Ccli+.4

Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library
1908

•n^

/tor a

THE
COEEESPONPENCE OF
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
D.C.L.
AUIHOK OF " THE HISTOET OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS "
" THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN OF BARNETELD "
"the RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC" ETC.

EDITED BY
GEOEGE WILLIAM CUETIS
WITH PORTRAIT
IN TWO VOLUMES
Vol. I.

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1889

YALE

Copyright, 1889, by J. Lewis Staokpole,
Executor of the Will of JoHN-ioTHROP Motley.

i

Eicctroiyped hy XVilUam Clowes <& Sonx, tondon.

PEEFACE.

The admirable Memoir of Mr. Motley by his friend Oliver
Wendell Holmes, renders the addition of any biographical
notice to these volumes unnecessary.
The letters now published were written mainly to members
of his family, and have been collected by his daughters.
In preparing them for publication, the editor has withheld
whatever he believed that the writer's good judgment and
thoughtful consideration for others would have omitted. This
rule excludes comments upon persons and affairs which,
however innocent or playful, might cause needless pain or
misapprehension. It excludes, also, much of the repetition
which natur^illy occurs in such letters, and a large part of
the domestic and friendly messages and allusions, which,
although illustrating the writer's generous sympathy and
affectionate disposition, are essentially private. If much of
such matter is still left, it is because, with all his interest in
literary pursuits and in public affairs, Mr. Motley was essen
tially a domestic man, and a more rigid exclusion could not
have been made without injustice to his character. Otherwise
the letters are printed as they were written.
Occasional breaks in the series of letters — especially after
the death of Mr. Motley's mother, with whom he maintained a
full and affectionate correspondence for forty years — are due
chiefly to the fact that, when surrounded by his family and
engrossed by many cares, he had but little inclination or
leisure for friendly letter- writing. This was the case in 1870;

iv PREFACE.
and the editor has been able to give but two letters written
during that year — one addressed to the Duchess of Argyll,
and the other to Dr. Holmes.
The circumstances of 3Ir. Motley's resignation of the mission
to Austria, and of his retirement from the English mission, are
told accurately and adequately in Dr. Holmes's ^Memoir. The
publication of private correspondence upon the subject would
add nothing to the facts as related by the biograjjher, and
would needlessly re-open controversy. 3Ir. ^lotley's deep
feeling upon the subject, however, which was well known to
his friends, is expressed in a few brief allusions which have
been retained in the letters now published, and for the facts
the reader is referred to the Memoir.

CONTENTS TO YOL. I.

CHAPTER I.
» EARLY TEAKS.
Letters from school — Studies and pastimes — Death of Governor Brooks
— ' Lionel Lincoln ' — Goes to Eound Hill School — Cooper's novels
— ' Hope Leslie '.........

TAG K

CHAPTER II.
GEBMANY : UNIVEBSITY LIFE.

First voyage to Europe— Cuxhaven — -The weather during the voyage —
Incidents of the voyage — Gottingen — Arrangements for his first
Semester at the University — Plans for the vacation — The German
language — Account of journey from Hamburg to Gottingen — Ger
man postilions — The Hartz Mountains — German university life —
Costume of the students — Duelling customs — " Briiderschaft " —
Plesse Castle — George Washington's letter on the Hnmane Society
•^Berlin — Studying Law — Public galleries and public money —
Daily routine at Berlin — Amusements — Taglioni — Deviient — Goetz
von Berlichingen — The " Vons and the not-Vons " — Visit to Potsdam
— Plans for the future ........ 10

CHAPTER in.
AUSTRIA — FRANCE — ITALY.

Vienna — Madame de Goethe — Tieck and his works — Journey from
Vienna to Styria, Tyrol, etc. — German postilions — Styrian Alps —
Molk — Amstetten — Neubach — St. Plorian — Salzburg — An ancient
hermitage — Burial customs — Hallein — Salt mines — Salzach Valley
— Bad-Gastein — Nassfeld — " Old Testament scenery " — A remote
village — Rome — The Ayiollo Belvedere — Naples — Hadrian's villa —
Reviving old scenes — Guide's Aurora— Reflections on the art treasures

CONTENTS.

of Rome — Tour in Sicily — Catania — Taormina — Classical associa
tions — ^Etna — An ascent under difficulties — An arduous climb — And
a disappointment — Girgenti — A perilous voyage to Malta — Eeturn
to Paris— Salisbury Cathedral — Comparison of English and foreign
cathedrals — Stonehenge ........

CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Motley's marriage — Voyage to Europe — Discomforts of steamers —
Manchester — The MacLeod case — London — En route to St. Peters
burg — Lord Lyndhurst — Mr. Clarke — Sir Charles Vaughan — Prussia
— Her vicissitudes and her condition — Konigsberg — A local legend —
Tilsit — Tauroggen — Arrival at St. Petersburg — Russian winter —
OfScial formalities — Expenses of living — The climate of Russia — John
Randolph's despatch — Russian society — The Winter Palace^Pre-
sentation at Court — Court formalities — The Czar — A Court ball — The
Grand Duke Michael — More presentations — Count LevachoS's house
— Miss Porter — Taglioni — Resignation of Secretaryship of Legation —
Nesselrode— Sir William Wylie — Peter the Great — St. Petersburg
and its public institutions — Casimir Perier — Quarrel between French
and Russian Courts — Journey to Berlin — Halle, a quizzical town-
Maurice church and its legend — Weimar — Madame de Goethe — -
Fraiikfort-on-the-Main — Paris — Guizot — Thiers as a speaker —
Brussels — John van Eyck, the inventor of oil-painting — Diary in
Russia — The Great Bazaar — How it is guarded at night — Russian
taxes and Guilds — Food supply' — ^Arniy — Manufactures — The
Blessing of the Waters — Peter the Great's house — Military hospitals
— The Hermitage Gallery — Orphan asylums .... 62

CHAPTER V.
COMMENCEMENT OP THE ' HISTORY ' — RESIDENCE AT DRESDEN.
Commencement of the ' History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic ' —
Arrival in Europe — The Rhine — Holland — The duel with the sea —
Polders — The Dutch Masters — Dresden — Its climate — The Opera —
Sontag — A picnic excursion — Prospects of the Presidential election
— The Madonna di San Sisto — The Green Vaults — Progress of the
' History ' — Prince John of Saxony — Death of Daniel Webster 
' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' and the Slavery Question — The King and
Queen of Saxony — The Court and its etiquette — Marriage of Princess
Vasa and Prince Albert — Court festivities . • . . . 122

CONTENTS. vil
CHAPTER VL
PUBLICATION OF ' THE EI8E OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC.' PAGE
The Hague — Residence at Brussels — Mr. Jlotley's daughters — Letter to
Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Daily life at Brussels — Companions of past
generations — The River Senne — The Archives — Literary silkworms
— Rubens and his art — The Shakespeare of painting — Arrival in
London — Mr. Forsyth —Preliminaries of publication — John Murray
— English and American politics compared — Preparations for publi
cation — Mr. Prescott — Frankfort — Basel — Visit to Herr von Bismarck
— His character and career — His family life — Return to England —
An English hotel — Florence — Theodore S. Fay — Paris under Louis
Napoleon — Americans in Florence — Miss Alexander — Thomas Ball
— Mr. Motley's constitutional melancholy — Description of Florence
— Her brilliant past — Her achievements and her feuds — Her present
condition — Publication of the ' History of the Dutch Republic ' —
Mr. Prescott's praise of it — Criticisms in the English and in the
American press — Sorrento — Letters about the ' History ' from Mr.
T. S. Fay— Dr. 0. W. Holmes— Mr. C. C. Felton— Letter to Dr.
0. W. Holmes on his poem — Letters about the ' History ' from Mr. G.
Bancroft and Washington Irving ...... 158

CHAPTER Vn.
BRUSSELS — AT WORK ON ' THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.'
Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Access to the State Paper Office — Nice in
December — Work on the ' History of the United Netherlands ' — At
Brussels, and in Holland — M. Gachard — M. Groen van Prinsterer
— Reception of the ' Dutch Republic ' in Holland — Dutch society —
The Hague — Work at the Archives in Brussels — And in Paris — Visit
to the Bismarcks — Frankfort ....... 204

CHAPTER VIII.
LONDON SOCIETY.

Madame de Bismarck — Journey down the Rhine — And to London —
Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Literary despondency — The ' Autocrat
of the Breakfast Table ' — Stale metaphors — Thackeray's praise of the
' Autocrat' — London Society — The Cosmopolitan — William Stirling
— Monckton Milnes — Mr. A. H. Layard — The State Paper Office — •
Dinner at the Mackintoshes — W. M. Thackeray — Lord Carlisle — The

viii CONTENTS rAGE
Athenasum — The Derby — The Opera — Alboni — Piccolomini — Lord
and Lady Lyndhurst — Mr. Henry Reeve — Chiswick House — Sir C.
Lyell — Lady Byron — Dinner at Thackeray's — Lord Macaulay —
Clubs — The Guild of Authors — Dean Milman — England's " delicious
women of sixty " — Thackeray's lecture at Lady Stanley's — Mrs.
Norton — A dinner with Mr. Peabody — "The Leviathan'' — Lady
Stanley — The Duchess of Somerset — Breakfast party at Wimbledon
Park — Lord John Russell — English politics — The " Derby-Dizzies "
— Disraeli's speech at Slough — The Grandmothers of England —
Marquis of Lansdowne— Dinner at Lady Airlie's— Henry Hallam^
The Charity Children in St. Paul's — The Chapter Coffee-house — The
Temple Church — Dinner with Lord Palmerston — Lord Clarendon^
Baron Brunnow — Abraham Hayward — Sir R. Murchison — Lady
William Russell — A Richmond dinner — Lord Brougham and Lord
Lyndhurst — ^Lord Stratford de Redcliffe — The House of Commons —
Dinner at Lansdowne House — Mrs. Norton's description of Disraeli —
Lord Goderioh — Lord Brougham on the Slave Trade — Breakfast and
dinner parties — Madame Mohl — House of Lords — Debate on Cuba . 220

CHAPTER IX.
LONDON BociKTY— continued.

London dinner parties — Pembroke Lodge — Lady J. Russell — Sir H.
Seymour — Lord Giiford — Dufferin Lodge — Cliveden — The Duchess
of Sutherland — Breakiast with Monckton Milnes — Thackeray at work
— Danby (Seymour — Harrow speeches — The Rothschilds — Stafford
House — "An honest diner-out" — Concert at Lansdowne House —
Lord Stanhope— " Owen Meredith "—" Tom Brown"— Hatfield—
S. Wilberforce — Lord Shaftesbury — Lord Denbigh — Dinner at Chis
wick House — Holland House — Stoke Paik — Gray's ' Elegy ' — Dinner
at Holland House — Lord Macaulay — Lord Clarendon — Cassiobury
Park — A series of dinner parties — Bath House — Ball at Apsley House
— -India Debate in House of Lords — Lord Wensleydale — Mount
Felix — East Horsley Towers - — Hayward — Prince Frederick of
Schleswig-Holstein — Mr. Kinglake — ^Journey to the Hague . . 274

CHAPTER X.
THE HAGUE.

Work at the Hague— The National Archives— Presentation to the Queen
of Holland — " The House in the Wood " — A Royal dinner-party —
Prince Frederick — The American Revivahsts — Lord Dunfermline —

CONTENTS. ix

TAGU

Family anniversaries — A Dutch literary celebrity — The King of
Holland — Court fetes — Court ball in Amsterdam — Prince Henry —
The Prince of Orange ........ 303

CHAPTER SI.
ROME — PARIS.

Rome — AUibone's notice of the 'History' — Other letters of commenda
tion — Work on the ' History of the United Netherlands ' — Its diffi
culties — Want of a hero — Mr. Story — Letter from M. Guizot about
the ' Dutch Republic ' — The Prince of Wales in Rome — Outbreak
of the War in Italy — Mr. Motley and family go to Paris — Causes and
prospects of the War — ^Return to England — Gloomy prospects of
European politics ......... 31C

CHAPTER XII.
RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND— PUBLICATION OP 'THE UNITIU) NETHERLANDS.'
Oatlands Park — Difficulties of his work — London in November — William
Stirling — East Sheen — Professor Owen — Mr. and Mrs. Grote — John
Murray and the ' History of the United Netherlands ' — Letter from
M. Guizot proposing Mr. Motley a Corresponding Member of the
French Academy — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes about the ' Autocrat '
— International copyright — Mr. Motley's affection for England —
American and European politics — Letter from Mr. N. Hawthorne —
' The Marble Faun'— Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes— Political and
literary affairs in the States — Praise of the ' Dutch Republic ' — The
Royal Academy dinner — D.C.L. at Oxford — Oxford commemoration
— Letter from Lady Dufferin to Mrs. Norton — Lady Dufferin and her
son — Approaching completion of the ' United Netherlands' — Lord
de Grey — Studley Royal — Fountains Abbey — Sidney Herbert — Visits
in Scotland — Keir — Glen Quoich — Mr. and Mrs. EUice — Inveraray^
The Duke of Argyll — Taymouth — Lord Breadalbane — The Prince of
Wales' visit to America — Election of Abraham Lincoln — Publica
tion of the first two volumes of the ' United Netherlands '—^Letters
of acknowledgment from M. St. Hilaire and from M. Guizot . . 329

CHAPTER XIII.
THE CRISIS IN AMERICA.

The Slavery Question in America — A dangerous outlook — Letter from
Dr. 0. W. Holmes on the labours of an historian — The gathering

CONTENTS. PAGE
storm — Literary gossip from Boston — Publication and reception of
the 'United Netherlands' in America — The Secessionists and public
opinion in England — Charles Dickens — ^Mr. Wilkie Collins — Letter
from Mr. W. E. Forster on the crisis in America — Letter to Dr. 0.
W. Holmes — ' Elsie Venner '-^Letter to the Duchess of Argyll on
the American crisis — Mr. Motley goes to Boston — State of public
feeling — Mr. Motley's letter to the Times — Causes of the War — ¦
Bitter feeling towards England — A "war of principle" — Unani
mous feeling throughout the North — General Scott — His supposed
plans — The army in camp — Visit to Washington — Evacuation of
Harper's Ferry — General McClellan — -Disposition of the army round
Washington — Lord Lyons — The Four Articles of the Congress of
Paris — Mr. Seward's negotiations with England — Abraham Lincoln
— England's policy — The blockade and the cotton crop — The Army
cf the Potomac — Outpost skirmishes — Massing of troops — Arlington
House — Objects of the war misunderstood in England — Mr. Chase —
Counter Revolution in Virginia and other States — The Slavery
Question — England's attitude — General McDowell — General Scott
and his subordinates — Mr. Montgomery Blair — Conversation with
the President about England — The President's Message. . . 357

LETTERS

OF

JOHN LOTHEOP MOTLEY.

CHAPTEE I.

EARLY YEARS.

