelled to spend a month there. I will not describe it ; I do not like to describe cities — they are simply a confused heap of houses, an endless web of streets. One day, as I was sauntering along, I saw in a stairway leading to the second floor, a man two- thirds drunk — dressed like*- a clown, with a single feather in his cap, and a monkey hopping to and from his shoulder. Holding on to a rope, and swinging backwards and forwards on the steps in his drunken- ness, he kept bawling out to the passers by, " Walk up, gentlemen — only a penny a piece — the tallest woman in the world, besides, Oliver Cromwell, Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII., and other great men, large as life— only one penny a sight — well worth the money. Walk up, gentlemen !" It was such an out-of-the-way-looking hole, and withal such a comi- cal advertisement, that I presented my penny, and '' ivalked up,'' and sure enough there was a woman seven feet high, towering head and shoulders above me. She was slender, which, with her female ap- parel, that always exaggerates the height, made her appear a greater giantess even than she was. I could not believe my eyes, and suspected there was some trickery practised, and told the exhibitor so. He immediately requested her to sit down, and take off RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. 185 her shoes and stockings, and ;;hen asked me to feel of her feet and ankles. I did so, and found that they were actually bone and muscle. But, to use a western phrase, she was ^'a tall specimen," and I came to the conclusion I had seen three of the most remarkable women in the world. First, a French woman who weighed six hundred and twenty-four pounds~a mountain of flesh; second, an Italian without arms, who could write, thread a needle, em- broider, sketch, load and fire a pistol with her toes, and last of all, this English girl, seyen feet high, or thereabouts. Another day, as I was passing along a by-street, I heard some one singing, and soon after a man in his shirt sleeves emerged into view, leading four children— two on each side— and singing as he ap- proached. He took the middle of the street— the children carrying empty baskets— and thus traversed the city. I soon discovered that he was a beggar, and this was his mode of asking alms. With his head up, and a smile on his countenance, he was singing at the top of his voice, something about a happy family. At all events, the burden of his strain was the happiness he enjoyed with his children: how pleasant their home was for the love that dwelt in It, &c. He did not speak of his poverty and suffer- ings, or describe the starvation in his hovel; but, taking a different tack, solicited charity on the ground^ that people ought to keep such a happy family in the continued possession of their happiness. Where begging is so common, imposture so frequent, 16* 186 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. and men's hearts have become so steeled against the pitiful tale and the haggard face, the appearance of suffering accomplishes but little ; and I could not but admire the man's ingenuity in thus striking out a new path for himself. Still, it was pitiful to watch him — ^it seemed such an effort to appear happy, and the hungry-looking children at his side, though trained to their task, and wearing bright faces, seemed so way-worn and weary. I followed their footsteps with my eyes till they turned an angle of the street, and as their voices died away in the distance, I fell into one of my fits of musing on life, its strange destinies, and the unfathomable mystery attached to the une- qual distribution of good and evil in it. Alas ! how different is the same man, that is, the outward man Circumstances have placed one on a throne, and his heart is haughty, his glance defiant, and his spirit proud and overbearing. Misfortune has placed an- other in poverty and want, and he crouches at your feet — solicits, with trembhng hands and eyes full of tears, a mere moiety for his children. Injustice, abuse, contempt, cannot sting liim into resistance or arouse his wrath. With his manhood all broken down, he crawts the earth, the by- word and jest of his fellows. Yet life to him is just as solemn as to the monarch — it has the same responsibilities, the same destinies. That humbled and degraded spirit will yet stand up in all its magnificent proportions, and assert its rank in the universe of God. The heap of rags will blaze like a star in its immortality — and yet that unfortunate creature may struggle RAMBLES m ENGLAND. 187 and sujBfer througli this life, and enter on another only to experience still greater unhappinesB. The ways of Heaven are indeed dark and beyond the clouds. My friend left me at Liverpool, and took the steamer for Dublin, where I promised, in a few days, to meet him. I wished to make the land route through North Wales, and then cross over the Chan- nel. Crossing the Mersey in a ferry-boat, I took the cars for the old city of Chester, lying on the confines of England and Wales. This ancient town, which has borne such a part in the history of England, stands just as it did centuries ago. The same im- mense wall surrounds it that guarded it in knightly days. It environs the entire place, and is so broad that the top furnishes a fine promenade for three abreast. Towards evening I wandered without the walls, and strolled away towards the banks of the Dee. It was a lovely afternoon for England — the sky was clear, and the air pure and invigorating. A single arch is sprung across the stream, said to be one of the largest in the world. It is a beautiful curve, and presents a picturesque appearance, leaping so far from one green bank to another. Along the shore, "finding through the field, is a raised embank- ment, covered with green turf for a promenade. Along this, ladies and gentlemen were sauntering in groups, while here and there a fisherman was casting his line. It was a lovely scene — there on the quiet banks of the Dee, and in full view of the old walls of Chester, I sat down under a tree, and thought long and anx- iously of home. It is always thus — in the crowded 188 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. city, and turmoil and hurry of travel, one almost for- gets he has a home or far-distant friends — but a single strain of soothing music, one quiet night, or one lonely walk, brings them all back to him, and he wonders that he ever left them for boisterous scenes. One hour we are all energy and will — wishing for a field of great risks and great deeds, and feel confined and straitened for want of greater scope and freer action — the next, we feel lost in the world of active life around us — ^utterly unequal to its demands on our energies, and thirst only for a quiet home and more tranquil enjoyments. The land of my birth looked greener to me there, on the banks of the Dee, than ever before — and the wide waste of waters never so wide and unfriendly. At sunset, I took the stage-coach for the western coast of Wales. I traveled till midnight, and then stopped to make the rest of the route along the north shore by daylight. A little Welsh inn received me, the landlady of which, in return for my politeness to her, secured me a seat next day in the coach, which I otherwise should have lost. She had been accus- tomed to the haughty bearing of Englishmen, and though I treated her with only the civility common in my own country, it seemed so uncommon to her, that she asked me where I resided. She seemed delighted when I told her in America, and the next morning prevailed on the driver to give me a seat, though he had told me the coach was full. 1 had read much of Wales, and had obtained, when a boy, very extravagant ideas of the wildness of its RAMBLES IN ENGLAND. 