Letters from school — Studies and pastimes — Death of Governor Brooks 
' Lionel Lincoln ' — Goes to Eound Hill School — Cooper's novels — ' Hope
Leslie.'
[At this time Motley was ten years old, and a pupil at the
school of Charles W. Greene, near Boston.]
To Ms Father. Jamaica Plain,
Mmj 13th, 1824.
My dear Fathee, — I want to see you very much. I sup
pose you remember that it is my turn to come home on
Saturday next ? This is Thursday, the day on which we speak.
I was third best. The pieces which I spoke were Mr. Sprague's
Prize Prologue and a most delectable comedy entitled and
called 'The Cruel Tragedy of the Death of Pyramus and
Thisbe,' in which I took the part of Thisbe. My nose has
bled very often lately, but I believe it will not bleed much
more. I have had a pain in my side once or twice. I hope
you, mother, and all the family are well. Mr. Greene is very
well. Mrs. Greene has a headache.
I am, dear father,
Your affectionate son, LOTHROP.
VOL. I. B

2 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [CnAr. I.
To his Brother. Boston,
Fehruarij 21st, 1825.
MON CHER FREEE, — J'espere que vous etes bien ; je suis tres
bien. Eduard a ete indispose, mais il est mieux. Nous
recumes votre lettre aujourd'hui, et nous fiimes bien aises
d'apprendre quo vous etes bien. Vous avez ete mepris, ear
Monsieur Adams est le President. Nous cappons maintenant,
I'examen doit avoir lieu le prochain Mercredi. Nous tous
sommes tres bien et nous envoyons bien de I'amour.
Votre affectueux frere,
J. L. M.
(N. B. — This letter was lost, or it would have been sent
before.) L'inauguration du President etait aujourd'hui : I'ecole
d'Eduard n'etait pas ouvert ; il n'allait pas. Eduard a repu
les lettres. Ecriez-vous a me s'il vous plait le prochain fois
que vous ecriez a eux.
J. L. M.
Edward is now writing you a letter, which he makes quite a
business of. Our shop is an excellent one. We have made a
drawer, a thing to wind twine on, exactly like those in grocers'
shops. We have to write exercises now, and I have got used
to them, so that I can write them without many mistakes.
There is a report that a flood was to have been to-day, but I
suppose that it was put off in deference to the President.
Mr. Thos. K. Jones sent round a card saying that he would be
at his house on the 4th of March (to-day), at any time after
twelve o'clock, to congratulate each other on the election of
John Quincy Adams to the Presidency of the United States,
on which occasion he expects the favour of Mr.  's com
pany. Father and Uncle Edward received one of them, and
went (his house is in Eoxbury) and dined at Eaneuil Hall.
Messrs. Sprague, Percival, and Wells wrote an ode on the
occasion, of which that of Mr. Percival was considered the
best. I believe Mr. Labasse is going from Boston to New York,

1825.] SCHOOL DAYS. 3
to teach there during the summer. I have not told you that
the flood is postponed till Monday next. A great many guns
were fired this morning, and continued through the day.
Mr. Leverett's father is very sick, for which reason he was not
at school on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday.
Governor Brooks died Monday morning, and was buried
Thursday privately, as he made that request. I have read
' Lionel Lincoln,' which I think very interesting. There is a
great deal about the Eevolutionary War in it, and it contains
a full account of the Battle of Bunker's Hill. Lionel Lincoln is
an English lord, and is the principal character in the book.
When he comes to Boston, which he does in the beginning of
the book, he goes to a near relation, called Madame Lechmere,
who is very rich, and is another very principal character in the
story. Mrs. Lechmere's house is in Tremont Street, which
Governor Phillips now lives in.
Good-night ! Yours affectionately,
J. L. M.

To his Mother. Northampton,' May 29th, 1825.
Dear Mother, — I intend to have now the pleasure of
writing you a few lines. I do not know when I have enjoyed
myself so much as I did yesterday (Saturday). In the morning
the gardens were distributed, and I worked in it an hour before
school, and in the afternoon we worked a good while in them.
After that we went to ride in a nutshell, otherwise a monster
of a carryall, with five seats in it ; each seat holds five, so we
had twenty-five in it ; and another carryall behind us as full
as it could hold. After we came back we went into water, and
it refreshed us very much. I wish you would send me up
some nankeen pantaloons, as my woolenet ones are so tight
that they are uncomfortable, and besides that woolenet is too
' The Round Hill School at North- Mr. Joseph S. Cogswell, was at that
ampton, Massachusetts, under the time well known throughout the United
direction of Mr. George Bancroft and States.

i MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. I.
thick. I should like to have you send me up my French
dictionary. I am reading Hume's ' History of England,'
which Mr. Cogswell lent me, and think it very interesting.
I wish you would write as soon as you possibly can. I have
commenced Spanish, which I like very much. I think this is
a beautiful place. From my bed I can see a branch of the
Green Mountains ; Mount Tom and Holyoke too — I should
like very much to go up them.
Give my love to all at home.
And believe me.
Your affectionate son,
J. L. Motley.

To his Mother.

Round Hill, Northampton,
May 31st, 1825.
My dear Mother, — I am going to keep a journal this
week, and have begun to-day, Tuesday, as you will see by the
date. Our gardens are excellent ones, being twenty feet
broad and eighty long. Three other boys and myself own one
together. We have made several beds and planted a good many
things, such as corn, radishes, water and musk melons, etc.
It is now about a quarter to one o'clock, so that, as we eat
dinner at one, I shall not have time to write much, but I will
continue it in the evening. A boy of the name of Barrett
came to Eound Hill just now and into the school, where I am
sitting now ; he is an old scholar and has cheeks as big as
pumpkins. We have several new scholars, amongst whom is
a boy by the name of Wilkinson, who owns a garden with me,
and two Jews, by name Moses and Aaron David, and two
Baltimore boys by the name of Treeze. I have been workin"-
in my garden this morning, and very hot work it is. We
went into water yesterday, and last Saturday, so that we have
been in three times this season. Mr. Bancroft said that the
boys who pleased might go and work in their gardens, and
that the rest might go in a swimming ; and I assure you that
there was not one that did the former.

1826.] LIFE AT SCHOOL. 5
I study ' Charles XII.' in French, which I think very in
teresting, and it is much more by its being in French ; I can
read French books very easily, which I do very often.
Half-past one o'clock, I have just finished my dinner, and
I have a half-hour to write you before school. You must
certainly send me up some thinner clothes than woolenet.
In the morning, from half-past five to seven, I study
French ; after breakfast I study Spanish, from nine to half-
past ten, when v/e go out and stay about ten or fifteen
minutes ; and when we come in, I study Greek until twelve,
when we are dismissed ; and in the afternoon I study Cicero
and recite to Dr. Beck, a German.
I think there is near sixty scholars in the school. We go
down town to " meeting " ; we go, Thomas and I, to Mr. Hall's.
We had a blind man preach for us last Sunday ; he had got
the hymns and his sermon by heart.
Good-bye for this afternoon !
I have got acquainted with all the boys now. I translate
a Spanish book, ' Collections Espagnol,' with T. Bond. I wish
you would send me up, if you can find it, my old French
exercise book that I finished.
I like Northampton every day more and more. I sleep in
the same room with Tom, W. Brewster, and a boy by the
name of Forbes, a boy from South Carolina.
Good-night ; it's about nine o'clock.
J. L. Motley.

To his Father. Round Hill,
April 29ih, 1826.
Dear Father, — I hope soon to receive a letter from you or
mother. Almost all the boys are here now, a few from Balti
more and Philadelphia are wanting. Some of the Philadel
phia fellows came yesterday afternoon, and with these came a
new boy, the smallest boy by far in school, I don't believe he
is a bit bigger than Preble ; I suppose he is older though.
I wish I had some marbles up here. It is what the boys

6 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. I.
principally have up here, but there are not many up here
in all.
I received my paint-box by Tom Appleton. I am in the
upper school this term. There are not half so many this term
as there were last. It is not very long before I shall come
home in August, about four months.
Mr. Cogswell says he should think I might enter Sopho
more, but I do not think I could, or at least if I should
manage to shuffle in, I should always be the worst in my
class, and should not be able to take any part at the end of
my stay there, nor I don't believe that I shall be able to get
a part in the Freshman class, but I will do my best.
There have been very few new fellows this term, about ten,
no more. All the Salem and Boston boys have come now. I
never knew the Boston boys come so late — some did not come
till Thursday night ; some of the Salem boys did not come till
Friday evening (day before yesterday).
I study Virgil and Tacitus in Latin, 'Graeca Majora' in
Greek, and Lacroix's ' Arithmetic,' and Euler's ' Algebra ' in
Mathematics, besides which, out of school time, I review the
' Greek Eeader,' with Dr. Bode, and am going to study the
Greek Testament.
Good-bye ! Yours affectionately,
John L. Motley.

To his Father. Round Hill,
May 13th, 1827.
My dear Father,— I received mother's and Thomas's
letter. I received mother's a week ago, and Thomas's two or
three days ago, more than a week after it was written. The
reason was that the boy to whom Mr. Cogswell gave the
letters to give to the boys, lost it, and it was found about a
week after.
The apple and pear trees have all been in blossom for a
good while; the trees in the woods are beginning to have
their leaves.

1827.] EARLY READING. 7
There are six or seven boys going down in August besides
myself. We had our gardens given us a week ago. I have
got some radishes growing. We do not ride yet, but I heard
we were going to ride to-morrow. I wish I had some books
up here to read. I wish, when you send me up my paint
brushes, you would send some. I do not want you to send me
up anything to eat or drink, but I wish you would send me
some books by the stage with the paint brushes. I guess you
have some in the house that I have not read ; you may have
some possibly.
The drawing master has not come yet ; he comes to-morrow,
I believe. I believe Charley Appleton is going to write to
Edward to-day, he told me he was. Everything goes on the
same as ever, and I close my letter with entreating you to send
me up somp books and paint brushes. Your affectionate son,
J. L. Motley.

To his Father. Round Hill,
May 16th, 1827.
My DEAR Father, — As I wrote you so lately, I of course
can have nothing to say. I asked you for books. If Cooper's
new novel is out, I wish you would send it to me — but stop, I
have thought of something. Mr. Cogswell has fixed a reading-
room for us. That is a very good thing, and what the boys
have long wanted. Mr. Cogswell told the boys that if they
chose, he wished that they would put in their newspapers
after they read them, and he said that he would put his own
in too, so I wish you would send me up the paper regularly
that you used to send me, that I may put it in after I have
read it. There are also going to be books there too.
Your affectionate son,
John Lotheop Motley.
P.S. — Cooper's novel was to be published on the 12th of
May, I saw in a paper, so I suppose it is out, the name is ' The
Prairie.' Don't forget to send some books by the stage.

8 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. I.
To his Brother. Round Hill,
July 2eth, 1829.
My dear Brother, — I have received yours of 24th this
morning. We had not had another for nearly three weeks,
except Edward's note in 'Hope Leslie,' which I received a
week ago. Tell Edward my next shall be to him. I do not
think I am bound at all to write you long letters, for I
always write as long ones as you, and about three times as
often. I wish your next would be as long as this, and do
write at least once a week. I have had but two letters in six
weeks, for your last was three weeks ago, and the last before
that was three weeks before.
I think ' Hope Leslie ' Ms a great deal better than ' The
Prairie.' It is the best new novel that I have read for two or
three years, excepting Scott's.
AVe ought to have gone to draw from nature the day before
yesterday, but we did not because there was no time, and I
am afraid we shall not go Saturday ; and it is so rainy to-day
that I am afraid it will continue so for a week, and we have
nothing at all to do in rainy weather. Perhaps you will ask
me why we do not go to the reading-room ; there is never any
papers in there but what are a hundred years old : the boys
will not put them in now, and with reason, for they are all
torn up before they have been in there an hour. Drawing
is about the only thing to do now in rainy weather. Beading
is not to be thought of, as there are no books in school.
George Gardner came here last night, and some of the
boys] saw him. Bill Edgar, Bill Sturgis, and Sam May, and
Wadsworth are coming up, too, I believe.
I have finished Euler's ' Algebra,' and our class was partly
examined in it yesterday, and is going to be examined more
in a day or two, Mr. Walker says.
Tell father and mother they must write to me. I will write
them more to-day or to-morrow. Do send in your next a
recipe for making good large T's ; I never can make a good
' A tale by Miss C. M. Sedgwick.

1829.] LEAVING SCHOOL. 9
one. Tell father to do the same ; when I am in a hurry I
always make very bad T's.
I have just finished reciting geography, and in a few
minutes shall go to breakfast.
I believe there is to be an examination or exhibition in
speaking before we go to college. I am going to speak
* Antony's Funeral Oration,' the whole of it. There are
several dialogues, both comic and serious, to be spoken at this
exhibition. I hope it will be a good one. I have not decided,
and I leave it to father, whether I shall study in Boston or
go to college the first year. I do not want to come up here
though any more. I have been here now two years and a
half. Bill Edgar has been up here, and stayed two or three days,
and has gone now. I shall be glad when the time comes to
go. Tell father that I want him, if he pleases, to come up
and bring me down about the middle of August. W. Gorham
is going down in a little more than a week, but the boys will
not go till the last of August, and then we shall not have a
bit of vacation. I don't want to be examined the very day I
get to Boston. If I do not have a vacation before commence
ment, I shall not have one till the middle of winter. I have to
study a good deal now. Tell father to write to me directly,
to tell me about this ; and tell him also that I had rather
study in Boston the first year than go into college, if he is
willing. I think that I have fulfilled my promise to write a
long letter.
Give my love to father and mother and all the family, and
believe me Your affectionate brother,
J. L. Motley.

10 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. U.

CHAPTEE IL
GERMANY; UNIVERSITY LIFE.
First voyage to Europe — Cuxhaven — The weather during the voyage — Incidents
of the voyage — Gottingen — Arrangements for his first Semester at the
University — Plans for the vacation — The German language — Account oi
journey from Hamburg to Gottingen — German postillions — The Hartz
Mountains — German University life — Costume of the students — Duelling
customs — "Briiderschaft" — Plesse castle — George Washington's letter on
the Humane Society — Berlin — Studying law — Public galleries and public
money — Daily routine at Berlin — Amusements — Taglioni — Devrient — •
Goetz van Berlichingen — The " Vons and the not-Vons " — Visit to Potsdam
— Plans for the future.
[Mr. Motley graduated at Harvard College in 1831, at the
age of seventeen, and after a few months went to study in
Germany.] To his Mother.
Brig Cyclops, at anchor off Cuxhaven, mouth of Elbe,
Thursday evening, May 24ft, 1832.
My DEAR Mother, — I hope by the time this letter reaches
you, you will not have become anxious on my account, for
although we have had a long, and in part rather a stormy
passage, we have at last arrived at this place in safety.
I hoped to have had a chance of writing to you in the
English Channel, but although I had a thousand opportunities
of sending a letter ashore, either to France or England, yet as
I knew nobody in either country to direct it to, there was no
possibility of its reaching you.
It is now 12 o'clock at night, and y" brokers and y'= doctors
and "y"" like" have just left us, and all hands have turned in,
and I take the first moment of leisure to write you an account
of my voyage. Of course, as we have not yet got to Hamburg
nor left the ship, I can tell you nothing else. We are at
anchor for the night off a small town called Cuxhaven, just at

1832.] FIRST VOYAGE TO EUROPE. 11
the mouth of the river, where the vessels are " cleared " before
going to Hamburg, which is between fifty and sixty miles
farther up. To-morrow morning, between two and three
o'clock, we shall probably be under way again, and if we have
a fair wind, shall be at the city early in the afternoon.
It is just seven weeks to-day since we sailed — making fifty
days' passage, which is an exceedingly long one in any season
of the year. We came out in half a gale of wind, and before
we were out of the bay, it blew a whole one, and the wind very
soon shifted to the east, where it continued to blow for about
a month. We were about a week beating about the Grand
Bank, in a north-easter, and were regaled with a series of
rain storms and wind storms and all kinds of storms from the
time we left Boston till we made the English coast. I have
not been at all sea-sick (with the exception of the first few
hours), but the weather for a long time was so excessively cold
that I was below for the principal part of the time, and had
plenty of time for reading and rumination — although 'one is
not able to study or reflect to much advantage in the cabin
of a small brig in a gale of wind.
The last day of April and the first of May we had a severe
gale from the north-east, and were obliged to " lay to " under
bare poles for forty- eight hours, and I had then an opportunity
of seeing and feeling what the ocean is. I was on deck the
greater part of the time, although it was impossible to stand or
sit without being secured by a rope or two, and in the cabin I
was able to realise what " King Corny," in one of Miss Edge-
worth's stories, means by " not being able to lie on the ground
without holding on." I should have been very sorry to have
crossed the Atlantic (or the pond, as the sailors call it) without
a single storm, but one every day in the week is rather too
much. However, I enjoyed them well enough, and I con
sidered myself very fortunate in being neither sick nor nervous,
as Mr. Grund and his wife were generally. She was very
anxious when the vessel leaned over on its sidey and as the
brig is built very narrow in proportion to its length, it did
that all the time ; and she was not out of her berth eight-and-
forty hours the whole passage from sea-sickness. I contrived,