189 scenery from Mrs. Hemans' poems. It did not occur to me that I had just come from the Alps, the grand- est scenery on the globe, and hence should prepare for disappointment; but expected to be astonished with beetling crags and lofty mountains, until at last Snowden crowned the whole, as Mont Blanc does the peaks that environ him. I never stopped to question my impressions, nor inquire when or where I derived them ; and hence was wholly unprepared for the dimi- nutive hills that met my gaze. ■ One must never form a notion of a cataract or a mountain from an English- man's description of it. Living on an island and in a rolling country which furnishes no elevations of magnitude, and hence no large streams, he regards those relatively large of immense size. Still, the north coast of Wales presents bold and rugged features ; and with its old castles frowning amid the desolate scenery— gray as the rock they stand on— is well worth a visit. 190 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. CHAPTER XV. RAMBLES IN WALES. PENRYNN QUARRIES. — HOMEWARD BOUND. — SCOTCH BOY. — STORM AT SEA. HOME. The nortli coast of Wales is studded with old cas- tles-^some of which are in ruins, and others in a good state of preservation. Many a fierce struggle and wild tale they could tell, could they but reveal theii' history. Cromwell's army has thundered against their walls, and England's chivalry dashed over their battlements; and deeds of daring, and of darkness too, stained every stone with blood. Our road lay right along the base of one, with old towers still standing, and the ancient drawbridge still resting on its ancient foundations. A little farther on, the whole breast of the mountain seemed converted into a modern castle ; for ramparts rose over every ridge, and turreted battlements stretched along every pre- cipitous height. Nothing can be more bleak and desolate than the north coast of Wales. The rocky shores, treeless, shi'ubless mountains, and ruined castles, combine to render the scene sombre and gloomy. At length we reached Bangor, from whence I made a visit to the RAMBLES IN WALES. 191 slate quarries of Mr. Tennant. This gentleman was an English colonel; but being so fortunate as to marry the only daughter of the owner of these ex- tensive quarries, he threw up his profession, and set- tled down in Wales. Becoming sole heir to Penrynn Castle, on the death of his father-in-law, he improved it by additions and renovations ; till now, with its extensive and beautiful grounds, it is well worth a visit. The quarries, however, were more interesting to me than the castle, for they are said to be the largest in the world ; yielding the proprietor a net income of nearly one hundred thousand dollars per annum. The whole mountain, in which these quarries are dug, is composed of slate. At the base of it the miners commenced, and dug, in a semicircular form, into its very heart. They then blasted back and up a terrace all around the space they had made, some thirty or forty feet from the bottom. About the same distance above this terrace they ran another around, until they terraced the mountain, in the form of an amphitheatre, to the very top. Around each terrace runs a railroad, to carry out the slate ; while small stone huts are placed here and there, to shelter the workmen when a blast occurs near them. These ter- races are filled with workmen, who look, from below, like so many ants crawling over the rocks. Taking one of these as a guide, I rambled over the quarries, in a more excited state than one usually views so plain and practical an object; for the blasts, that occur every few moments, keep the mountain in an uproar. The amphitheatre is so far across, that a 192 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. person need not fear a blast from the opposite side ; but one from tbe terrace lie is on, or from the one above or below bim, is always more or less dangerous. To prevent accidents, just before a blast takes place, tbe man wbo is to fire, steps to the edge of the ter- race, and hallooes, ''he lioo V at which all in the neighborhood run for the stone cabins, like prairie dogs for their holes. Again and again was I com- pelled to dodge into one of these coverts ; when, after a moment's pause, there would follow a heavy explo- sion ; and the next moment the loose stones would be rattling like hail on the roof above me. Several times I measm^ed, with considerable interest, the thickness of the covering above me, and calculated how heavy a rock it would require to crush through it. When out on the open terrace, the constant re- ports, like the rapid discharge of cannon in various parts of the mountain, keep one constantly on the look out. The depot of the finished slates is also a great curiosity. They are piled in huge rows, accord- ing to their size and value : they are named Dukes, Marquises, Counts, &c., to designate then- respective worth. All sorts of ornaments are made by the workmen in their leisure moments, which are sold to travelers; several of which I brought away with me. It was a bright day when I visited the quarries ; and, as I turned away, I paused, and looked back on that excavated mountain. It was a curious spectacle — those terraces, rising one above another, sprinkled all over with human beings, like mere spots on the spire of a church. HOMEWAED BOUND. 193 From Bangor I went to Caernarvon, to visit the ruined castle there, so famous in the ancient history of England. I clambered up its spiral staircase — looked out of its narrow windows — plucked the ivy from its massive and immensely thick walls, and then went to a neighboring eminence to have the whole in one coup d'mil. It is an impressive ruin, independent of the associations connected with it. It was my de- sign to cross to the island of Anglesea and take steam- boat for Dublin, where I expected to meet my friend, who left me at Liverpool ; but that afternoon a storm set in which frightened me back. I had had some experience in the British channels, and concluded I had rather not see Dublin than again be made as deadly sick as I had been. I went back to Bangor ; roamed over the island of Anglesea ; saw the stone block, once a sacrifice stone of the ancient Druids ; stood on the Menai bridge, next to that of Frybourg, the longest suspension bridge in the world ; and finally set sail for Liverpool. Waiting here two weeks, till I could get a state-room to myself, I at last embarked on board the packet England, and dropped down the Channel. Rounding the southern coast of Ireland we stood out to sea, and soon the last vestige of land dis- appeared behind the waters ; and, homeward bound, we were on the wide Atlantic. There was an incident occurred on leaving port which interested m'e exceedingly. With the depart- ure of almost every vessel, "some poor wretches, with- out the means to pay their passage, secrete themselves aboard till fairly out to sea, when they creep forth 17 194 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. from their hiding-places. The captain cannot put back for them, and he cannot see them starve on hoard his ship ; and so they get a free passage to this land, where every man can find work. So common has this become, that an officer is always hired to ransack the vessel while she is being towed out of the harbor. Several were found hid away in ours, whom I saw shoved over into the ''tug," as the tow boat is called, without the last feeling of commiseration. They were such hard, depraved looking cases, that I thought it no loss to have them kept back from our shores. But at length the officer drew forth a Scotch lad about seventeen years of age, who seemed unlike his companions. Dirty and ragged enough he indeed was, but a certain honest expression in his face, which was covered with tears, interested me in him imme- diately. I stopped the officer, and asked the boy his name ''Robert S," he replied. ''Where are you from?" Greenock. I am a baker by trade, but my master has broke, and I have come to Liverpool to get work." "Why do you want to go to Ame- rica?" said I. "To get work," he replied, in his strong Scotch accent. He seemed to have but one idea, and that was work ! The object of his ambi- tion, the end of his wishes, was the privilege of work- ing. He had wandered around Liverpool in vain ; slept on the docks, and lived on the refuse crumbs he could pick up ; and as a last resort determined, all alone, to cross the Atlantic to a land where man is allowed the boon of working for his daily bread. I could not let him go ashore, and told the captain that HOMEWARD BOUND. 