12 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IL
however, in the course of the voyage to learn a good deal of
German, by talking and reading and writing, and I have
been talking all day with the German pilot (who speaks very
little English), and have acted in some sort as an interpreter
between him and the captain, as Mr. Grund a few days ago
went ashore in the Straits of Dover, to proceed to Hamburg
by land, on account of his wife's sickness, but of that I will
write you presently, so that I think I shall not have much
difficulty in speaking the language pretty soon.
We made the English coast (Start Point) May 4th, and since
that time the passage has been very pleasant, although until
within these last three days we have not had a single fair wind.
But the weather was very fine, and we were sailing between
France and England, in sight of both sometimes, and always
between one and the other, and fishing boats were coming
alongside twenty times a day, from which we had fresh news
and fresh fish in plenty, and there were always fifty or seventy
vessels in sight of all nations and all descriptions, and the
shore was constantly offering something or other of interest
(although the seaboard of England and France on the Chan
nel has not much of the picturesque), and the idea of being
really in sight of those two countries was exciting and pleasing
in itself. We were at anchor a whole day (to prevent drifting
to leeward with the tide), in a dead calm, off Dover, and I
amused myself with reconnoitring the old turrets of the castle
with the glass ; but the town is built so low that I could not
see much of it.
Of course I can tell you in this letter nothing about my
arrangements, as I am still at sea to all intents and purposes,
although I expect to dine in Hamburg to-morrow ; but I shall
write in a day or two to father, telling him about the whole,
and both letters will probably reach you at the same time.
I had nearly forgotten to tell you that I have become quite
a sailor since I have been on board. I have been several
times up to the top-gallant masthead, and my usual seat in
fine weather is the ''maintop," where I sit smoking, reading,
and "chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies " for hours
together. By the way, it was lucky that I did not forget my

1832.] ARRIVAL IN EUROPE. 13
cigars, for they have been of great service to me pour tuer le
tempis in disagreeable weather. " You know my old ward," as
Falstaff says, and tell Edward that I am very much obliged
to him for getting them for me the morning we sailed, and
that I have thanked him in every puff. I hope by the time
this letter reaches you that Tom will have safely arrived ;
and do not be anxious if he overstays his time a little, for it
seems to me now that one is as safe at sea as on land. In a
gale of wind I can half join in the sailors' song —
" Lord help me, how I pities all
Unhappy folks on shore now."
And, by the way, that puts me in mind that my old friend,
the ship Corso, has kept us company for the last two or three
days, and is now anchored close by. Good-night, my dear
mother. Give my love to Edward and Preble and Emma, and
give little Annie as many kisses as she will accept for me.
I shall write to father to-morrow or next day, and tell him of
all my own arrangements and expectations, and send him all
the news in Europe, which, by the way, is somewhat surprising.
There is no need of my asking you to write, for I am sure that
you will do so by every opportunity. Eemember me to all
who may recollect me ; and when you next write to Cousin
Anne, tell her that I shall open the correspondence that we
agreed upon very soon, although not exactly from the same
place, and tell her she might send a letter to me enclosed in
the very next she writes to you. Affectionately your son,
Lothkop Motley.
P.S. — I do not know that you will be able to read half, or
understand a tittle of what I have been writing.
My ideas are in such a whirl that I cannot string them
together intelligibly, and I shall write more at length and
more coherently from Hamburg. The hurry and confusion
that we have been in for the last six to seven hours with
doctors and pilots and merchants and brokers, etc., etc., has
confused me, and this has been the only hour in which I have

14 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. • [Chap. H.
been able to be alone. But good-night, I am going to turn
in now, and hear for the las't time the "gurgling noise of
waters in mine ear," which has been my lullaby for the last
orty-nine nights.

To his Father.

Gottingen,
June 23rd, 1832.

My dear Father, — I have delayed writing to you during
the fortnight I have been here, because I wished to wait till
I could inform you of what I was about, and how I was settled.
I have now got rooms, etc., etc., arranged what lectures and
lessons I shall take this term, and provided in some degree
for the next Semester.
I got here about a fortnight since, just when the Pentecost
holidays began, and consequently had to wait till they were
ended before I could do anything except engage rooms.
I found here, much to my satisfaction, two Americans, one
Englishman, and one Scotchman. The Americans are both
from Charleston — one is Mitchell King, of exactly my own
age; and the other, Amory Coffin, about a year older, with
both of whom I am very intimate, as also the Englishman and
Scotchman, who, however, are going away very soon. I have
got rooms in the Buchstrasse (Book Street), the next door to
King's, and a few minutes' walk to the Library and to my
lectures. I breakfast either at my own room or my neigh
bour's, and we all dine at the " Crown," the best hotel here.
My room for the rest of this Semester, that is to say, from
about the 1st of June to the 1st of September, costs me three
louis d'or and a half, about fourteen dollars. Dinner at the
"Crown," eight rix-doUars a month; and then there is the
house bill, for coffee, etc., etc. Each course of lectures costs
from one to three louis d'or ; and I have a private lesson in
German from Professor Benecke three time a week for the
rest of this Semester, which will probably cost eight more.
This term (about ten weeks are left) I intend to devote to
German, for I have not enough of the language to understand

1832.] UNIVERSITY LIFE AT GOTTINGEN. 15
the lectures well, and so it is, of course, useless to take them.
I, however, attend one lecture (five times a week), of Professor
Hugo, as the introduction to a course of Civil Law — of which
I am able to understand the general drift, by taking the text
book with me to the lecture-room. Next term, however, I
shall have a lecture in the Pandects, a lecture on the Institutes,
a lecture on Natural Law, a lecture on the history of Eoman
Law, which, with the introductory lecture of Hugo — which I
now attend, and which I shall hear again next Semester — form
a complete course of Civil Law. Besides which I shall pro
bably attend Huron's lectures on History, Saalfeld's Political
lectures (he is a tremendous Liberal, and lately a member of
the Diet), which altogether will be quite a sufficiency.
The rooms which I have taken, I have engaged only for
this Semester. Next Semester (which begins six weeks after
Michaelmas), King and myself intend taking rooms in the
same house, as we shall be the only Englishmen — I mean
Americans or Englishmen — left in Gottingen. I cannot, of
course, tell you what my expenses are likely to be, and of
course they have been at first more than they will be. But I
think that my necessary expenses will amount to between five
or six hundred dollars at the most, probably to about five
hundred and fifty dollars ; and if I travel about in the vacation,
which everybody does, and principally on foot, which every
body does, my whole expenses will amount to between six or
seven hundred dollars, probably not so much as seven hundred ;
but I state the maximum rather than the minimum, that I
may not in reality exceed what I say, and this is about the
amount of credit you have given me with Mr. Gossler.
I have not exactly determined what to do or where to go in
September, when there are six weeks' holiday. But I think
of going on foot to the Lake of Constance, and returning down
the Ehine, and so home to Gottingen. This would take about
six weeks, I should suppose, and I do not know how many louis
dor, but I suppose not more than thirty or forty, which, as I
told you, I have left with the banker.
Neither can I exactly tell how long I had best remain at
Gottingen. It is seldom the custom with German students to

16 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. II.
study more than one year at one university — since, by staying
on one or two Semesters at Gottingen, another at Berlin,
another at Munich, another at Jena, and so on, they combine
the advantages of all, because in each Semester a student may
hear a course of lectures from each of the most eminent
professors in each university, and a year studied in one
university counts in another, and so on.
But I shall certainly stay here this Semester and the next,
and after that I do not know whether I shall go to Berlin or
Munich, or remain in Gottingen, but I shall have time to
decide and to advise.
My first object at present, as I said, is to possess myself of
the language, and I study it five or six hours a day, and, as I
said, have a lesson from Professor Benecke from seven to
eight every other morning. As soon as I have acquired
enough of the language to write it and speak it and under
stand it, I shall feel at my ease and ready to begin my
lectures, and that will undoubtedly be by the end of this
Semester. This has been a long, stupid letter, about louis d'or
and rix dollars, and in fact I hope you will not consider it a
letter, but merely a necessary statement of statistics. To
morrow is Sunday, which is Feiertag (holiday) all over
Germany, and I shall then write a voluminous letter to
mother, telling her all about the miraculous things seen,
heard, and acted in Germany by
Your affectionate son,
J. LoTHROP Motley.
If you ever see Fred Brune, Tom Appleton, Hillard, or
John Sullivan, or Mr. Snow, I wish you would tell them that
they have all got to write to me too.
I know that you will not excuse this writing, so I say
nothing about it.

1832.] TRAVELLING IN GERMANY. 17
To Ms Mother. Gottingen, July Ut, 1832.
My dear Mother, — I wrote you just before I left Ham
burg, and my journey to this place was as uninteresting as
can well be imagined ; in fact, it surpassed my heau ideal of a
bore. The first day was through the Liinenburger Haide (or
heath), and the greatest rate of travelling a German mile an
hour (4i English). The two next days (for it took me three
days to come about 130 miles) were little better, except that
I was a little amused by the coolness of the German postil
lions. I came from Hanover by extra post (as there was to
be no diligence to Gottingen the day I arrived there), and
being alone, was almost at the mercy of the postillions.
These creatures are certainly the most phlegmatic specimens
of mankind that exist. I recollect in particular one fellow
who drove me out of Celle, who incontinently determined
on first setting out to walk the whole way. He did go
for about a mile, and at last I asked him if he could go no
faster. " Oh, ja," he said, and continued the same pace for
another ten minutes. I began to get incensed, and to re
monstrate in broken German, but he turned a deaf ear to
my invectives, and instead of mending his pace, laid his
whip on the top of the chaise, took out his bugle, and
solaced himself with practising the overture to 'Tancredi.'
At last I recollected a very convincing argument in all lan
guages, and took out a rix-doUar, and said to him " Schwager "
(Schivager means brother-in-law, and is a very pleasing title
to a postillion), " if you go no faster you get no Trinhgeld "
(drink-money, a regular item in every reckoning in Germany).
The appeal was decisive, and he whipped his horses into a
trot. Gottingen itself is an unpleasant town enough, and the
country about it uninteresting. But the Hartz country (that
El-dorado of superstition) is in sight, and there are some lesser
hills nearer. You know how celebrated the Hartz Mountains
are for goblins, etc. On May-day night they have from time
immemorial kept carnival on the Brocken, although I have
vol. l c

18 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IL
not seen a ghost yet, but mean some fine dark night to go
there on a ghost hunt. There is nothing here to mark out
the University, except the Library and the students that you
meet in the streets, for there are no University buildings for
the students, as with us, but the Professors lecture in their
own houses, and the students lodge with the PMlisters (trades
men) of the town.
The Library is an immense collection of books, and ail have
been purchased in one hundred years ; the precise number is
not known, but it is thought about 400,000. It contains,
however, few rare books and manuscripts, and but few splendid
editions of books. Everything is for use, and the students
may have almost as many books out at a time as they wish by
obtaining a number of cards from a Professor.
I got here, as I told you in my last letter, in the Pentecost
holidays, and had to wait a few days before I could be
matriculated, which matriculation is simply this : I was
summoned before the Senate of the University, and then
wrote my name and my whences and whats, etc., etc., in
a great book. I then gave the member of the Senate who
ofiiciated three rix-dollars for his trouble, and put another into
the poor-box. I have signed an immense list of promises
(which are, I believe, never in the slightest degree kept by
any of the students, and, consequently, a very improper exac
tion), the principal of which were, to obey the laws in toto, to
join no Landsmannschaft, drink no beer, fight no duels, etc.,
etc., etc. The next day I went to the Pro-Eector of the
University (Herr Hofrath Goeschen), who gave me my matricle
and legitimation cartes, observed that the laws were binding,
and, shaking my hand, informed me that I was a member ot
the University. The next day I was introduced to Professor
Hugo, who has been a very celebrated lawyer and professor,
but is now "a noble wreck in ruinous perfection." His
lectures now are dull and stupid, and his titles of Aulic Coun
sellor, Guelphic Knight, Hofrath, Professor, etc., etc., cannot
bring more than three or four students into his class-room.
He still lectures, however, on the Law, but his great peculiarity
is an unbounded passion for thermometers. He has four or

1832.] GERMAN STUDENTS AND THEIR WAYS. 19
five hanging in every room of his house, and two on eacn side
of his head in the lecture-room ; the window opposite him is
raised and lowered by a cord which crosses the room, and is
hitched just over his head, by means of which he very carefully
regulates the temperature of the room at tbe conclusion of
each paragraph of his lecture. He presented me with a book
which had been lately published in England and dedicated to
him, and I presented him with a louis d'or for a course of
lectures on Eoman Law.
But I have said nothing yet of the students because I am
afraid of attacking such a boundless and inexhaustible subject.
The German students are certainly an original and peculiar
race of beings, and can be compared to nothing.
The University towns are the homes of '' outre-ness," or
rather, they are places where it is impossible to be outre, except
by dressing or behaving like "a Christian or an ordinary
man." You can hardly meet a student in the streets whose
dress would not collect a mob anywhere else, and, at the same
time, you hardly meet two in a day who are dressed alike,
every man consulting his own taste, and fashioning himself
according to his heau ideal.
The most common outer garment is a red plaid or a blue
velvet frock-coat, twenty of which you find to one of cloth.
The head is covered with a very small cap with the colours of
Landsmannschaft to which the individual may belong. The
boots are garnished with spurs universally, albeit innocent of
horse-flesh ; the fore-finger of the left hand always with an
immense seal ring (often of iron or brass) ; and the upper lip
and chin fortified with an immense moustachio and beard (in
fact, I have seen several students with a depending beard
more than four inches long, and there is hardly one who does
not wear moustachios). A long pipe in the mouth, a portfolio
under the arm, a stick in the hand, and one or two bull-dogs
at the heels, complete a picture not in the slightest degree
exaggerated of a Gottingen student ! The most promising
article in the formation of a German student's room is the
pipe. There are generally about twenty or thirty of different
kinds hanging in his room — of porcelain, meerschaum, and

20 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. II.
stone, all ornamented with tassels, combining the colours of
his Landsmannschaft ; and you have no idea how beautifully
some of the pipes are painted with landscapes, portraits (there
are often beautiful miniatures painted on them), or coats of
arms. Pipes are a favourite present among the students (and
you have anything you wish painted on one when you wish to
give it away). Every one smokes, and smokes at all times,
and in all occupations (except that they are not allowed to
smoke in the streets), reading, writing, talking, or riding. I
prefer a pipe now to a cigar, and I am hardly ever without
one in my mouth (for instance, I have been smoking a great
meerschaum all the time I have been writing this), and I
always breakfast at half-past five o'clock (!) on a cup of coffee
and a pipe, and continue the " cloud compelling " occupation
through the day. I find I grow fat on it, for I never was in
such health in my life. I find that I have said nothing as
j^et about the German duels. These things are such a common
and every-day occurrence that I have ceased to think at all
about them. I must, in the first place, tell you that the
accounts you have read in Dwight, etc., of the frequency of
these things is not in the slightest degree exaggerated, in fact
it is entirely impossible to exaggerate them. I have been here
now about three weeks, and during that time as many as forty
have been fought to my hnoivledge, and I know of as many as
one hundred and fifty more that are to take place directly.
I have seen a few of them, and though you have read
accounts of them in Dwight 's ' Travels in Germany,' I suppose
you will be willing to hear a short description of them. The
duels are not allowed to be fought in the town, and accord
ingly an inn, called the " Kaiser," just outside one of the gates,
is a very celebrated rendezvous. As they generally take
place between members of different Landsmannschafts {Lands
mannschaft means countrymen-club, or society ; there are as
many of these as there are sets of students from the different
States of Germany. The most prominent are the " Hanove
rian," the " Liinenburger," the " Bremensen," and " Westpha-
lian" Landsmannschaften. Besides which there is a club
called the " Eorsenschafte," which is composed in reality of

1832.] DUELLING CUSTOMS. 21
the refuse of the whole University), the arms offensive and
defensive required in the duel are provided for the duellists
by their respective Landsmannschafts. These arms are a
Schldger (or sabre) about four feet in length, blunt at the
point, but very sharp-edged, and a suit of stuffed leather to
protect all the vital parts, leaving only the face and breast
exposed. The last time I was at the " Kaiser," about sixteen
duels were fought in the course of the day, ten of which I
saw ; and they are on the whole stupid affairs, and I think
could exist nowhere but in Germany. It is not, however, a
perfect trifle to fight one of these duels, although it is very
seldom that any lives are lost, or even important wounds
received. But the face is often most barbarously mangled,
and indeed it is almost an impossibility to meet a student
who has not at least one or two large scars in his visage.
In the two that I saw the other day, one man was cut, not
very severely, in the breast, and the other received a ivound
that laid his face open from the left eye to the mouth, and
will probably enhance the beauty of his countenance for the
rest of his life.
Both these affairs were Landsmannschaft duels ; the Han
overians and the Bremensers and the Liinenburgers and the
Westphalians being " los " — that is to say, at variance ; in
which case each Liinenburger has to fight with a West-
phalian, each Hanoverian with a Bremenser, till every member
of each Landsmannschaft has fought. In these four Lands
mannschaften, I suppose there are from eighty to one hundred
students. So here, you see, are a pretty number of duels to
be fought directly. Besides this, a single Westphalian has
challenged every one of the Lunenbiirgers to fight him (which
challenge has been accepted), and a single Liinenburger has
challenged every one of the Westphalians. Here, you see,
are two men, each of whom has about twenty-five duels to
fight this term. This Liinenburger who has challenged all
the Westphalians is somewhat noted for the number of his
duels. He has already fought seventy-five, and has been
second in about two hundred, and he has here twenty more to
fight. Besides which he has yesterday challenged another

22 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IL
student, who had insulted his Landsmannschaft, to pistols at
ten paces, to be reloaded till one is hit. This same fellow
who is thus challenged is also challenged by each member of
the insulted Landsmannschaft to one " gang " of sabres.
The ipeaning of this term is, a duel to be continued till one
of the parties falls, or confesses himself unable to fight longer.
These duels arise in every sort of way ; a very common one is
the one which you have read in ' Dwight,' jsf pushing or being
pushed into the gutter.
There is also a regular code by which the different offences
are meted, and the degree of sabre satisfaction determined.
The most common and slightest insult is the "Dummer
Juuge " (stupid boy), which demands a duel of twelve Gangs.
(A " Gang " I cannot exactly describe. It is the closing of the
two combatants and a certain number of blows and parries.)
The parties have each a second at his side to strike up the
swords the moment a wound is received. The doctor then
steps in, examines the wound, and if it proves to be " An-
schiess" (a wound of a certain length and depth), the duel is
discontinued. A more gross insult demands twenty-four Gangs, and a still
more important one, forty-eight. But the most severe duel is
that of one " Gang," in which, as I have said, the duel con
tinues until one drops.
You need be under no apprehension about my returning
with a disfigured visage, for as a foreigner is seldom or never
insulted, and if he be, has the right of choosing his own
weapons (which in my case would be pistols or rifles, and the
Germa,ns have an aversion to gunpowder), in which event the
offender generally makes an apology and backs out of the
business. I assure you I have not at all exaggerated this
duelling business. If you cannot have faith in it, you have
only to say — " Travellers ne'er did lie.
Though folks at home condemn them."
And though it is beyond all contradiction a brutal state of
things, yet I cannot help thinking it is not without its uses.
For instance, some of the students are perfect knights-errant,

1832.] " BRiJDERSCHAFT." 23
and if they hear of a lady being insulted (for it is not un
common for a German student, who wishes to manifest his
independence, to push a lady off the side-walk), are sure to
seek out the offender and salute him with " Dummer Junge," in
which case twelve Gangs of the Schldger must necessarily ensue.
You will probably not have imbibed a very exalted opinion
of the character of German students from the picture I have
sketched, but I have found a few friends here whom I admire
very much, and with whom I have already drunk " Briider
schaft " ; and here, I suppose, an explanatory note is needed.
The usual way of addressing a person in German, as perhaps
you know, is in the third person plural ; the second, as with
us, is seldom or never used. But between brothers and sisters,
parents and children, and very old and intimate friends, the
second person singular, " Du," thou, is used. The students
have a way of cementing a friendship by dropping the third
person plural in conversation and substituting for ever the
" Du," in which case they drink a glass of wine together,
ringing the glass, crossing their arms and kissing, after which
ceremony the parties can never fight a duel together, or speak
to each other otherwise than with " Du," in which case they
are said to be " Du " together.
The Germans are certainly the most musical nation on
earth. It is almost impossible to meet a student who cannot
sing a thousand songs and play at least one instrument. We
have at dinner a full band of music playing, and there are
concerts in the public gardens here as often as once a week.
The Germans appear to me the most affectionate and (but you
will not think it) the most enthusiastic people on earth.
Certainly they are infinitely the most industrious and studious.
Almost all the students study somewhat, and the greatest
part of them immensely, besides writing off at the lectures
nearly every word the professor says. But the character of
these students is a labyrinth out of which I cannot find my
way, a-nd must snap the thread at once if this letter is ever to
cross the Atlantic, and it is now of unconscionable length and
weight. Your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

24 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IL
To Ms Parents. Gottingen,
August 12ft, 1832.
My dear Parents, — I believe that it is a longer time than
it ought to be since I have written home, and I am now so
much pressed for time that I shall almost be ashamed to send
the letter. The vacation begins in two or three weeks, and
my lessons and the one lecture that I had is ended, and to-day
at one o'clock I am going off with ,a party of three students on
a foot journey to the Tyrol, a part of Switzerland, and through
the Ehine Valley. I have no doubt you will be very glad that
I have had the opportunity of travelling through this part of
the country in the manner in which I shall now do it — that is
to say, as a German student and with German students, and
on foot the principal part of the way. The expense of the
journey will be very small, considering the time we are to be
absent and the length we are to go ; and by the arrangement
that Mr. Gossler has made about my money, I- shall not
throughout the year spend , a groschen more than you have
allowed me, including the expenses of the journey. You must
not think that I am neglecting my business to amuse myself;
the vacation begins in two or three weeks, and we return
before the beginning of the next Semester. But of course I
shall be back in time to arrange my lectures and lessons (the
rooms which I have now I shall retain). This term I cannot
pretend to have done much in the way of studying law,
because it was impossible for me to attend lectures with any
profit before I knew enough of the language to understand
them perfectly. But I have studied German a great deal this
term, and by mixing a good deal with the students on all
occasions, I have made some progress in speaking and under
standing the language. By reading a great deal of German
every day, too, I have become able to read it almost as easily
as English.
Next term I shall remain here, and attend a course of
lectures on the ' Institutes ' and the ' History of the Civil
Law,' which I think I shall be able entirely to understand ;

1832.] PLESSE CASTLE. 25
and after next term I shall go either to Munich or Berlin to
continue. I shall advise with some of the Professors to know
which is the best University for the summer term and which
for the winter term, and arrange my plans accordingly. It is
at all events not worth one's while to remain long at Got
tingen, because most of the Professors who were ornaments of
the University are dead or decayed, and the town itself is
excessively dull. I am, however, myself very pleasantly
situated here. I have formed very agreeable acquaintances
among the German students, and I have mixed with them on
all occasions and in all places, like one of them. I believe I
told you in my last letter about the ceremony of drinking
" Schmollets " or Brotherhood. It is a very pleasant way of
sealing a friendship, and I have drunk it with several of the
best students here.
There are five or six ruined castles near Gottingen, the
finest of which are the Hardenburg and the Plesse Castles,
both complete and deserted ruins, but very well preserved.
The Plesse is much the finest of the two. Large parts of the
walls are standing, and two turrets ; but the moat is choked up
with shrubs and bushes of a century's growth, and there are
great oaks growing in the midst of the hall. It is probably
near a thousand years old, and has been a ruin for centuries.
It was, as all these German robber knights' castles were, built
upon a very high and steep hill, and surrounded by a deep
moat with a drawbridge. The hill still remains in its primeval
steepness, as my muscles could vouch for many days after my
visit ; but the moat is now a thicket, and only the ruins of the
portal, to which the drawbridge conducted, remains. The deep
cellar vaults are also still perfect, where plenty of Ehenish
wine has ripened, and the part of the donjon and the watch-
towers, with their deep shot holes and broken staircases, still
remain. The great hall, too, is marked out by its broken and weed-
covered walls, and a huge stone fireplace is hanging on the
wall, half covered by the branches of the trees that have taken
quiet possession of the banqueting room of the Grafs von
Plesse. I could not help thinking that the last party who sat

26 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. II.
round that fireplace would be somewhat surprised if they could
come into their old jjremises again, and see what a fresh supply
of firewood was close at hand.
I have been giving a very tame description of a ruin, and I
shall undoubtedly see many a thousand times more interesting
on the Ehine, but the effect which this first antiquity had
upon my brain was so turbulent that it effervesced for some
time, and at last evaporated in a disagreeably long ode in the
German taste, which, however, I will not increase the postage
of this letter with. There are two or three things which I
have yet to describe, and which illustrate well the character
of the students, such as the "Landsmannschaft Kneipen,"
or drinking parties, and the ceremony of the " Landsvater."
I will, however, on the whole postpone them till I can
give a fuller account of them, which will not be till after
I return. With best love to all my brothers and sisters,
I am Your affectionate son,
J. LoTHROP Motley.
P.S. — Do write, write, write. I have had no letters for an
age.

To his Parents.

Gottingen,
November 25a, 1832.
My dear Father and Mother,— .... With respect
to my local habitation after this term, my intentions are
somewhat altered. I think after Easter of removing to
Munich, which has now become one of the most eminent
Universities in Germany, and where are several very useful
and wise expounders of the laws, and which, moreover, is a
much more agreeable tarrying-place in the summer (be
sides, my friend King and another American friend of mine,
Amory Coffin, who was here last summer, are both going to
Munich next summer), and then of passing the winter in

1832.] GEORGE WASHINGTON'S LETTER. 27
Berlin, because it is only in winter Savigny, the most cele
brated jurist of Germany, reads, and him I have been advised
by everybody by all means to hear. By the time I have done
with Berlin, I think I shall have the ' Civil Law ' tolerably
perfectly, that is in a year from April next, and then — but
we won't cast so many "retrospections on the future," as
Mrs. Malaprop says; but some day, when I am in a very
philosophical mood, I will write you as practical and wise
a letter as I can about the way and means I must find to
open what ancient Pistol calls " this oyster world," being a
setting forth of the praiseworthy ideas which every young
gentleman is oppressed with at the time of life when he leaves
off writing bad verses, and discovers that immortality is not
seated in every goose quill. Thank Heaven! — and I am
sure you will join in the thanksgiving — I have quite done
with Pegasus, and begin to affect the " beauty of utility."
But till such time as my philosophical humour cometh, we will
leave all reflections on future destinations.
Will you indulge me in one request ? Don't wait always to
send your letters direct to Hamburg ; they seldom come one
bit sooner, if the vessel sails the moment the letter is sealed,
than if they came by England or France ; and if you write to
me once in two or three weeks, and drop the letters into the
post-office, via Havre or Liverpool, they will be always in my
hands in seven or eight weeks. Here am I now with my direct
letters (I ought to have thanked you before for all those
pleasant letters) in the end of November knowing nothing
at all about you since the end of July. And King has plenty
of September letters, because they come by the packets, and
through France.
I am very much obliged to you for Washington's letter,^ and
^ From George Washington to Motley's has within a few daj-s past been put
grandfather, the Rev. John Lothrop. into my hands.

Mount Vernon,

I observe with singular satisfaction

the cases in which your benevolent
June 22nd, 1788. institution has been instramental in
Revered and eespeoted Sie, — Your recalling some of our fellow-creatures
acceptable favour of the 16th of May, as it were from beyond the gates of
covering a recent publication of the eternity, and has given occasion for the
Proceedings of the Humane Society, hearts of parents and friends to leap

28

MOTLEY'S LETTERS.

[Chap. II.

you may be quite sure I shall keep it very religiously, and
should like very much to have Franklin's letters, which
mother speaks of, and can certainly very easily send. I have
also received your ' Morris,' which was a very agreeable
present.
I am, Your most affectionate son,
J. Lothrop Motley.

To his Mother.

Berlin, Friedrich's Strasse, No. 161, up one pair of stairs,
September, 1833.
My dear Mother, — I am settled in this most right-angled
of cities, in very comfortable lodgings. I dine in a neighbour
ing hotel. Every morning my expounder of the divine science
of LAW comes to my room for a hour and a half. I have an
abonnement at a circulating library in the neighbourhood, and

for joy. The provision made fur ship
wrecked mariners is also highly estim
able in the view of every philanthropic
mind, and greatly consolatory to that
suffering part of the community. These
things will draw upon you the bless
ings of those who were nigh to perish.
These works of charity and goodwill
towards men reflect, in my estimation,
great lustre upon the authors, and
presage an era of still fm'ther improve
ment. How pitiful in the eye of reason and
religion is that f-ilae ambition which
desolates the world with fire and sword
for the purposes of conquest and fame,
while compared to the minor virtues of
making our neighbours and our fellow-
men as happy as their frail conditions
and perishable natures will permit them
to be !
I am happy to find that the proposed
General Government meets with your

approbation — as, indeed, it does with
that of most disinterested and discern
ing men. The Convention of this State
is now in session, and I cannot but hope
that the Constitution will be adopted
by it — though not without considerable
opposition. I trust, however, that the
commendable example exhibited by the
minority in your State will not be with
out its salutary influence on this. In
truth it appears to me that should the
proposed Government be generally
harmoniously adopted, it will be a
new phenomenon in the political and
moral world, and an astonishing vic
tory gained by enlightened reason over
brutal force. I have the honour to be,
With very great consideration.
Revered and respected sir.
Your most obedient and humble
servant, G. Washington.

1833.] THE USE OF PUBLIC GALLERIES. 29
as soon as the term begins (I forgot to tell you in what good
season I got here, for the holidays are not finished till after
two or three weeks), I shall have myself matriculated at the
University. In the winter, there is generally a good deal of society here.
I have a letter to Mr. von Savigny, a celebrated professor,
who sees a good deal of company, I believe, which I intend to
deliver in the course of a week or two ; and with the help of
one or two old acquaintances whom I have met here, I shall
see as much of society as I wish.
I suppose I ought to describe the wonders and sights of
Berlin, and I shall take the first opportunity to drive to
Potsdam, and see the Palace Sans Souci, of which you have
heard. When I see here in Europe such sums of money spent by
the Government upon every branch of the fine arts, I cannot
help asking why we at home have no picture galleries or
statue galleries or libraries. I cannot see at all that such
things are only fit for monarchies, and I cannot give myself
any reason why our Government should not spend some of
its surplus money upon them. They have certainly money
enough, and in many respects the United States may be called
the richest country in the world ; at least, if we may reason, as
Lovelace in the play does, who calculated his wife's fortune,
not by the definite number of pounds, shillings, and pence
which she has — for she had nothing — but by the many possible
species of extravagance which she has not — thus, £500 a year
because she does not plag; £500 more because she has
no passion for dress, etc., etc. So we may say of America,
$50,000 a year because we have no army; $50,000 more
because we have no debts, and so on to the end of the
chapter. Now, why cannot the "good and senseless" men (as
Dogberry tells them) in Congress vote a sum for a library or
a gallery or anything of the kind, instead of going to logger
heads about surplus dollars which are lying so comfortably in
the treasury ?
In every possible improvement that is strictly utilitarian.

30 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. II.
America is taking the lead of Europe. One finds nowhere
better railroads and steamboats, warehouses or ships than at
home ; but there is not a library worthy of the name in the
whole territory of the United States, from Passamaquoddy Bay
to Okafonoke Swamp ; and in Germany alone there are dozens
of public libraries, any single one of which would weigh up
all that we have put together ; and so there are in England,
France, Italy, Spain, etc., etc.
I shall fold up this letter now, that it may be ready for the
post to-night. I shall write again in the course of the next
week or two, and I hope you will be as liberal to me. I have
heard nothing yet from home since I left. Why can't you
write regularly by the New York packets, which sail to Havre
or Liverpool half-a-dozen times a month ?
With love to all at home.
Your affectionate son,
J. Lothrop Motley.