195 I would see tliat liis passage was paid. The pas- sengers joined with me, and I told him he need not be alarmed, he should go to America. I was struck with his reply : said he, in a manly tone, " I don't know how I can pay you, sir, hut I will work for you." I gave him clothes, and told him to wash himself up and be cheerful, and I would, take care of him. In a short time he became deadly sick, and at the end of a week he was so emaciated and feeble I feared he would die. I said to him one day, " Robert are you not very sorry now you started for America ?" " No, sir !" he replied, "if I can get work there." "Mer- ciful God!" I mentally exclaimed, "has hunger so gnawed at this poor fellow's vitals, and starvation stared him so often in the face, that he can think of no joy like that of being permitted to woi^k 1" Days and weeks passed away, wearisome and lonely, until at length, as we approached the banks of Newfoundland, a heavy storm overtook us. It blew for two days, and the third night the sea was rolling tremendously. The good ship labored over the mountainous billows, while every timber, and plank, and door seemed suddenly to have been en- dowed with a voice, and screeched, and screamed, and groaned and complained, till the tumult without was almost drowned by the uproar within. It did not seem possible that the timbers could hold together for an hour so violently did the vessel work. I could not keep in my berth, and ropes were strung along the deck to enable the sailors to cross from one side to another. I crawled to the cabin door, and holding on 196 EAMBLES AND SKETCHES. iritli both liands, gazed out.witli strange feelings upon the wild and ruinous waste of waters. We had a host of steerage passengers aboard, whom the captain was compelled to drive below, and fasten down the hatches over them. The sea was breaking madly over the shrinking, shivering ship, as if determined to crush it down ; and at every shock of the billows, as they fell in thunder on the deck, the poor wretches below thought themselves going to the bottom, and kept up a constant wailing, screaming, and praying, at once pitiful and ludicrous. Still, I could not blame them ; for to one unaccustomed to the sea, the rush and roll of waves on the trembling planks overhead are any thing but pleasant sounds. One moment, as we ascended a billow, the jib-boom of our vessel seemed to pierce mid-heaven — the next moment, in her mad and downward plunge it would disappear in the sea, and tons of water come sweeping with a crash over our decks. Once the second mate, who was forward, was caught by one of these furious seas and borne backward the whole length of the' deck, against the after - cabin. As the ship pitched again he was car- ried forward, and the second time borne backward, before he could feel the deck, although the water was running in a perfect torrent from the scuppers the while. Oh ! it was a fearful night — the clouds swept in angry masses athwart the heavens, and all around was the mountainous deep, over which our groaning vessel strained with desperate efforts and most piteous complaints. I turned in, sick of the sea ; but I could not sleep ; for one moment my feet would be pointing HOMEWARD BOUND. 197 to the zenith, and the next moment my head, and im- mediately after, head, body, and legs, would be lying in a confused heap on the state-room floor. As a last resort, I stretched myself on the cabin sofa, which was bolted to the floor, and bade the steward lash me to it with a rope ; and strange to say, in this position I dropped asleep and slept till morning. It was the soundest night's rest I ever had at sea. But it is startling to be waked out of sleep by the creaking of timbers and roar of waves ; and the spirits feel a sudden reaction that is painful. I staggered on deck, and such a sight I never beheld before. The storm had broken, and the fragmentary clouds were flying like lightning over the sky, while the sea, as far as the eye could reach, was one vast expanse of heaving, tumbling mountains — their bases a bright pea-green, and their ridges white as snow. Over and around these our good ship floundered like a mere toy. On our right, and perhaps three quarters of a mile dis- tant (though it seemed scarcely three rods), lay a ship riding out the storm. When we went down and she went up, I could see the copper on her bottom ; and when we both went down together, the tops of her tallest mast disappeared as though she had been sud- denly engulfed in the ocean. The sun at length emerged from a cloud and lighted up with strange brilliancy this strange scene. It was a sublime spec- tacle, and I acknovfledged it to be so ; but added men- tally, as I clung to a belaying pin and braced against the bulwarks to keep my legs, that I thought it would appear much better from shore. 17* 198 RAMBLES AXD SKETCHES. Days and nights passed away, until at length, a bird came and lighted on oiir rigging, and then I knew we were near mj fatherland. I could have kissed it. The last night came on with rain and storm, and we flew on before the _gale with our white wings spread, thankful that it bore us homeward. At noon next day, the clouds broke away, and soon after we took on board a pilot. The sun went down in beauty and the moon sailed up the golden sky, and the stars came out and smiled on the sea, and all was lovely and entrancing ; but soon other lights flashed over the waters, that far outshone both moon and stars^the lights from Sandy Hook. My heart leaped up in my throat at the sight, and an involun- tary burst of joy escaped my lips. No bay ever looked so sweet as New York bay the next morning ; and when my feet pressed my native land, I loved her better than ever. ****** I will only add, that my protege, the Scotch boy, was taken care of, and proved worthy of the interest I had taken in him. He is now on the fair road to wealth and prosperity. The good packet England, a few months after, left Liverpool for New York, and was never heard of more. A better officer than her captain never trod a deck, and her first mate was also a fine man. He had been lately married, and went to sea because it was his only means of livelihood. Alas ! the billows now roll over them and their gallant ship together. WATERLOO. 199 CHAPTER XVI. WATERLOO. This famous battle-field lies about ten miles from Brussels. It was a cloudy, gloomy day, that I left the city to visit this spot on which the fate of Europe was once decided. I stopped a moment to look at the house where the ball was held the night before the battle, and from the thoughtless gayety of which so many officers were summoned by the thunders of cannon to the field of battle. Before reaching the field, we passed through the beautiful forest of Soig- nies, composed of tall beeches, and which Byron, by poetical license, has changed into the forest of Ar- dennes. Ardennes is more than thirty miles distant in an opposite direction, but still it was more classic than Soignies, and so Byron, in describing the passage of the British army through it on their way to battle, " And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Wet with nature's tear-drops, as they pass- Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave — alas ! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass, Which, now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valor, rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low." 200 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. At length we came to the small village of Waterloo, and, taking a guide, wandered over the field. Not to weary one with confused details, conceive a large undulating plain with two ridges rising out of it lying opposite to each other, and gently curving in from the centre. These opposing ridges are mere eleva- tions of ground separated by a shallow valley, vary- ing from a quarter to a half mile in width. Standing on one of those curved ridges, along which the Eng- lish army was posted in two lines, the other ridge or elevation of ground faces you, along which the French were drawn up. The main road from Brus- sels to Genappe, cuts directly across this valley, and through these ridges, in the centre of the field. On the extreme right is the chateau of Hougoumont, a farm-house, with an orchard sm-rounded by a high wall in the shape of a parallelogram. This defended Wellington's right. The centre rested its left on a small house called La Haye Sainte, while the left wing extended farther on to another farm-house, called Ter la Haye. Thus fortified at both extremi- ties, and in the centre, the allied forces awaited the approach of the French on the opposite ridge. Fifty- four thousand men were drawn up for the slaughter on one side, a mile and a half in length, while Bona- pa.rte brings to the battle seventy-five thousand Frenchmen. Back of the French lines is a house called La Belle Alliance, near which Bonaparte placed his observatory. This was the position of the field, and such the strength of the mighty armies that stood thirty years WATERLOO. 201 ago, on the morning of tlie 15tli of June, looking each other in the faces. Two unconquered generals were at their head, and the fate of Europe the stake before them. As I stood on the mound reared over the slain, and looked over this field along which the grain waved as it waved on the day of that fierce bat- tle, a world of conflicting emotions struggled in my heart. One moment the magnificence and pomp of this stern array converted it into a field of glory — the next, the conception of the feelings that agitated the bosoms of these two military leaders, and the terrible results depending — all Europe hanging in breathless suspense on the battle, imparted to it a moral sublimity utterly overwhelming ; the next the fierce onset, the charging squadron, the melee of horses and riders ; the falling of mangled companies before the destructive fire ; the roar of artillery, and the blast of the bugle, and braying of trumpets, and roll of drums, and the tossing of plumes and banners, and wheeling of regi- ments, and shock of cavalry, changed it into a scene of excitement, and daring, and horror, that made the blood flow back chill and dark on the heart. Then came the piles of the dead and the groans of the wounded, whole ranks of orphans, and whole villages of mourners ; till a half-uttered "woe to the warrior," was choked by tears of compassion. Thirty years ago Wellington stood where I stood, and surveyed the field over which the two mighty armies were manoeuvering. At length, at this very hour (eleven o'clock,) when I am gazing upon it, the cannonading begins, and soon rolls the whole length 202 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. of the line. In a moment it is all in imagination be- fore me. Yonder on the extreme right Jerom-e Bona- parte with 12,000 men descends like a mountain stream on the chateau of Hougoumont. Column after column, the dark masses march straight into the deadly fire that opens in every direction. In perfect order and steady front they press up to the very walls, and thrust their bayonets through the door itself. At length the house takes fire, and the shrieks of the wounded who are burning up, rise a moment over the roar of the strife, and then naught is heard but the confused noise of battle. Slowly, reluctantly, those 12,000 surge back from the wall— 12,000, did I say? J[o, in this rapid half hour 1,500 have fallen to rise no more, and there in that orchard of four acres, their bodies are scattered, nay, rather piled, besmeared with powder and blood. Between me and them fresh columns of French infantry, headed by a long row of cannon that belch forth their fires every few moments, come steadily up to the English squares. Whole ranks of living men fall at every discharge, but those firm squares neither shake nor falter. The earth trembles as cannon answers can- non, burying their loads in solid masses of human flesh. In the midst of this awful melee, the brave Picton charges home on the French, and they roU back like a wave from the rock — but a bullet has en- tered his temple, and he sallies back and falls at the head of his followers. And yonder, to save their fly- ing infantry, a column of French cavalry throw them- selves with the ocean's mighty swing on the foe, but WATERLOO. 203 these rock-fast squares stand rooted to the ground. Slowly and desperately that daring column walk their horses round and round the squares, dashing in at every opening, but in vain. And now from wing to wing it is one wild battle, and I see nothing but the smoke of cannon, the tossing of plumes, and the soar- ing of the French eagle over the charging columns ; and I hear naught but the roll of the drum, the sound of martial music, the explosion of artillery, and the blast of the bugle sounding. the charge. There stands Wellington, weary and anxious. Wherever a square has wavered, he has thrown himself into it, cheering, on his men. But now he stands and sur- veys the field of blood, and sees his posts driven in, his army exhausted, and exclaims, while he wipes the sweat from his brow, ^' Would to Grod that Blucher" or night would come." The noble Gordon steps up to him, begging him not to stand where he is so ex- posed to the shots of the enemy, and while he is- speaking, a bullet pierces his own body and he falls. Bonaparte surveys the field of slaughter with savage ferocity, and pours fresh columns on the English lines, while the cavalry charge with desperate valor on the English infantry. For four long hours has the battle raged and victory wavered. But look ! a dark object emerges from yonder distant wood, and stretches out into the field. And now there are ban- ners, and horsemen, and moving columns. The Prussians are coming. Bonaparte sees them, and knowing that nothing can save him but the destruc- tion of the English lines before they arrive, orders 204 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. up his old Imperial Guard, that had been kept aloof from battle all the day. He addresses them in a few fiery words, telling them that all rests on their valor. They shout "the Emperor for ever," till the sound is heard even to the British lines. With the impetu- ous Ney at their head, they move in perfect order and beautiful array down the slope. The storm of battle is hushed. No drum, or trumpet, or martial strain, cheers them on. No bugle sounds the charge. In dead silence and with firm and steady step they come. • The allied forces look with indescribable awe and dread on the approach of those battalions that had never yet been conquered. But the momentary pause is like the hush of the storm ere it gathers for a fiercer sweep. The cannon open at once, and whole ranks of that gallant band fall like a snow wreath from the mountain, yet they falter not ; — over the mangled forms they pass, and Avith steady, resistless force, come up face to face with their foe. The lines reel, and totter, and sway backward. The field seems lost — but no, that awful discharge on their bosoms from that rank of men that seemed to rise from the ground has turned the day — the invincible guard stop as if stunned by some terrible blow. A second dis- charge, and they wheel and fly. The whole English line now advance to the assault. Look at that man- gled column, how that discharge of artillery has torn its head and carried away half its number. 'Tis over ; that magnificent army that formed in such beautiful order in the morning on the heights, is now rent, and the fugitives darken the field. 'Tis WATERLOO. 205 night ; but tlie Prussians, fresli on the field, pursue the flying the long night. Oh, what scenes of horror and dread are witnessed, where the thunder of distant cannon comes booming on the midnight air ! Death is dragging his car over the multitude, and the very heavens look aghast at the merciless slaughter. 