To his Parents. Berlin,
November ith, 1833.
My dear Father and Mother, — I told you in my last
that Berlin had no great menagerie of lions, and I have since
seen very little to alter my opinion. My " way of life " is very
regular. After tea and the newspaper every morning, comes
my Eezensent, that is, a Doctor of Laws, who reads and expounds
to me for a couple of hours the Institutes and Pandects of the
corpus juris ; and I then spend another couple of hours in
" stuffing noting " books with the wisdom I have gained.
Savigny, whose lectures on the Pandects I intend to hear, does
not begin to read for a few days. His lecture will probably be
the only judicial one I shall hear, and I have not determined
on the other. My principal study is, of course, the Eoman
law and its history, and this I hope to have learned tolerably,
with the assistance of the above mentioned " learned Theban,"
by the end of the Semester, that is to say, somewhere in March,

1833.] THE THEATRE IN BERLIN. 31
and then I shall have done with Berlin and with Germany as
a residence. There are three theatres — the Eoyal Opera, the
Eoyal Playhouse, and the City Theatre — all equally good. The
first is, however, the finest house, in which all the fashionable
operas and theatres are given. In the Playhouse is an excel
lent French drama ; and in the City Theatre an Italian opera
and a very good comic company. The ballets are particu
larly good in the Opera House. The Terpsichore of Berlin is
Taglioni, not the Taglioni of London and Paris celebrity,
but her sister-in-law.
The great tragedy star of Berlin and of Germany, Devrient,
is dead. He was particularly celebrated in Shakesperean
characters, Shylock, Lear, Eichard, and others, and, singu
larly enough, the study of Lear's character was the cause of
his death. In order to perfect himself in the character of
the crazy king, he spent daily many hours in different mad
houses, observing and imitating all possible kinds of madness;
the consequence of which was, that after a short time he
became raving mad himself, and died a victim to Melpomene.
At present they have no one to supply his place. Shake
speare's tragedies are seldom given, and notwithstanding the
richness of the modern German literature, they have very
few fine-acting tragedies. The chefs-d'oeuvre of Goethe and
Schiller are not adapted to the stage. Some of them are
occasionally given, but seldom with success. The other even
ing the drama of ' Goetz von Berlichingen with the Iron
Hand,' a magnificent picture of the old time in Germany, and
one of Goethe's masterpieces, was given, but with so many
stage alterations, that from a serious martial tragedy it was
metamorphosed into a farce or a sort of Tom Thumb melo
drama, full of scenes excellently fitted " to amuse the ears of
the groundlings," and to disgust everybody who had read a
line of the original. The character of Goetz von Berlich
ingen, the best possible portrait of a knight of the middle
ages, part robber, part soldier, and part pireux chevalier, was
given by a thickset, periwig-pated fellow, whose sole effort
was to represent Goetz as a lusty knight " most potent at
potting," who could never keep his fingers from the flask of

32 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IL
Ehenish, except when he was slaughtering legions and com
mitting unheard-of exploits with his iron fist. And this same
Mr. Eott, as I believe they call him, had the other day the
impertinence to play Shylock, which I was so lucky not to
see. A favourite author of mine, Lichtenberg, in his lifetime a
celebrated wit and professor at Gottingen, said that he never
knew his own language until he had learned another. The
opinions in Germany concerning America are singularly con
tradictory. The Germans generally may be divided very
conveniently into two great classes — the Vons and the not-
Vons. Those who are lucky enough to have the three magical
letters VON before their names belong to the nobility, and
are of course aristocratic to the last degree. Those who have
not these three may have all the other letters of the alphabet
in all possible combinations, and are still nothing but ple
beians. This proud class are all ne plus ultra radicals. It is
as impossible to persuade one of the first class that in the
United States anything exists but democracy and demagogues
as it is to convince the others, particularly those of the lowest
and emigrating class, that they will not find the streets paved
with dollars and their pockets stuffed with bank-notes as
soon as they arrive in New York — that El Dorado of their
expectations. Your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

To his Father. Berlin,
January 11th, 1831.
My dear Father,— Day before yesterday I took a drive to
Potsdam — which I had not before seen. You know it was the
favourite residence of Frederick the Great, and it is only on
his account that it is interesting. It is about twenty English
miles from here, and looks like a continuation of Berlin,
liaving the same right-angled streets and yellow-stuccoed
houses. We drove there in the diligence, after having first

1834.] POTSDAM. 33
" legitimated " ourselves, as the German phrase is— that is to
say, informed the post-office what our names, characters,
religion, etc., etc., were. (How amusing it would be if one should
be obliged always to take a passport with him when he went
in the stage coach, for example, from Boston to Salem ! and
yet the Prussian police is as strict as that would be.) The
first thing we looked at was the Palace Sans Souci, which was
built by the famous Fritz. Here everything has been left in
the same state as at his death. You are shown into his study,
where his table stands covered with ink-blots, into his bed
room, etc. The whole house is very simple, and the gardens
around it in the French style. You know he was a passionate
admirer of everything French, which he spoke and wrote
much better than anything German (in fact, he knew very
little of his own language, and all his works are written in
French). Near the house are the tombs of his favourite dogs,
and not far from them the white horse which he rode so often
in the Seven Years' War lies buried.
There are two other palaces here — one of which is a fine
building, and the only splendid residence which the King of
Prussia has, the palaces in Berlin being all very simple,
private-looking houses. Here is also a very elegant and
tasteful villa in the Italian style, belonging to tue present
Crown Prince.
In the evening we were invited to a kind of military ball,
where, as is proper and fitting in Prussia, all the ladies were
of ice-gray nobility, and all the gentlemen were officers, with
a profusion of gold lace and orders, or civilians with most
portentous stars on their breasts. It was rather dull, but it
must be confessed that the Germans are very polite to
strangers, and I have experienced nothing but kindness and
civility in every town that I have been in. The most impor
tant part of my letter is to come, although I have already
nearly finished my paper.
You remember I was to stay in Berlin for the winter, that
is to say, about six months. I now write to tell you my plans
for leaving, and I beg of you to answer me as soon as possible,
and by the way of London or Havre, because your letter
VOL. L D

34 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. II.
cannot reach at soonest before I am ready to leave Berlin. I
shall not give you a long compte rendu of what I have done
since I have been here ; you must examine for yourself when I
return. I think I could bear a tolerable examination in the
Civil Law in a few weeks, at which time I shall have finished
the study of it. I hope in the course of two months to have
some knowledge of the German Common Law and of the Law
of Nations, which I have also been studying. Of my other
studies, which have been merely for myself, I shall say
nothing. As soon as your answer to this reaches me, which I hope
will be early in April, I should wish to leave this for Weimar
— from thence to Leipzig, Dresden, and Vienna, and so to
Paris, where I should not wish to stay long, but rather spend
the summer in the South of France. I wish to stay long
enough to perfect myself in speaking and writing the language
and to see the country, which I could do I think in the course
of four or five months — no longer. (With the Italian language
I hope to do the same afterwards.) My plans for the winter
are not fully arranged, as I said, but before that I have time
enough to send them for your approval. Those for the
next summer are so, and I hope that you will consent to
them. Your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

CHAPTEE IIL
AUSTRIA — FRANCE — ITALY.
Vienna — Madame de Goethe — Tieck and his works — Journey from Vienna to
Styria, Tyrol, etc. — German postillions — Styrian Alps — Molk — Amstetten —
Neubach — St. Florian — Salzburg — An ancient hermitage — Burial customs
— Hallein — Salt mines — Salzach Valley — Bad-Gastein — Nassfeld — " Old
Testament scenery " — A remote village — Rome — The Apollo Belvedere —
Naples — Hadrian's villa — Reviving old scenes — Guide's Aurora — Reflections
on the art treasures of Rome — Tour in Sicily — Catania — Taormina— Classical
associations — Etna — An ascent under difSoulties — An arduous climb — And
a disappointment — Girgenti — A perilous voyage to Malta — Return to Paris
— Salisbury Cathedral — Comparison of English and Foreign cathedrals —
Stonehenge. To Ms Mother. Vienna,
June 2nd, 1834.
My dear Mother, —
* » * * »
Madame de Goethe, of whom I spoke in my last letter, gave
me a letter to a Countess Finkenstein of Dresden, an old lady
who lives in Tieck's family, and by whom I was introduced to
this author. I had been very much disappointed, as you
know, in not having been in Germany before Goethe's death,
that I might have seen that Nestor of literature, and this has
been in some sort a compensation. I do not know if many of
Tieck's works have been translated into English. If they
have, you will get them at the Athenasum. Inquire for
' Fantasas ' or ' Puss in Boots ' or the ' World upside down,' or
Tieck's novels (which last are a set of exquisite little tales,
novels in the original meaning of the word), full of old
German legends and superstitions, and the authorship of
which will entitle him to the title of German 'Boccaccio.'
The other works are the old nursery tales of ' Fortunatus,'
' Puss in Boots,' ' Blue Beard,' etc., etc., done into plays (not
for the stage), and as full of playful and sharp satire, poetry

36 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III.
and plain sense as they can hold. If they have not been
translated we shall have a chance of reading them together
one of these days. I was invited by Tieck to tea on Sunday
evening, when there was a small party. He is at present just
about finishing his translation of Shakespeare (in company
with Schlegel), and is in the habit of reading a play aloud to
a party of select auditors. I did not hear him, and rather
regret it, because he seems to be rather vain of his elocution.
His head and bust are fine, and it was not till he got up from
his chair that I observed he was slightly deformed (hump
backed). His conversation was like his books, playful, full of
bonhomie, good-natured sort of satire, and perhaps a little
childish vanity. He spoke of Cooper, Irving (whom he knew
in Dresden, and whom he admired very much), steamboats,
homoeopathism, himself, elocution, with Shakespeare and the
musical glasses. His conversation was pleasing and quiet,
but without any great show or brilliancy ; " and so much for
Buckingham."

Extract from Diary sent to his Parents. Paris,
July 8th, 1834.
June 11th. — Leave Vienna for Styria, Salzburg, and the
Tyrol, meaning to go afterwards by the way of Munich to
Strasbourg, and so to Paris. An old caleche (a Vienna ac
quisition), drawn by two post horses tied by ropes to the
carriage and driven by a postillion with gold lace, cocked
hat, feathers and spurs enough to set out a whole dozen
militia generals, is our conveyance for the present, because
in Austria two together can post cheaper than they can go in
the diligence. The postillions all over the Continent are
certainly the most perfect race of caricatures in existence, and
the Austrian was the most absurd of all. Eoad up the
Danube — misty, moisty morning, and hills covered with
clouds. Clears up towards noon, and shows us the chain of
Styrian Alps on the left, but not quite near enough, except

1834.] STYRIA— SALZBURG. 37
(me fine broad-shouldered old mountain (the Eschenberg),
with ribands of snow hanging about his head. Pity we took
the upper instead of the lower road, and so missed seeing the
best part of Styria. Dine at Molk, where we revisit the
glimpses of the Danube. Molk monastery, a pretty old abbey
on the edge of the river and in the very midst of the fattest
and sleekest part of Austria. Eoad continues through an
ocean of wheat and rye, with snug cottages, white village?,
distant Alps, and occasionally the Danube, the mother of
German rivers. Sleep at a little town called Amstetten.
June 12th. — Drive out at four. Mountains more gaunt and
grim. Styrian and in part Salzburg Alps. Pass another
sleek abbey with two hunting lodges appertaining and wide
fields and farms. These are your true monks — none of your
bare-footed, rosaried and roped friars, but jovial old gentle
men, living complacently on the fat of the land and the
peasants' expense — to whom —
" They show the steep and thorny way to heaven,
While they the primrose path of dalliance tread,
And reck not their own rede."
Weather all day perfect. Fields all waving with wheat and
corn and clover, and in this carnival season of the year the
old earth looked as if dressed for a planet's ball and deter
mined to eclipse all other stars. Alps all day on the left, with
Traunstein, black, shag-eared, beetle-browed old mountain,
tallest of the clan. This mountain is near Ischl, is the highest
in Upper Austria, and was our companion all day.
Dine at Neubach, wide, dry, unfruitful-looking plain for
two or three German miles, cross the railroad, which, wonder
ful to relate for Germany, is actually begun, and is to go from
Gmunden to Linz on the Danube, and thence to Prague,
opening the communication, in conjunction with the Danube,
between the salt mines in Salzburg in the south and the
interior of Bohemia in the north with Vienna, owned by a
company of which Eothschild and houses in Hamburg and
Vienna are the principal, but is to revert to the Government
in fifty years.
Houses becoming more Swiss-like, wooden, with porticoes

38 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III.
and large stones on the roof, which last is universal in
Switzerland and Tyrol. Among other Catholic images which
are strewed all along the roadside, one in particular puzzled
me for a long time — the figure of a saint in armour with a
sword in the right hand and a bucket of water in the left,
which he is emptying on a burning house. I have found that it
is St. Florian, the patron saint of burning houses and firemen,
and also, according to the popular legends, of innkeepers and
brewers, to whom he always sends a sufficient quantity of
water to temper their wine and other potations, and who in
gratitude, as I have observed, have always his figure over their
doorways. Night at Frankenmarkt, twenty German miles from Amstet
ten, where we stopped last night. All day weather as perfect
as if sent express from Eden.
June 13th. — Two posts through — better and better mountains
— to Salzburg on the Salzach, a town too beautiful for reality.
A rapid river and the greenest valley. On one side an old
cloister, on the other a magnificent impregnable-looking old
castle. Streets and houses all white and Italian looking, and
the whole in the richest little valley (just large enough to hold
it), where summer is eternally smiling, while around and above
are immense ice mountains, where everlasting winter sits
shivering on his throne. In this town, where we stayed but
six hours, and would have been content to have stayed as many
weeks, besides its natural beauties, which are beyond those of
any town I ever saw, there are a great many curious things
worthy of note ; as, for instance, a very handsome gateway to
the town, cut 400 feet through the solid rock of one of the
enclosing mountains, projected and accomplished in ten years
by an ambitious archbishop, Sigismund.
There also still exists a curious and very ancient hermitage,
consisting of a cell and little chapel, cut in the very heart of
the mountains, originally belonging, according to tradition, to
the holy Maximus, a Eoman monk of the 5th century, who with
his brother were pitched over a precipice by Odoacer the Goth
as a reward for their labours. This little chapel hangs over
the church of St. Peter, an ancient hut of a later date than

1834.] HALLEIN SALT MINES. 39
itself. I amused myself for some time in the churchyard here
in looking at a few queer old family tombs, which are adorned
with some rude and fantastic paintings representing Death's
doings, with queer explanatory inscriptions, for instance, the
figure of Death playing at skittles with nine cross bones and a
skull for a balk Another, Death shuffiing off the body of a
courtier into the grave in a very unceremonious manner. On
most of the tombs I observed the singular custom of preserving
the skulls of the deceased in a little open case. I took up one
which the inscription informed me belonged to a "beautiful
and accomplished young lady, who spoke four languages,"
I suppose, as Sir Toby says, " word for word without book," and
I daresay too " played the viol de Gamba and had all the good
gifts of nature." Just above it was one of old Death's doings,
pictures of a much earlier date, in which the old gentleman is
making very merry with a scholar, whom he is tumbling with
all his library into the grave, with an inscription which is
rather too long for quotation.
Pass through the mountains one post to Hallein, where are
the celebrated salt mines, which we visited, formerly belong
ing to the sovereign archbishops of Salzburg, and furnishing
for them a very comfortable revenue of some millions of
florins. They are now a monopoly of the Austrian Emperor,
and, like all the Austrian monopolies, are so dear that they
do not produce half as much as they should. After enduing
ourselves at the entrance in the graceful and picturesque
costume of a miner, viz., a yellow canvas jacket and brown
leather breeches and a red woollen night-cap to keep out
the damp air, we entered the principal shaft (which is for a
considerable distance cut through the solid marble) in order
to descend to the principal receiver, " Behalter," or basin,
which is 1500 feet below the surface of the earth. The descent
is principally made in a peculiar kind of slide, on which you
lay yourself almost horizontally, feet foremost, and taking hold
of a rope made fast above and below in one hand and holding
a torch in the other hand (which answers no earthly purpose
that I could discover except to make darkness visible), you
slip down as mechanically and almost as fast as a weaver's