'Tis night ; the roar of the far off cannon is heard at intervals, but here it is all quiet. The battle is hushed, and the conflicting legions have parted to meet no more. -The full, round moon is sailing quietly up the blue heavens, serene and peaceful as ever. The stars shine on as if they looked on no scene of woe. A weary form is slowly passing over the field. It is Wellington, weeping as he goes ; for his horse's hoofs strike at every step in puddles of human blood, and the moonbeams fall on more than twenty thousand corpses strewed over the trampled ground. The groans of the dying and the shrieks of the suffering mingle together, while the sudden death- cry rings over all. And the unconscious moon is smiling on, painting the far off landscape in beauty. God in heaven ! is this thy earth, and are those man- gled mountains of fiesh thy creatures? How little nature seems to sympathize with the scenes that transpire in her presence ! It is true, the grain lies trampled, and crushed, and red on the plain; but the wind passes as gently over it, stirring tire tree- tops as it goes, as if no groans were mingled with its breath. The full-orbed moon rides up her gorgeous pathway of stars, smiling down as sweetly on these crushed and shrieking masses, as if naught but the 18 206 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. shepherd boy reclined on the field, and gazed on her beauty. Nay, God himself seems not to notice this fierce attack on the happiness of his creatures, but lets nature, like a slumbering child, breathe peacefully on. And yet this is an awful night, and there is an aggregate of woe and agony here no mind can mea- sure. And he, the author of it all, the haughty homicide who has strode like a demon over Europe, and left his infatuated armies on three continents, where is he ? A fugitive for his life ; while the roar of the distant cannon coming faintly on his ear, tells him of the field and the power he has left behind. His race is run, that baleful star has gone down, and the nations can "breathe free again." Such were my thoughts as I stood on this greatest of human battle-fields. It is evident to an impartial observer, that if Grrouchy had obeyed Bonaparte, as Blucher did Wellington; or had Blucher stayed away as did Grouchy, Bonaparte would have won the field, and no one could have told where that scourge of man would have stopped. But God had said, "thus far and no farther," and his chariot went down just as it was nearing the goal. The Christian cannot muse over such a field of blood without the deepest execration of Bonaparte's cha- racter. The warrior may recount the deeds wrought in that mighty conflict, but the Christian's eye looks farther — to the broken hearts it has made, and to the fearful retributions of the judgment. We will not speak of the physical sufi'ering crowded into this one day, for we cannot appreciate it. The sufferings WATERLOO. 207 of one single man, with Ms shattered bones piercing him as he struggles in his pain ; his suffocation, and thirst, and bitter prayers drowned amid the roar of battle ; his mental agony as he thinks of his wife and children ; his last death-shriek, are utterly inconceiv- able. Multiply the sum of this man's suffering by twenty thousand, and the aggregate who could tell ? Then charge all this over to one man's ambition^ and who shall measure his guilt, or say how dark and terrible his doom should be ? Bonaparte was a man of great intellect, but he stands charged with crimes that blacken and torture the soul for ever, and his accusers and their witnesses will rise from almost every field in Europe, and come in crowds from the banks of the Nile. He met and conquered many armies, but never stood face to face with such a ter- rible array as when he shall be summoned from his grave to meet this host of witnesses. The murderous artillery, the terrific charge, and the headlong cour- age will then avail him nothing. Truth, and Justice, and mercy, are the only helpers there, and they can- not help Mm. He trod them down in his pride and fury, and they shall tread him down for ever. He assaulted the peace and happiness of the earth, and the day of reckoning is sure. He put his glory above all human good or ill, and drove his chariot over a pathway of human hearts, and the God of the human heart shall avenge them and abase him. I care not what good he did in founding institutions and over- turning rotten thrones ; good was not his object, but personal glory. Besides, this sacking and burning 208 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES, down cities to build greater, has always been a fa- vorite measure with conquerors, and the favorite apology with their eulogizers. It is false in fact, and false if true in the inference drawn from it. It is not true that improvement was his purpose, nor does it exculpate him if it was. God does not per- mit man to produce happiness this way without a special command. When he wishes a corrupt nation or people to be swept away, he sends his earthquake or pestilence, or if a man is to be his anointed instru- ment, he anoints him in the presence of the world. He may, and does, allow one wicked thing to scourge another, but the scourger is a criminal while he fulfils the design, for he acts not for the Deity, but for him- self. The grand outline of Bonaparte's mental cha- racter — the greatest achievement he performed — the mighty power he wielded, and the awe with w^hich he inspired the world, have blinded men to his true cha- racter, and he remains half apotheosized to this day ; while the sadness of his fate — being sent to eat out his heart on a solitary rock in mid ocean — has created a morbid sympathy for him, any thing but manly or just. The very manner of his death, we think, has contributed to this wrong feeling. Dying amidst an awful storm, while trees were falling, and the sea flinging itself as if in convulsions far up on the island, have imparted something of the supernatm^al to him. And then his fierceness to the last ; for though the night was wild and terrible, a wilder night was over his heart ; and his spirit, in its last fitful struggle, was watching the current of a heavy fight, and his last WATERLOO. 209 dying words were tUe d'armee, "head of the army." He has gone, and his mighty armies with him ; but the day shall come when the world shall read his history as they read that of Csesar Borgia, and to point to his tomb with a shudder. It is strange that such men as Bonaparte should always regard themselves as fated to perform what they do, as if themselves stupified with their own success, and conscious — acting voluntarily though they were — that the results were greater than human calculations could make them. Napoleon often spoke of himself as under a fate that protected him from death while he prosecuted his mad ambition. He may have been right, for Pharaoh was impelled by his own wicked heart to accomplish a great and glorious plan. How sweet it is to know there is one right Being in the universe, who can and will eventually adjust all things well ! Before leaving the field, I was struck with one fact my guide told me, illustrating the brutality of the soldier. He was a native of Waterloo, and the morn- ing after the battle, stole forth to the field to pillage the slain. But the soldiers had been before him, and, weary and exhausted as they were with the hard day's fight, had spent the night in robbing the dead and the wounded ; so that he, on his own confession, could find, among the thousands heaped together, nothing worth carrying away but an old silver watch. This single fact is volumes on the brutalizing tendency of war. The field of Waterloo has undergone some change, from the erection of a large tumulus over the slain in the centre of it, surmounted by a bronze lion. The 18* 210 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. dirt excavated to make it has deepened the valley, while several monuments are scattered here and there to commemorate some gallant deed. In the little church of Waterloo repose many of the officers who fell in battle, and the walls are lined with tablets, bearing some of them touching inscriptions. One of them was peculiarly so. It was written above a young man, the son of a noble family, who was one of Wellington's suite, and had been with him in the peninsular campaign. He was but eighteen years old, and Waterloo was his twentieth battle. Scarcely out of boyhood, he had passed through the s^orm of nine- teen battles and perished in the twentieth. It is ter- rific to reflect on the moral effect of so many scenes of blood upon a youthful heart. Such training will ruin any man, even though he were an angel. Ah, the evils of war are felt not less on the living than the dead ; not less on the mourner than the victor. The path of victory and defeat are both equally wasting. The blood of the slain has manured this field well, and the grain was waving richly over it, stirred by a gentle wind. I turned away a wiser, if not a better man, and filled with deep abhorrence of war and war's am- bition. And yet how many pilgrims come to this battle-field, and how high Bonaparte stands in the world's estimation ; while who seeks Howard's grave, or mourns over his death of a martyr ? But this is the world's way, and always has been — neglect its benefactors and deify its destroyers — crucify its Saviour and build temples above its Caesars. ADAPTATION OF INTELLECTUAL EFEOHTS. 211 CHAPTER XVIL ON THE ADAPTATION OF ONE'S INTELLECTUAL EF- FOETS TO THE CHARACTER OF HIS OWN MIND AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH HE IS PLACED. The necessity of adapting all one's intellectual ejfforts to tlie character of his mind, furnishes a wide range of varied and interesting thought, finding illus- trations in. the mathematician and poet, the novelist and chemist, the historian and the humorist. To trace out the workings of different minds in their peculiar departments would be a delightful and in- structive task. ''Know thyself," was written on the temple of Apollo, and though a heathen injunction, outweighs volumes of wholesome counsel. Perhaps there is no motive operating so powerfully on the mind of the young student as the unexpressed desire to excel as a speaker, a man of letters or of genius. Probably there is no vision which floats so dazzlingly before the spirit of the ambitious scholar, as the sight of himself, holding an audience spell-bound by the force of his eloquence or the displays of his genius in some department of learning or of art. If the secrets of the studio were revealed, the dreams of the am- bitious sleeper uttered aloud, and the irrepressible longings of his spirit breathed in the ear, they would 212 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. all speak of this one bright vision. True, this dream, except in a few cases, is never fully realized. It results from the consciousness of power which the soul feels as it first steps across the threshold into the great intellectual universe, and expands to the deepening, growing prospect above and around it. But a man may sit for ever and gaze upon the hill- top of his desires ; invested though it be with real splendor, without industry on his part, he might as well gaze on the moon. To have his industry well applied ; to excel at all in our primary exertions, or after efforts, we must let the mind work to its natural tendencies. Neither the mind nor its tendencies are created by education ; they are simply developed, corrected, and strengthened. Every mind has its peculiarities, its own way of viewing a question, and its mode of presenting it. In some one thing it is better than in all others. There are the feebler and the stronger powers, and to knoiv where one's intellectual strength lies is the first lesson to be learned, but it is one that many never learn. Our taste is not the judge on this point ; for taste is only a cultivated quality, re- ceiving its character from the influences under which it has been educated. Mistaking taste for genius is the rock on which thousands have split. It has hur- ried many a young and struggling author into scenes of bitter disappointment and an early grave. A taste for poetry it not the divine " afilatus," nor a love for eloquence its heaven-imparted power. Mistaking taste for genius effectually prevents a man from un- ADAPTATION OF INTELLECTUAL EFFORTS. 213 derstanding its true intellectual strength. One, per- haps, has been educated to consider the true power of a speaker to consist in logical argument, and calm, deliberate discussion ; while his own mind is highly imaginative, and its power consists in the force and beauty of its illustrations ; the new forms under which it presents truth ; its resistless appeals, and impas- sioned bursts of feeling. To comply with the rigid taste under which it has been educated, the mind would leave untouched its greatest powers, and labor to lead out those most weakly developed, and which never can become more than ordinary. On the oth^r hand, a cool mathematician, whose imagination never flew beyond a diagram, may possess a wonderful pen- chant for the pathetic and highly figurative. He may struggle for ever, but his efforts will be like measuring poetry by the yard, or gauging beauty with rule and compass. How many illustrations of this truth have been presented to each of us in our lifetime. My memory refers this moment to two. One, whose mind was of a bold and ardent character, wished to be reputed a cool and laborious metaphy- sician. To secure this reputation, he labored through life against Nature herself. Sometimes, when sud- denly excited, he would brea^ away from the fetters in which he had enthralled himself, and burst with startling power upon his auditors. But he controlled these ebullitions of feeling, as he termed them, and, with the power of excelling as an orator, he died as a common metaphysician. The other probably never could have been a great man ; yet all the excellence 214 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. he possessed consisted in the plain, practical, com- mon sense view he took of a subject adapted to in- struct or benefit his hearers. But he had a wonder- ful taste for the pathetic. He fondly believed he was fitted to stir an audience with lofty feeling, and bear them away on the resistless tide of strong emo- tion. Mistaking the structure of his mind, he conse- quently always failed, but consoled himself with the reflection that no human power could arouse and agitate such marble hearts. He never tore a passion to tatters, like a declamatory schoolboy; but he gently rocked it to rest, then made a serious carica- tm-e of it. He would turn even a tragedy into a comedy. "Know thyself," is a difficult but neces- sary lesson. Many a man considers himself a sound critic of a speaker's or writer's power, while he brings every one to the same test — his own taste. But minds are as various in their construction as natural scenery in its aspects. There is the bold outline of the mountain range, with its rocks and caverns and gloomy gorges ; and there is the great plain, with its groves and streamlets. There are the rough torrent and headlong cataract, and there is the gentle river, winding in perfect wantonness through the vale, as if it loved and strove to linger amid its beauties; there is the terrific swoop of the eagle, and the arrow- like dart of the swallow ; there are the thunder-cloud and rainbow, the roar of the ocean and the gentle murmur of the south wind ; all, all unlike, yet all attractive, and all possessing their admirers. The same Divine hand that created and spread out this ADAPTATION OF INTELLECTUAL EFEORTS. 