40 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III.
shuttle, in which operation you may believe that the above-
mentioned brown breeches were of no small advantage. Here
we go, swift as lightning : the picture is enough to make
one's blood run cold, is it not ? We soon arrived at the basin,
which, as I said, is about 1500 feet below the earth, and had
leisure to look about us. Such a basin or receiver (of which
there are thirty-two in the mines) is a part of a shaft or gang
way enlarged on all sides into an artificial cavern of perhaps
a hundred yards in diameter, and some ten or twelve feet in
height. Fresh water is conducted by wooden pipes into the cavern
till it is nearly half fulL The salt of which the inside of the
mountain is almost entirely composed is then dissolved and
mixed with water, which, after becoming sufficiently impreg
nated, is conducted out of the mines into the valley, where it
is boiled, etc. While the water remains standing, which of
course it is suffered to do for a considerable time, the whole
cavern appears or is in fact a gloomy subterraneous lake. The
miners employed there row about it in little canoes ; the whole
appearance is most surprising, and when the cavern is lighted
up, as it was when we were there, and the little lighted boats
flitting across in all directions like fire spectres, you might
believe that you were assisting at the carnival of the cobolds
and gnomes and all sorts of sprites, such a strange, bewildering,
unholy aspect as the whole scene was. We emerged through
another shaft, and after resuming our earthly habiliments, we
returned to our caleche and our journey.
7 to 10 P.M. — Drive through the narrow pass of the moun
tain towards Werfen, got out to look at the opening of the
Eiver Salzach, where the stream makes its way apparently
through the rock, and where the hills are jammed so closely
together that nothing but a river could get through. Drive
continues through the dark, deep valley of the Salzach, faint
moonlight, black gloomy mountains with glittering snow-
tops, fire-flies, cascades, pine forests, an attempt at a thunder
shower, a precipitous road, and a postilion fast asleep the
whole way, altogether romantic enough to have enchanted the
whole Fudge family. At 11 p.m. reach Werfen, where we stop

1834.] BAD-GASTEIN — NASSFELD. 41
for the night, tired enough, having been on the road since
four in the morning.
June 14th, 4 a.m. — Two posts to little town of Lend.
Morning, as usual, cold and foggy. Summits of the moun
tains covered with snow, and clouds in so singular a mixture
that it was impossible to separate the one from the other, and
it looked as if the scene were all sky or all mountain. Lend,
a cascade and a fine rainbow. Detained two hours by a
broken bridge. Drive through the Klemme, a narrow pass,
much resembling, though I think not quite so magnificent as,
the Scotch and White Mountains. Eoad built along the side
of the mountain, for there is no valley, and the immense
masses of rock reach from the region of clouds and ice down
into the bed of the Eiver Acha, far beneath us in the smooth,
unbroken perfect precipice. The bridge over the river, with
St. Melchior story on the roadside.
Continue a few miles to Bad-Gastein, a wild and primitive-
looking village with a mineral spring on a plain nearly 4000
feet above the sea. Mountains all round, cascades in great
number, and the fine fall of the Acha in three separate leaps,
all foam and thunder.
Walk in the afternoon to Nassfeld, a little valley about a
thousand feet higher than Gastein, three waterfalls, two toler
able but rather commonplace cascades, but the third, the
Schleierfall, very beautiful and singular. A thin narrow un
broken snow brook, falling from the tiptop of an iced mountain,
with the bed of a river below, and so blue and clear and trans
parent that it looks, as it is called, like a veil for a giantess,
for Queen Cunegunde or for the Spirit of Solitude who is at
home in this valley. A strange, silent-looking valley, with
snow lying unmelted in large patches in the middle of June,
no signs of life excepting a few goats, all shut in by immense
mountains, and looking like a very fortress of solitude. Walk
back by another path, through the same patriarchal. Old
Testament hind of scenery, to Gastein.
Ibth June. — 1 suppose that no transatlantic travellers ever
happened upon this little place before, for as soon as we had
written our names down in the Travellers' Book as Americans,

42 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III.
a most prodigious sensation took place among the bath com
pany. I never was such a lion in my life. Everybody, the
ladies and all, were determined to make our acquaintance, and
a jovial old Austrian Field-Marshal (whom I afterwards found
out was no less a personage than the Governor-General of
Bohemia) patronised us particularly, and we were pressed to
stay on all hands. But fearing that some Sandwich Island
ladies or New Zealanders might arrive if we stayed too long,
and strip us entirely of our lionship, we determined to vanish
while we were in our zenith, and such exchanging of cards
and such tender farewells among acquaintances of twenty-
four hours standing I never saw before. I expected that on
our departure the children would come out in procession and
strew flowers in our path, but it was very early in the morning
there was nobody stirring, so we went off quietly.

To his Parents. Rome,
November 24ffi, 1834.
My dear Parents, —
The common casts, prints, etc., had given me no better
idea of the Apollo Belvedere than they had of the Venus de
Medici. I have heard of persons being disappointed in both.
This term " disappointment" is a cant and favourite phrase
which I don't profess to understand. If a person expected an
elephant and found an Apollo, I can conceive of his being
disappointed, but if he was looking for a divinity when he
saw the Apollo, and was then " disappointed," I 'can only say
that the fault was in him. The whole figure of the Apollo is
slight almost to spareness, but at a little distance the nose is
a thousand times more scornful than I expected, and the whole
face has almost a chilling repulsiveness. But on approaching
nearer, this expression melts away, all the anger concentrates
in the nostril, and the eternal beauty of the face and figure
dissolves itself and floats almost like a drapery around the

1834.] THE APOLLO BELVEDERE. 43
whole statue. The god, the divinity speaks, breathes, moves
in every line, limb, muscle. Every deity of the ancient temple
has lent this face his brightest attributes. The forehead of
Jupiter, when it was pregna^it with the Goddess of Wisdom,
the eye of Juno, the lips of Venus, and the hair floating on
the shoulders and bound on the forehead as if by the very
fingers of the Graces. The very first sight of the statue
transports you to Delos. The Muses in their hallowed vales rise
around you, and in the midst of them, and presiding over
them, and over everything which makes life lovely, stands
the god of eternal youth, and light, and beauty and poetry
in his full divinity before you. It is no longer a piece of
chiselled marble which enchains your eyes, the figure expands
into life, into immortality while you are gazing — the ground
seems to sink away before his lofty godlike steps — you see
the glittering chariot of fire, and hear the snorting steeds, and
you start lest the god of the sun shall have already sprung
into his car, and be already rolling in light and glory and
divinity above the earth.
There is on the whole more divinity, more of the godhead,
in the Apollo than in any ancient statue, at least that I have
seen. One may have more loveliness (as for instance in
Meleager) and another more nature, but the Apollo is not
flesh, is not marble — there is nothing earthly about him. It
is a being to whom none but Ganymede or Hebe have ad
ministered. He has never been fed but with nectar and
ambrosia ; there are no protruding veins, no swelling muscles
— all is perfect, godlike, beautiful repose. He is the embodi
ment of the ethereal essence which is the being of gods, and
there is not a particle of materiality about his whole system.
It seems impossible that labour and time should have created
such a statue. It seems to have waked into existence like a
single thought, a single impulse. It seems the sudden and
startling realization of the brightest dream which the genius
of its artist had ever conceived. It is impossible to imagine
that it could have been produced by degrees, that the sculptor
could have seen the future divinity concealed in the heart of
the shapeless marble, that he could have watched his own

44 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IIL
bright original thought gradually unfolding itself from the
bosom of the stone, breathing upon him slowly and mysteri
ously like the birth of day and night, and bursting at last from
its marble chaos in full, perfect, immortal loveliness of his first
burning conception. It seems impossible ; it seems to be the
thought itself waked into immortal existence by the stroke of
a wand, so ethereal, so immaterial, so godlike is the statue.
There, I have prosed so long about this same Apollo, this
Dandy of the Vatican, that I have left myself no room to
speak of the other treasures of this Museum. As I may as
well have a little method in my madness, and a little system
in my letters, I will discourse in my next of St. Peter's, the
Capitol, and some of the endless villas, palaces, and churches
stuffed full of pictures and statues which occupy our mornings
and will occupy them for some time to come.
Very affectionately your son,
Lothrop Motley.

To his Parents. Naples,
December 28ft, 1834
My dear Parents, —
# * * « »
Two miles beyond are the vast remains of the Emperor
Hadrian's famous villa. This is an immense heap of ruins,
and as in most buildings of this kind (see the baths of Cara-
calla, Titus, Diocletian, etc., in Eome) little remains to
testify of their former magnificence but their extent.
This villa is supposed to have been seven miles in circum
ference, and contained besides the Imperial palace, baths,
temples, theatres, libraries, barracks of the Prsetorian Guard,
and, in short, everything necessary to constitute that counter
part to a cockney's paradise, the urhs in rure, always supposing
the latter to be the much-coveted rus in urhe.
It was built under the direction of Hadrian on his return
from his seven years' tour in the East, and seems to have been
a sort of embodied epitome of his voyage. The "Canope"

1834.] HADRIAN'S VILLA. 45
was in imitation of that near Alexandria ; the Lyceum,
Poecile, etc., were copied from those at Athens, and the vale
of Tempo was made in imitation of the famous happy valley
of Thessaly.
The cicerone conducts you round to several different por
tions of ruins, to which names, but in general most arbitrary
ones, have been given, and the giro commenced with the
" Grecian Theatre."
Here the forms of the Proscenium and the seats of the
spectators are still distinctly to be traced, and in the neigh
bourhood are the ruins of the porticoes, etc.
The next is the Poecile, in imitation of that of Athens ;
and next the library. Afterwards an immense heap of
rubbish with one entire wall, dignified with the name of the
Imperial Palace ; next the barracks of the Prtetorian Guard ;
next the Canope, near it the remains of another theatre, other
baths at the entrance to the vale of Tempo. The ruins are
generally of brick — sometimes a vault, sometimes a portico,
sometimes a wall remains entire, but it is generally a con
fused mass of rubbish, from which the most interesting
remains, such as statues, vases, etc., have been extracted and
carried to Eome. And thus is repeated for the thousandth
time the often-told and dull catalogue raisonne of the ruins of
Hadrian's villa.
If you will allow me to mount my hobby, as Tristram
Shandy would say, and call fancy to the side of history, the
scene will be different, and at least more lively. The
shattered columns rise, the mouldering walls, the fallen
arches, the broken statues, the faded pictures, and all the
pomp, pride, and circumstance of the luxurious abode of the
most glorious Eoman Emperor start again to life and grace
and beauty. The palaces, the temples, the theatres, the baths,
the halls of sports, the fields of military exercise, the haunts
of the poets and philosophers revive and appear as they were
thousands of years ago.
The scene becomes alive and animate, and is repeopled
with the dust which has long since floated and vanished on
the wind. The forms and voices of the long-forgotten dead

46 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IH.
rise again to being, and the halls and courts of the stately
villa swarm with their shades, and in the gay phantasmagoria
of a dream, and ring again as they were wont to the mirth
and laughter of the crowd. Here rises the proud, command
ing form of the imperial Hadrian, there lounges the graceful
Antinous, from the neighbouring courtyard is heard the
steady, martial tramp of the Prsetorians.
In yonder theatre rises a buzz of admiration or a shout of
laughter at a gay comedy of Terence or Plautus. '
In the neighbouring and stately library are seen the
dignified forms of the old philosophers and poets, they
saunter leisurely through the lofty alcoves or descend through
the luxurious mazes of the gardens, and the voices of wit and
wisdom fall again upon your ear as they join in sweet com
munion together. From yonder Palaestro the roar of merri
ment rises on the wind and proclaims the assembly engaged
in the light-hearted games of the baths.
A serious crowd in the distance are bending their steps to
the temples, the priests in the splendid array of their office
are administering the rites of the altar.
Farther off a careless crowd are thronging to the luxurious
baths. All around the voices of command, of mirth, of admi
ration, of discussion, of devotion, float through the air and
mingle in strange variety together.
Everywhere is life, cheerful, busy, bustling, noisy, impatient
life. Baths, halls, temples, theatres are all swarming with
human figures, and resounding with human voices. The
stately fabrics of Imperial grandeur are around you, the
masterpieces of Eoman and foreign genius decorate the apart
ments ; the porticoes, the gardens, all look as if for eternity,
strong, stately, durable, magnificent.
The day before we determined to leave Eome for Naples I
had taken my last look at the Apollo and Meleager and the
rooms of Eaphael, and at midnight I had walked to the ruins
of the Palace of the Caesars, and taken from thence my last
look at the Forum, and the Curia, and the temples, and the
Coliseum ; and the next day, having a call to make in the
vicinity of the Capuchin church, I paid a farewell visit to

1834.] GUIDO'S AURORA. 47
Guide's wonderful archangel (which is the Apollo of canvas
in spite of all gainsayers), and then, as it was not far off, I
thought I might look once more at the wonderful Aurora.
This is painted in fresco on the ceiling of a garden house in
the Palace Eospigliosi. The ceiling of a private nobleman's
garden pavilion adorned with one of the most immortal pictures
of the immortal Guide may be a fair offset to a niche in the
basement story of an emperor's palace filled with a group of the
Laocoon; but search through the world out of Italy and you
will scarcely find in all the palaces and pavilions of all the
emperors and noblemen of all the world such a refinement of
luxury. The design of this painting is one of matchless poetry, and
executed by the hand of a magician. The chariot of the sun
is just rolling over the first grey cloud of morning, preceded
by Aurora, who drops flowers and dew over the still-sleeping
land and sea, and by Light, in the figure of a boy, whose torch
is just beginning to touch the cloud with the brightness of
daylight ; and surrounded by the train of Hours, every one of
whom is a being of eternal youth and grace and beauty. The
whole is wonderful — there is not a stroke of the pencil that
does not breathe of morning and daylight ; all is fresh, brisk,
and startling, in the step of Aurora, and the individual and
different beauty of each figure is almost incredible. If I
should find a fault it would be with tlie figure of Apollo, who is
in fact no Apollo, and furnishes the only exception to the vivid
and godlike beauty of all the other figures. He has, in fact,
no business in the clouds, being a most earthly figure — a redr
haired, clownish-looking bumpkin, who looks as if taken from
an ox cart, and is totally unfit to drive the four-in-hand ot
Phoebus, whose place he is clumsily usurping.
Generation after generation shall throng these placdfe, and
still the pile shall endure — the delight and wonder of Eome
and of the world. Alas ! throw down the wand of imagina
tion and look around you. What meets your eye ? Heaps
of confused and shapeless ruins — a dreary and desolate mass of
decay and corruption, overgrown with weeds and ivy, and
choked with rubbish. The theatres, temples, porticoes, palaces,

48 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IIL
lie alike in one mighty and indistinguishable mass of ruin and
desolation ; and not a voice is heard through the vast and
dreary silence to testify the existence of humanity.'
After indulging in all these heroics, which you will perhaps
think excusable when one is " putting his foot on such a
reverend history " as this villa of Hadrian, we continued our
route up the hills, and through a forest of olives to Tivoli.