215 diversified scenery, has formed mind with aspects as various, and it appears most attractive in that which the Creator has given it, I recollect of seeing, some years ago, a contrast drawn by a western man, between Dr. Beecher and Bishop Mcllvaine. I do not recollect the author's name, nor can I now recall much of the comparison ; but, among other things, he remarked, that the structure and movement of their minds were as differ- ent as the structure and movement of their bodies — one abrupt, vehement, and raf)id; the other calm, easy, and graceful. The thoughts of one are like a chest of gold rings ; of the other, like the hnks of an iron chain. One makes the sky above you all sunshine and beauty ; the other makes one half of it too bright for mortal eye to gaze upon, the other half with thunder-cloud piled on thunder-cloud, and above all the wheels of Providence rolling. These men are both eloquent; yet how different the orbits in which their minds re- volve. One never could be the other. One is the torrent among the hills ; the other the stream along the meadows. One startles ; the other delights. One agitates ; the other soothes. One ever asks for the war bugle, and pours through it a rallying cry that would almost wake the dead; the other cries, ''bring out the silver trumpet," and breathes his soul into it till the melody dies away in the human heart like sunset in the heavens. Some one drawing a con- trast between Lord Brougham and Canning, remarks that the mind of one (Lord Brougham) is like a con- 216 RAMBLES AND • SKETCHES. cave mirror, converging all tlie rays of light tliat fall upon it into one tremendous and burning focus ; the mind of the other, like a convex mirror, scattering the rays as they strike it, till it shines and glitters from every point you view it. So Longinus, speak- ing of Demosthenes and Cicero, says, one is like the 'mountain torrent, bearing away every thing by the violence of its current ; the other a consuming fire, wandering hither and thither over the fields, ever burning, and ever finding something to consume. Every great speaker and writer in our own land has his peculiar style, that no other one can appropriate to himself. How do all these varieties occur ? From obeying the great — I might say greatest — ^maxim, ''Look into thine own heart, then write.'' Walter Scott would doubtless have died an ordinary man if he had continued the law, to which external circum- stances seemed resolved to chain him. No one sup- poses that every man has powers so strikingly developed as those I have noticed. The upward ten- dencies of some minds are so powerful, that no edu- cation can subdue or change, them, and, Titan-Hke, they will arise, though mountains are piled on them. But in more ordinary ones, the better qualities are not so prominent ; they must be sought out and culti- vated. These varieties as really exist in the most common intellects as in great ones. A backwoods- man very soon knows whether he is better on the dead lift or vigorous leap, but how few who write or speak know in what direction their minds work with greatest power ; and yet, till they do, they never can ADAPTATION OF INTELLECTUAL EFFORTS. 217 receive their best cultivation. A man destitute of imagination might as well attempt to fly with leaden wings, as strive to excel in highly descriptive and ornamental, or figurative writing. While, on the contrary, let one with a youthful, ardent, and highly imaginative mind, assume the deliberate judge and deep philosopher, and aim to make every word weigh. a pound, and he will appear at best like a child with his grandfather's spectacles on. And yet the world is full of these unnatural ejQforts, till the mind often loses all its elasticity and playfulness on the one hand, and all its force and power on the other. In- deed, sober-minded men often compliment themselves on the soundness of their judgments in condemning writers and speakers, when they ought to be reproved for the narrowness of their views. That man who, on listening to a beautiful poem, satirically inquired at the close what it all proved, doubtless considered himself blessed with a. vastly deep and philosophical mind. What did it prove ? It proved there was harmony in the universe besides the jingle of dollars and cents— that there was beauty in the world be- sides Hues and angles, raikoads and canals. Many seem to think there is nothing proved, except by a long train of consecutive reason. As if the stars and the blue sky, the caroling of birds, and the music of running waters, proved nothing ! They prove much to one who has an eye and ear to perceive and understand them. Said a great scholar and dis- tinguished man once to me, " Mrs. Hemans never wrote a single line of poetry in her life." Vastly 19 218 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. lyrofound ! Methinks such a man could discourse systematically on the compact, scientifically-built wall of a garden all day, and never behold a single flower it inclosed. For such minds beauty and har- mony are created in vain. It is this rigidity of taste that often paralyzes the powers of the finest-wi'ought minds. The variety which God has created is disre- garded, and every one is brought to the same iron- like standard. The mind is doubtless, in a thousand instances, injured before it is old enough to compare for itself. ■ How many parents regard institutions of learning as so many intellectual mills, into VY'hich every variety of mind is to be tossed, and come out well-bolted intellectual flour ! How little do they study the different characters of those under their control ! and while they fondly believe they are granting them equal opportunities by the course they pursue, they are using means adapted to develop the best powers of one, and the weakest of the other. Let not the reader suppose that the intellect is self- educated ; that Natui-e is an unerring guide, and he mast folLoAV as far as she leads. She directs to which species the variety belongs, gently admonishing man to cultivate it according to the character of the plant. Nor do I suppose she has inclosed a path for any particular mind to tread in without deviation to the right hand or to the left, but that there is one in which it can move with greater facility and pleasure. There is one aspect of it more attractive than all the rest. I may be considered as having given an undue im- portance to this subject, but I am confident that no ADAPTATION OF INTELLECTUAL EFFORTS. 219 one has advanced far -witliout knowing what his best powers are. Cultivate an ordinary mind so tha.t it may possess its greatest power, and it will be regarded as a giant in- this world of misapplied effort. The latter part of this subject — -the adaptation of one's self to circumstances — may seem at first sight to conflict with the former, namely, that one should consult the peculiar tendencies and powers of his own mind in his mental efforts. But it does not ; for although one may possess an excellence on which he must mainly rely, yet there may be some circum- stances calling forth a lower order of powers that shall exhibit the mind to greater advantage from the very beauty of the adaptation itself. Besides, the desired result does not always depend on the zv eight of the given blow, but on the direction it takes, and the point of contact. So the mind cannot always produce the greatest results by the employment of its greatest powers. That depends very much upon the minds with which it comes in collision, and the tastes it has to encounter. *When there is a broad and striking contrast on the occasion, this rule is always followed. No one would make the same address on a funeral occasion and jubilee day. But reflective men go farther, and adapt their efforts to the differ- ent intellectual capacities of assemblies and their various ^habits of feeling. The necessity of regarding this variety of taste and habits of thought is seen by one wjio has traveled in different sections of the world. The same speech would be very differently estimated in this State^ in the far South, and in the 220 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. Western States. One that would please the taste of most Southern assemblies would be considered too flowery and ornamental by an assembly here ; while an address that would be regarded here as very sound and logical, might rock many a Western audience to sleep. Some divines, able to control large parishes in New England, could not keep q. Western congre- gation together. Uncultivated countries naturally draw into them men of a bold and ardent character. The startling appeal, the bold figure, and fearless action, correspond to their habits of thought and manner of living. I suppose many a sound Eastern lawyer would have been an unsuccessful rival against Col. Crockett, among the latter's constituents. I do not introduce this to show that one should assume the bad manners of others to move them. But to elevate those whose mental habits have been directly opposed to his own to what he considers correct taste, is a long and difficult process, and nevei' can be done un- less he throws himself somewhat into the current of their thoughts and feelings. Who would think, for instance, of moving a French audience, with all their ardor, by the same kind of eloquence that he would the Dutch, their neighbors ; or address an Italian as- sembly, with their poetic feeling and deep sentiment, in the same train that he would an English one ? Similar, though not so striking contrasts, sometimes exist in towns that border on each other. Daniel O'Connell does not harangue in the same style in the British Parliament that he does before his Irish con- stituents. Place a man of great and varied powers ADAPTATION OF INTELLECTUAL EFFORTS. 221 before a small audience of savans, perchance tlie faculty of a university, and if he wishes to convince them of some abstract proposition, he keeps his heart as emotionless as marble — imagination furls her wings in repose, and naked reason toils alone. He ad- vances from argument to argument with a watchful- ness that eludes suspicion, and omitting no proof that strengthens his cause, he presses right on to the point towards which he is laboring, till at length, with all the gravity of a mathematician, he exclaims, ^'quod erat demonstrandum." Place him the next hour, as a political aspirant, in the midst of a motley multitude, and he that was a moment before all moderation, sud- denly becomes all appeal and declamation. The most extravagant assertions, and exaggerated statements, bring down upon his head thunders of applause. Let him the next hour be transported before an enlight- ened audience, and he one moment enchains attention by a train of rapid reasoning — now startles with a sudden flight of the imagination, and again delights by the harmonious flow of his sentences. He receives the admiration of all by adapting himself at times to each. I do not suppose that minds usually possess such varied powers, but the fact is a forcible illustra- tion of the principle of adaptation, on which those act who seek to influence others, and which must con- trol more or less every one who would: directly benefit any. Men study well the rules of the schools, but very defectively that strange and restless thing, the human heart. This principle operates so extensively that what 19* 222 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES, would be considered violent declamation in some cir- cumstances would be the truest eloquence in others. Take, as an illustration, the speech which Sir Walter Scott puts in the mouth of Ephraim McBriar, when addressing the Covenanters after a successful battle. It exhibits his wonderful knowledge of the human heart.' The Covenanters had been driven from their homes and altars bj the merciless Claverhouse and his followers, till at length, hunted even among the hills and caverns, and driven to despair, they turned at bay, and falling on their pursuers, repulsed them with great slaughter, leaving the field covered with the slain. As the last shout of battle died away on the mountain air, with their brows yet unbent from the stern conflict, and their hands crimson with the blood of their foes, they gathered together on the field of death, and demanded a sermon from one of their preachers. Amid the silent dead, encompassed by the everlasting hills, beneath the open sky, those stern and fiery-hearted men stood and listened. A young man, scarce twenty years of age, arose, pale from watching, fasts, and long imprisonment — the hectic flush on his cheek writing his early doom. But as he stood, and cast his faded eye over the mul- titude and over the scene of battle, his cheek burned with a sudden glow, and a smile of triumph played around his lips. His voice, at first faint and low, was scarce heard by the immense multitude, but gathering strength and volume from his increasing emotion, its clear and startling tones fell at length like a trumpet- call on the ears of the throng. He wished to nerve ADAPTATION OF INTELLECTUAL EFFOETS. 223 them to sterner conflicts, and urge them on to new victories, and what should be the character of his address ? Should he attempt to convince those wronged and hunted men of the righteousness of their cause? From history and law should he calmly prove the right of defending themselves against the oppressor ? No ; such argument would have been tame amid -the stormy feelings that agitated their bosoms. He at first awoke indignation by describing their outraged altars and violated homes. He spoke of the Church, compared her to Hagar, watching the waning life of her infant in the desert — to Rachel, mourning for her children and refusing to be comforted ; then sud- denly taking fire at the wrongs in which he felt a common interest, he bursts forth: "Your garments are stained, but not with the blood of beasts — your swords are filled with blood, but not of bullocks or goats ; neither are these wild hills around you a sanctuary planked with cedar and plated with silver ; nor are ye ministering priests at the altar, mth cen- sers and torches; but these are the corpses of men who rode to battle — these hills are your altars, and your own good swords the instruments of sacrifice ; wherefore turn not back from the slaughter on which ^e have entered, like the worthies of old ; but let every man's hand be like the hand of the mighty Samson, and every man's sword like that of Gideon, which turned not back from the slaughter ; for the banners of the Reformation are spread abroad on the mountains in their first loveliness, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." In this wild and 224 RAMBLES AND SKETCHES. enthusiastic manner he continued, till at his single bidding those iron-hearted men would have " rushed to battle as to a banquet, and embraced death with rapture." I do not speak of the moral character of such an appeal, but of its adaptedness to produce the effect he desired, and to establish the fact that even declamation may become eloquence, and argument be equivalent to nonsense. He wished the resistance unto blood which had commenced should not termi- nate through hesitating fears and calm reflection. He wished them to be upborne by the same lofty enthu- siasm that sustained him in the perils and death that surrounded him. To effect these objects he acted with consummate skill. Powerful minds study more carefully than we imagine the principle I have ad- vanced. There is no doubt that it should be the de- sign of all intellectual efforts to make men wiser and better. But truth may be clothed in garments va- rious as the different phases which the human mind assumes. Its illustrations are as diversified as the forms of nature, and on the appropriateness of them its power and success very much depend. I know there is an objection in the hearts of some good men against exciting emotion ; they prefer calm, delibe- rate reason. But the danger seems to me to consist, in the means used to awaken it. The feelings are transient, but the effect they work while in being may not be. In agitating times men govern too much by enlisting the sympathies, while in calm and ordinary times they entirely neglect it. To hear some men speak, one would think the heart was quite ADAPTATION OF INTELLECTUAL EFFORTS. 225 a redundant thing, or at least very subordinate ; and thought and reason alone regal. But the heart also knows how to play the despot, and it is more difficult to arouse it than to convince the reason. The great- est truths in the universe are as clear as daylight to the mass of enlightened men. But reason regards them with a cold and stony eye till the heart kindles upon them. It is easier to make the judgment as- sent than to awaken emotion. It requires a master hand to sweep successfully that strange and