To his Parents. Naples,
April 30th, 1835.
My dear Parents, — I sent off a very short letter yesterday
to let you know where I was and whither I was going, and
intended writing you a very long one to-day. I have, how
ever, already taken my passage in the steamboat from this to
Genoa, whence I shall go directly to Paris, and I shall accord
ingly hardly have time to give you the whole of my tour in
Sicily ; for I find, on looking at my notes about it, that it is
the most voluminous one I have made. Besides, as I shall see
you all in a few months, I may as well leave something to be
told viva voce. We came down, as I believe I have told you
in a former letter, through Calabria to Eeggio, and so crossed
over to Messina. From Messina we went down along the
eastern coast of Sicily to Catania ; from Catania we ascended
Etna ; afterwards came to Syracuse ; from Syracuse to
Girgenti, the site of the ancient Agrigentum ; and from
Girgenti we crossed in a small vessel to Malta. From Malta,
as I have already told you, I returned in a brig to Naples.
24ith March. — Left Messina for Catania in a carriage, for this
distance, about 120 miles, is the only part of Sicily where one
can travel in any way but on mules. The two days we were
coming, the weather squally, rainy, wretched, and the road,
which should have presented different and constant views of
Mount Etna, presented nothing. But the island is so beyond
all description lovely — such a wild, fabulous, overflowing

1835.] SICILY AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 49
vegetation ; such millions of flowers and fruits ; lemon trees
and oranges springing again into blossom, while the boughs
are still golden with fruit; grain bursting ripe and ready
bearded from the ground, for all the fields are at this moment
in full ear, the banks all gaudy with anemones, marigolds,
daisies, violets, and a thousand garden flowers, springing
wildly and spontaneously into existence at the first breath of
spring. And then, as one draws near Catania and the base of Etna,
such wild, wonderful contrasts — a boundless ocean of lava,
black, dismal, awful ; and yet, such is the eternal and ever-
vivid quality of the atmosphere, that the gaudiest flowers and
the most luxuriant vegetation, springing in the very bosom of
the lava before it is hardly cold — all this together makes a
drive in Sicily, although not under the most favourable sky, a
thing to be remembered.
Half-way between Messina and Catania is Taormina, the
ancient Taurominium, and here are the beautiful ruins of an
ancient theatre ; and the second day we passed the pretty and
finical town of Aci, which is immortally associated with one
or two exquisite fables of the Greeks. The river which runs
by the town is the Acis, the liquid lover of Galatea, for it was
here that the jealous Titan crushed the unfortunate shepherd
as he sat by his beloved sea-nymph, and the river into which
he was changed by his mistress still rushes impetuously to
the ocean, as if to seek and console the sorrowing sea-nymph.
Two or three miles from the town brought us to the beach, to
look for seven small islands or rocks close to the shore, and
which are said to be the rocks of the Cyclops — the rocks which
the same ill-tempered Polyphemus threw down upon Ulysses
and his companions. According to accurate people, they were
thrown into the sea by Etna and not by the Titans ; but the
long point of Cape Mollini on the left, the seven mysterious
rocks on the right, the sea black and angry in front, and Etna,
which ought to have been smoking, behind, made up together
a very epical picture, and so I resisted the volcanic theory,
and in the midst of the scene I recollected the adventures
which occurred on the spot to iEneas. I saw the ancient
VOL. L E

50 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IIL
Anchises grasp the hand of the unfortunate and defeated
Acha3menides. I listened with him to his tale of distress, and
was startled in the midst by the appearance of the truculent
Titan. I saw the grim, ungainly form of Polyphemus striding
from his cave, and beheld ^neas and his companions scamper
ing into the boats to escape him, and I heard the disappointed
roar of the infuriated giant, which shook the sea and the earth,
and even Etna itself, to the centre— but I will spare you the
rest of the description.
I see that although I have carefully left out the description
of the two days' journey to Catania, I am already loitering on
the way, but I have no time to spare, for we have got Etna to
ascend, countless ruins to explore, and a shipwreck to outlive,
before we get to Malta. And so let us hasten at once to
Catania. Catania is just at the base of Etna, and is the most
volcanic town possible, literally built on its own ruins, whole
foundation in land made from water by fire. The sea formerly
reached beyond the Porte di Ulysse, now considerably beyond
the city on the outside, for the ocean has been filled with lava,
and on that stands the town. The harbour is the most sin
gular spectacle in the world, high rocks and cliffs, in as wild
and fantastic shapes as those of Nahant, but all lava, which in
1669 swept from the top of Etna, over and nearly destroying
the town, and ran far into the sea, thus forming a' breakwater,
and thus a safe harbour which subsequent eruptions destroyed.
Catania's history is all earthquake — leaving ancient history
out of the question — and beginning with comparatively modern
times. In 1160 every house and every inhabitant was de
stroyed ; in 1348 it was devastated by the plague ; in 1669
the lava overwhelmed and destroyed it; in 1693 it was again
destroyed by an earthquake, and still, at this moment, it is a
gay, flourishing and, for Sicily or Italy, a neat and thriving
town ; and even now its light-hearted inhabitants live and
laugh and dance and sing with an abyss of fire yawning
beneath them, Etna thundering over their heads, and in
danger every moment to see striding back upon them the
ancient awful chaos. There are no human battle-fields here —
no places celebrated by the wars of the Greeks or the Eomans

1835.] ETNA. 51
— the Eomans or the Hohenstaufen, as are to be seen in most
parts of Sicily and Italy, but other and far more imposing
battle-fields. Two great elements have been on this spot con
tinually at war — fire and ocean. The plains and places of
this terrible encounter are distinctly, awfully visible, and of
the wrecks and ruins which have attended them, the least are
man's ; and even now, when one sits on the rocks of fire and
hears the sea foaming and howling around them, old Ocean
seems to be sounding his defiance to the god of fire and daring
him to another conflict.
March 28th. — Start from Catania at 11 a.m. to Mount Etna.
My most exquisite reason for joining in the party I should be
puzzled to say, probably because Abbate's and my own opinion
were decidedly against it. Mules from Niccolosi, twelve
miles, through the first region, or Eeggio Coltivato, of the
mountain. The greatest peculiarity in the appearance of
Etna, and one which renders him the most striking mountain
I have ever seen, not excepting even Mont Blanc, is his
single , and solitary situation. Other high mountains are
usually the highest of a chain of mountains, and generally
the vicinity of a multitude of hills detracts from the effect of
the highest peak. But Etna rises all alone from a dead plain ;
suddenly and singly with one stride he is in heaven, and
there he stands and stood to-day, with the sunshine wasting
itself on his icy forehead — all alone — the whole sky and the
whole earth to himself, and looking like the god and ruling
spirit of the island. The three regions into which naturalists
divide the mountain are the Eeggio Prime or Fecondo, Eeggio
Secundo or Selvoso, Eeggio Terzo or Nevoso — the fruitful, the
woody, the snowy, and desolate. They are in fact paradise,
purgatory, and hell. Nothing can surpass the overflowing
wonderful fertility of the first, the mystic gloom of the second,
not the wholly infernal, hideous, sulphureous sights and smells
of the last. Gradual ascent towards Niccolosi. Soil of the
side of the mountain all ancient lava, which in the course of
centuries becomes the richest mould, and is covered with
a prurient and fabulous vegetation. Thus here nature is
cradled in fire and nursed by earthquakes, and a new Sicily

52 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III.
seems constantly springing from the ashes of the old one, for
the hackneyed phoenix is no trope here, but reality. Wide
base of Etna, which is nearly one hundred miles round.
Life and laughing with plenty— cornfields, vineyards, flower-
gardens, fields of flax in flower, Indian figs, mulberries, lemons,
oranges, golden with fruit and fragrant with flower ; in fact,
wherever one looks one sees Ceres, who was anciently, with
justice, the presiding deity of the island, sitting in beneficent
majesty with the boy Bacchus laughing in her lap. At
Niccolosi finishes the first region ; here are the Monti Eossi,
two tolerable hills thrown up in the tremendous eruption
of 1669, and the course of the lava down the side of the
mountain to the sea is still darkly and awfully distinct.
This side is girt round with a line of locce or craters, and
the whole scene is black with lava and ashes. The previous
sight of Vesuvius had not enabled me to conceive of such a
scene of horrible and unearthly desolation as I saw here.
The black broad line of lava looks like the wake of a ship of
fire. It seems as if the ancient Chaos had strode from Etna
to the sea and left the trace of his footsteps and desolation
behind him.
At Niccolosi, which is a little village about a sixth of the
way up Etna, we dismounted and ate a dinner brought with
us from Catania. A certain Dr. Gemmalaro, a fat old professor
and a kind of second Empedocles, lives up in the clouds here,
apparently to study the mountain and make notes thereof.
This seeming to be his only occupation, Abbate, our landlord
at Catania, had advised us to hold converse with the learned
Theban, and we did, but to no purpose except that he sent us
our guides. At 8 p.m. mount mules again, for, as if the diffi
culty of ascending the mountain at this season of the year
were not great enough, we must needs increase them by going
up in the night, in order to enjoy the cool breezes of March at
midnight among the snows of Etna. From Niccolosi to the
Casa della Neve is about ten miles, the second stage of the
journey, and comprehends the second or woody region. Night
pitch dark but starry — guides with lanterns. In an hour
commence patches of snow, increasing, and night cold. Arrive

1835.] ASCENT OF ETNA. 53
at Casa della Neve at half-past eleven, expecting to find a
tolerably comfortable hut with a dry floor and perhaps the
Sybaritish luxury of a chair and table ; have the inexpressible
satisfaction to find the house of snow well deserving its name —
a stone hut, minus its roof, and filled with snow about two feet
deep. Make a fire of branches before it, and cower shivering
over it in a most melancholy state, listening to the wind
soughing through the trees and howling hideously on the still
distant and icy top of the mountain.
After indulging for half-an-hour in pleasing anticipations
of our night's walk, leave the paradisaical house of snow at
about midnight to perform the third and principal stage of
the journey. At midsummer the ascent from the Casa della
Neve to the Casa degli Inglesi at the foot of the cone
is practicable to mules, the distance nine miles, and then
there remains only the ascent of the cone, which is, how
ever, for a mile nearly perpendicular, to be made on foot,
consequently in warm weather and by daylight it is an easy —
comparatively easy — affair. At present from the Casa della
Neve to the top is all deep, hard-frozen snow. The guides
had told us we must leave the mules here and make the
whole ten miles' ascent on foot. Attempt riding a little
farther through the thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice.
Mule and I flounder about a few hundred yards through the
snow, until at last he tumbles fairly over, and we roll together
most amicably head over heels some dozen yards down the
snow bank, till we are stopped by a thicket of ilexes. Get up
and shake myself, and finding myself unharmed, saving a few
bruises, proceed, with the help of the guides, to assist the
amiable companion of my misfortunes to his legs again.
Finding that the girths and bridle are broken all to pieces,
and experience showing that the slippery side of an iced
volcano is not the best place to show off one's horse- or
rather mule manship, determined to accede to the prayers of
the guide, and all leave the mules and commence the ascent
on foot.
The ascent to the Casa Inglese lasted from a little after
midnight to 5 a.m. CoM gradually increased, the ascent

54 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IIL
excessively steep, the ice intolerably slippery, the wind
piercing. The remainder of the journey and the ascent of the
cone, which must be always performed on foot, is difficult.
Difficult on a warm summer's day, and after dismounting, fresh,
comfortably warm and untired from our mule's back, and
taking repose and refreshment in the Casa Inglese before com
mencing the ascent, — ecco la differenza! On a cold piercing
night in March, in the coldest part of the twenty-four hours,
viz., an hour before dawn, arriving at the base of the cone,
fagged, half-frozen, and worn out from a nine miles' and five
hours' walk up the steep, slippery ice of the mountain, through
the whole night, too, instead of dismounting from an agreeable
ride, finding the Casa Inglese buried deep in snow, and with
nothing for it but to commence the last and closing scene of
the momentous history without resting, with the addition to
our misfortunes that the guides had neglected to take up
water or even an orange, so that there was nothing to slake
our constant thirst but the ice which we had been so much
warned against that it seemed like swallowing poison to
attempt it. On my arriving at the Casa degli Inglesi, one of
the party was a little ahead, and the other was half-an-hour
behind. My guide was an old man, quite unequal to his
office, and being very much fatigued himself, advised me to
stay and see the sun rise from thence instead of from the
summit, adding coolly that any farther ascent was quite im
possible. Spur him on, and, both nearly exhausted, commence
crawling up through the ice and knee-deep ashes which form
the almost perpendicular and almost mile-long ascent of the
cone. Both drop with fatigue every dozen yards, till at last
the guide fairly tumbles over in the ashes and refuses to budge
another step. Leave him to his fate and scramble and creep
through clouds of hideously smelling sulphur to the top; see
the sun rise just as I reach the top of the ridge, and such
a lame and impotent con.^u.sion to the night's labour was
intolerable. The night had been clear and bright, but towards morning
mists had begun to collec^in the south, and at last the sun
rose red and lurid above The sea, and after glaring a few

1835.] THE VIEW FROM ETNA. 55
seconds like a culprit from a barred prison window through
tho long dun vapoury mists which stretched all across the
horizon, hid himself from the day in a dark heavy mass of
clouds, which almost filled the whole heaven. I was in no
favour with Apollo certainly, and looking down towards the
islands, which was the only part of the vaunted prospect
not quite obscured by the vapours, I found that the king of
the winds was not in a bit better humour ; he seemed to have
unchained every one of his tempests, and they came sweeping
coldly and dismally across the top, of the mountain, and had
nearly blown me into the sea. Struggle against them a little
while, and look about me. The objects to be gained by our
ascent were — first, to see the sun rise ; second, to see the cele
brated pyramidal shadow of the cone formed on the southern
side of the island ; third, the extensive view of the island ;
fourth, a sight of the crater. Of these only the last were
attained. The sunrise was anything but brilliant, the clouds
prevented the phenomenon of the shadow, and the darkness
and mistiness of the atmosphere towards the south obscured a
great part of the view. In fact, the Lipari Islands, the ex
tremity of Calabria, and the coast of Messina were almost all
that could be seen. All that I got was a look at the crater ;
but that was, after all, worth all the trouble. Such a hideous,
horrible, infernal sight I had never conceived of. The yawn
ing and almost fathomless gulf, its sides formed of precipitous
cliffs of ancient ice and brimstone and lava and ashes, the
dull heavy sulphurous vapours rising along the sides and suf
focating all who attempt to inhale the atmosphere, and seeming
like the breath of the rebel giant who lies chained and howl
ing and writhing in agony beneath the mountain, altogether
gave me an idea of the Inferno which I could never have
conceived of : the fumes of Vulcan's workshop, the breath of
the demons A\ho infest the mountain, the cradle of Chaos,
nothing is too vile, hideous, and ghastly to be associated
with the place.
Forgot to mention what was one of the most striking
circumstances of the whole expedition. At about two hours
after midnight, when we had gotten about a third of the way

56 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. HL
up, and were toiling through the snow half tired and half
frozen, we descried what seemed a black ridge of lava above
the snow, and promised a deal of satisfaction in resting there.
It seemed about five minutes' walk. We hastened towards it.
Five minutes passed, and it seemed still five minutes; another
five minutes, still the same. Another half-hour, another hour,
still it receded before us, and I got nervous. It was as if
some of the demons with which the caves of Mount Etna are
peopled were mopping and mowing at us from that black
and ghastly mass of lava, as it still fled in silent mockery
before us. At last morning broke, and lo ! the ledge of rocks
where we were to have reposed ourselves when about a third
of the way up the mountain now hung still high above us,
and was — the summit, the black, awful summit itself of
Mount Etna. After five minutes spent in gaping and
gasping at the crater and endeavouring to make something of
the view, return to the base of the cone, seat ourselves and
warm ourselves by the sulphurous and stinking fumes of a
iocea, and thaw some of our hard-frozen food in the steam, and
in that moment I think I never saw six more unearthly and
devilish-looking individuals than we three, with the three
guides, as haggard with the want of sleep and the night's
fatigue, half famished and half frozen, we hung over the
deep, sulphurous fumes of that infernal locca, gnawing our
frozen victuals. Descend from the Casa Inglese to Casa deUa
Neve in about two hours, which in ascending occupied five,
fold cloak under me like a sledge, and slide down comfortably
and quickly. Eeach Casa della Neve at eight, devour a cold
chicken and a bottle of wine, and resume the mules. Jog
down to Niccolosi, falling asleep on the mule two or three
times, and reach Niccolosi at half-past eleven. Eest until
3.30, and then proceed through the paradisaical region to
Catania again. As we approach the base, weather fine ao-ain.
Sunday, and the peasants in holiday suits, air full of perfume
and earth full of flowers, butterflies swarming, bees humming,
lizards creeping, etc., etc. Eeach at last Catania and the
most excellent Albergo della Corona, and rejoice in a good
dinner and a good bed. The latter, you may be sure, was

1835.] A PERILOUS VOYAGE. 57
acceptable after having ridden on mules fifty miles and
walked twenty without sleeping.
On the 9th of April, having been the day before rolled
and half drowned, mules and all, in a river, we arrived at
Girgenti. After having admired the beautiful temples here
for two or three days, we joined a party of English, who
had hired a small vessel to take them across to Malta. The
distance is about one hundred miles, and we hoped to get there
in about twenty-four hours. The vessel was not quite thirty
tons burthen, and besides ten passengers and seven sailors,
had been loaded with brimstone, contrary to our express con
tract. We got on well enough the first night. We set sail
at nine in the evening, but as there was nothing like a cabin,
and the hold would only contain two or three at a time, the
night, which was an excessively cold one, was anything but
pleasant. Towards morning, however, the wind, which had been
pretty strong all night, increased to a hurricane. One of our
sails, not taken in in time, was blown to pieces, and the others
being furled, we drifted under bare poles quite at the mercy
of the wind. The sea rose to a height which I think I never
saw in the Atlantic, and our vessel, which in calm weather was
hardly a foot above water, was now washed over by every wave.
She was heavily laden, and laboured excessively, and strained
to every wave almost to cracking. We were drenched through
by every wave and expecting every moment to be swamped.
The captain lay in a corner, crying like a child, and calling on
St. Joseph ; the crew were praying to the Madonna ; and at
last all the passengers, at the request of the captain, by a
sudden impulse commenced discharging the cargo in a very
summary manner.
After having thus presented Mr. Graset's brimstone to the
fishes, the vessel rode lighter, and the wind lulling a little,
we became encouraged. The captain and crew resumed com
mand of the vessel. /Vnd we all lay drenched, shivering,
and miserable on the deck. At last we made land, and then
commenced a violent dispute among the sailors whether it
was Sicily or Malta. Conceive of these sages, men' who have
spent their whole lives in navigating between these two

58 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IH.
islands, and not able to distinguish one coast from the other !
At last the wind, which luckily was in our favour, blew us
about twenty past twelve of the second night into Malta ;
and there we had the inexpressible satisfaction of waiting close
to shore in our wet boat till morning, no vessel being allowed
to discharge its passengers after sundown. Vv'hen the sun at
last rose I think it never shone on a dozen more forlorn and
wretched-looking individuals. Sick, pale, haggard faces, be
grimed with brimstone, clothes torn and drenched and water
logged, we looked altogether more like a deputation of the
devils of ' Der Freischiitz ' than like human creatures. At last
we were let out, and the first thing I did on reaching the hotel
at eight in the morning was to jump into bed and sleep until
nine the next morning.
My letter of the 15th of April has informed you of my dis
appointment at Malta, and you may believe that the eight or
nine days which I was allowed to spend there waiting for a
vessel to the Continent, instead of going with my companions
with the steamer to Greece, where I should have been the
third day after leaving Malta, were anything but pleasant.
The English fleet was there, and as I had acquaintances in
some of the officers, I went on board most of the vessels. My
voyage from Malta to Naples hardly contained much of interest.
The first five days were my usual luck, constant head winds ;
so that on the close of the fifth day we were not fifty miles
from Malta. At last, however, we got a fair wind, and came
through the Straits of Messina and past the Lipari Islands and
made the coast of Naples the sixth morning, thus having seen
Etna, Stromboli, and Vesuvius, the three celebrated volcanoes
of the world, in one and the same day. On arriving I find to
my great disappointment that I have lost a great eruption of
Vesuvius which has taken place since I have been gone, and
this is almost as mortifying as my other disappointment. I
have taken my passage to Genoa in the steamer which sails
day after to-morrow. I should have taken it as far as Marseilles,
but the cholera at that place and the consequent quarantine
at Naples prevent the boats from running thither. I shall
probably consequently go by land from Genoa to Marseilles,

1835.] SALISBURY CATHEDRAL. 59
and from thence to Paris. At Paris I shall wait until I hear
from you in reply to my last letter ; you will think me to
blame, but I cannot feel that I have anything to reproach
myself with the miscalculating the expense of my journey, and
having been almost in sight of Athens without going there is
a disappointment which cannot be forgotten,
I remain your most affectionate son,
J. L. Motley.

To his Mother.

Dublin,
July 21th, 1835.
My dear Mother, — The last time I wrote I was, I think,
on the point of leaving London for a tour in England, Scot
land, and Ireland. This is the first time we have been
stationary in any place for as much as twelve hours, and, con
sequently, the first time I have had any chance of writing.
As it is, I am afraid I shall send you but a short letter ; we
stay here only till to-morrow (having arrived yesterday), and
during this time we wish of course to see as much of the town
as possible. We cannot of course help returning to Dublin
on our way back to England, and shall stop here another day
or two to see what we leave unseen now. The day I left
London I reached Salisbury, after a drive in a stage-coach of
five or six hours. Here, as I daresay you know, is one of the
finest cathedrals in England, and decidedly the finest speci
men I have yet seen, not only of what is called in architectural
technology the Early English, but generally of English archi
tecture. The evening I arrived I strolled out with my
pocket stuffed full of cigars to see the lions of Salisbury (or
rather the lion, for the cathedral is the only thing of interest).
This was the first specimen of English Gothic I was to see,
and as I walked thither my head was full of the Continental
Gothic, which was as yet all I knew. I thought of the Cathe
drals of Cologne, of Vienna., of Eouen, of strange, unfinished,
unfinishable buildings, built according to no plan, or rather
according to a dozen different ones, and rising helter-skelter

60 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IH.
from the midst of a multitude of old, sharp-gabled, red-tiled,
ten-storey houses, all looking as if built in the time of the
Crusades. The idea of a Gothic cathedral was associated in
my mind with hundreds of tumble-down hovelg, booths, and
shops, mixed grotesquely here and there with a magnificent
palace of half a dozen centuries, and with groups of amiable
ragamuffins and lazzaroni, which on the Continent form such
a constant and indispensable ingredient of every picture.
Although I knew I was in England, I could not help thinking
of the filth and misery, squalor and magnificence, neglect
and decay which usually makes up in equal portions every
scene of the Continent, so that on the whole, when I came to
look on Salisbury Cathedral, I was most ridiculously half
disappointed. It was my own fault or my own stupidity. , The church is
of beautiful proportions, of the most beautiful (at any rate the
most regular) of the Gothic styles (namely, the Early English),
is built of a fair coloured stone, which looks as fresh as if of
yesterday, and with its light and graceful and very high sjsire,
its long lancet-headed windows, its massive walls and stately
buttresses, is certainly one of the finest cathedrals I know.
Influenced by the associations I have mentioned, I thought
the whole scene at first too tidy, too notable, too housewifish,
but, as I said before, this was only my own dulness ; on second
thoughts I acknowledged to myself that filth and poverty and
ugliness were not necessary concomitants of a cathedral, and
I confessed that I had rarely seen a more lovely picture than
this same church presents. The scene is so softly and sweetly
English. The stately and graceful cathedral with its green
and smooth-shaven lawn in front, the surrounding elm trees
in their magnificently massive foliage, the tidy cottages half
covered with honeysuckles and rose-bushes, the hawthorn
hedges, and the green meadows wifh their sleek cattle (to say
nothing of the macadamised turnpike and the new hotel),
altogether made up a scene purely and exclusively English,
and perhaps, after all, as pleasing a one as you can find any
where. From Salisbury I made a short detour to see the
celebrated Stonehenge, of which I daresay Preble will give

1835.] STONEHENGE. 61
you a more vivid description out of Worcester's Geography
than I can do, although I have seen it so lately. In fact, a
very barbarous monument (in the matter of the fine arts at
least) has no particular interest when one has seen the much
older monuments of much older nations, which preceding
ages have only been able to gape at and admire without
even being able to imitate, much less to equal. Stonehenge
is merely a rude and rather awkward grouping together of
about a score of huge and shapeless stones. It may have
been a Druid's temple or Queen Boadicea's drawing-room for
aught that I (or I believe any one else) know to the contrary,
and I can't find enough interest in the grotesque monuments
of a parcel of barbarians to detain me from the continuation
of my tour. I shall turn it over to the antiquaries.
Your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

62 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.

CHAPTEE IV.
RUSSIA.
Mr. Motley's marriage — Voyage to Europe — Discomforts of steamers — Manchester
— The MacLeod case — London — En route to St. Petersburg — Lord Lynd
hurst — Mr. Clarke— Sir Charles Vaughan — Prussia, her vicissitudes and her
condition — Konigsberg — A local legend — Tilsit — Tauroggen — Arrival at
St. Petersbui^ — Russian winter — Official formalities — Expenses of living —
The climate of Russia — John Randolph's despatch — Russian Society — The
Winter Palace — Presentation at Court — Court formalities — The Czar — A
Court ball — The Grand Duke Michael — More presentations — Count Leva-
choffs house — Miss Porter — Taglioni — Resignation of Secretaryship of
Legation — Nesselrode — Sir William Wylie — Peter the Great — St. Peteroburo;
audits public institutions — Ca^imir Perier — Quarrel between French and
Russian Courts — Journey lo Berlin — Halle, a quizzical town — Maurice
church and its legend — Weimar — Madame de Goethe — Frankfort-on-the-
Main — Paris — Guizot — Thiers as a speaker — Brussels — John Van Eyck, the
inventor of oil painting — Diary in Russia — The Great Bazaar — How it is
guarded at night — Russian taxes and guilds — Food supi)ly — Army— Maim-
facturcs — The Blessing of the Waters— Peter the Great's house — Military
hospitals — The Hermitage Gallery — Orphan asylums.
[In 1837 Mr. Motley was married. In 1839 appeared his
first novel, ' Morton's Hope.' In the autumn of 1841 he was
appointed Secretary of Legation to the Eussian Mission. ]
To his Wife. Halifax,
Friday morning, October 8ft, 1841.
My dearest Mary, — I write again this morning in order
that there may be a double chance of your hearing from me.
I wrote yesterday by the brig Arcadian, which sailed this
morning for Boston, and you will probably have got that
letter before this reaches you. I told you in that that we had
experienced very rough weather and heavy gales from the
north-east which delayed our arrival here three days beyond

1841.] DISCOMFORTS OF STEAMERS. 63
the usual time. I flatter myself that nobody can beat me in
long passages, go whither or how I will. However, we have
every reason to be thankful that we arrived at last in safety,
and I make no complaint at the length of the passage. Of the
accommodations of the boat I do make complaint, and I may
as well tell you now, if you come out in the spring, by all
means come in one of the best and largest New York packet
ships. The average gain by taking a steamer is only a week,
and the loss in comfort — no, not comfort, for there is no such
thing at sea, but the loss in those appliances which make
existence endurable at sea — is immense.
Everything is dirty, disorderly and disgusting. There is no
room in the state rooms to put so much as a tooth-pick, not a
drawer nor a shelf, but everything is left to knock about on the
floor at its own sweet will. There is no cabin to sit in, the
narrow piggery in which we are fed being entirely filled up
with the troughs and benches. There is no deck to walk on,
as the whole or nearly the whole of the space is occupied by
the upper cabin, the state rooms being below. As for the
ladies' cabin, I have not been in it, but I am told that they are
much worse off than the gentlemen. EecoUect, my dearest
Mary, that I am not painting this disagreeable picture because
I have been myself so uncomfortable, but only to prevent you
from being exposed to the same evils. It has been my
greatest consolation thus far, that you and my little darlings
were not on board the Caledonia with me. I believe you
would have been driven to despair, and I am very sure that
if you had been with me, we should have all stopped in
Halifax and gone home as soon as possible. Neither do I
know that a great many of the discomforts of these ships can
be avoided. They are mail boats, intended for speed, and so
carry the greatest number of passengers in the least possible
space. We are accordingly packed down like salt fish, com
pressed into nothing, and are of course uncomfortable. Now
this is worth bearing in going to America, where the saving
averages two or three weeks, but in going to England it is
most " tolerable and not to be endured."
The captain seems to be a thorough seaman, and always at

64 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
his post, and inspires us with perfect confidence. The boat has
proved herself a staunch and admirable sea-boat. These are
the great essentials before which everything else is as nothing ;
but you can unite all in a first-rate packet ship from New
York, and if ever I should go to Europe again — but no, upon
that point my resolution is taken most decidedly. If I get
home in safety I shall never leave it again. I knew I should
be home-sick enough, but did not anticipate the reality ; I
can hardly bear to think of you and all at home for an
instant without being sick at heart, and as I cannot say a
word upon the subject without becoming very foolish, I shall
say nothing.
I shall say nothing now upon the point of your coming. I
intend to keep an exact account of the expense and of every
thing else bearing upon the subject, so that in the course of
the winter you will have the whole matter before you, all the
pros and cons, and then I shall trust you to decide for your
self; you know I have often told you, my dearest, that you
always decide right and that I always repent not taking your
advice ; I tell you so still, that in order that you should decide
upon this point you must have everything before you, and look
fairly at both sides. Above all things, do not be governed by
your feelings, but by your judgment.
If we are to be separated till my return, of course my return
will be so much the sooner. If you join me, the pleasure of
being together will be embittered by the length of the journey
and the great fatigues which you and the little ones will have
to endure, to say nothing of the expense, which will of course
be great. However, it is premature to attempt to form an
opinion now.
Good-bye. We sail from here at three o'clock this afternoon.
Ever your own
J. L. M.

1841.] ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND 65

To his Wife.
Manchester, of all places in the world,
October 20th, 1811.
My Dearest, — I have just opened this letter to add a word
or tfl'o. I came round this way, having nothing to do in
Liverpool, and because Tom was coming to this place. I dine
here, and go up to London to-night. I saw the Mackintoshes
in Liverpool, whom you will see very soon, as they go in the
Britannia. The Macleod case causes an inconceivable fuss and anxiety
throughout Her Majesty's dominions. The first question asked
at Halifax was about it, and in Liverpool we had hardly got
into the hotel coffee-room, reeking from the Caledonia, when
several stout elderly gentlemen rushed frantically across the
room, leaving their beer untasted, to inquire concerning the
Macleod case. In short, everybody in the house scented us
and came upon a point at once. I thought that the ferocity
on the subject was confined to the provinces — provincial
patriotism is always ferocious, but the excitement was very
great in London. God bless you.

To Ms Wife.

London,
October 2Ut, 1841.

My dearest Mary, — I arrived here this morning by the
railroad between five and six o'clock, having left Manchester
at seven the evening before. The whole tour being in the
dark, you will hardly expect a description of the journey. I
left Tom at Manchester, who, after stopping there some days,
intended to go to Scotland.
Contrary to my expectations I found Colonel Todd ^ still
in London. He had a passage of twenty-five days, so that
' United States Minister to St. Petersburg
VOL. I. F

66 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IA'.
after all I did better than he. Our steamer, however, was
beaten by several of the packets; that of the 1st October
from New Y^ork arrived before us ; and the Great Western
(unquestionably, from all I hear, the best steamer between
England and America), which sailed some few days before us,
made her passage in thirteen days. Mr. Frank Gray goes out
in her the day after to-morrow. He is here at the same hotel
with me (Long's in Bond Street). He will see you probably
on his arrival ; and if it gives you half as much pleasure to see
him as it would me to see any one who had lately seen you,
it will certainly be a satisfaction to you. I cannot tell you
how much I long for letters, and yet I must leave England
without any.
Augustus Thorndike is also at this house ; his family are
in Paris. Mr. Stevenson leaves in the Great Western; Mr.
Everett has not arrived, so that ridiculously enough, at the
present critical period of our English relations, there is nobody
in London accredited to the Court, the Secretary of Legation
having left some time ago.
I am not yet decided upon my route. Colonel Todd had
made up his mind to go by the Hamburg and Lubeck line,
but is somewhat inclined to adopt my jDlan of going by way of
Stockholm. There is some difficulty in getting information
about several points. It is plain sailing enough as far as
Stockholm, but some question whether there be a steamer run
ning at present between that place and Abo in Finland.
London is such an immense place that nobody knows any
thing about anything. I am going with Colonel Todd to
morrow morning to see Baron Brunnow, the Eussian Ambas
sador here, who will give more information probably than any
one else can do, and I shall be guided a good deal by what
he says.
It is unfortunate, my dear Mary, that I am obliged to write
thus a second time without having anything to say to you,
except . . . how heart-sick I am at being separated from you.
It is indeed " to drag at each remove a lengthening chain "
to be thus pushing onwards towards the Finns and Calmucks,
while my heart and my eyes are ever turning backwards over

1841.] EN ROUTE TO ST. PETERSBURG. 67
the thousands of miles which separate me from all I love in
the world : — " But where my rude hut by the Danube lay,
There are my young barbarians pll at play.
There is their Daoian mother."
Tell me all about the rude hut on the river when jovl write.
I suppose it is nearly finished by this time. Be sure and
attend to it in all its details, for I hope it will be our home
for many years, and I shall never be happy till I see it again-
Tell me all about little Lily and Lottie, and mother and
father and all of them. Tell mother I shall certainly write to
her from St. Petersburg. I am so hurried now, and shall be
till I get there, that I have hardly time to scrawl these
jejune and most unmeaning lines to you. Ever yours,
J. L. M.

To his Wife.

Hamburg,
November 1st, 1841.

My DEAREST Mary, — I have again a roosting-place for a
few hours, and hasten to employ it by writing to you. I
reached this place an hour or two ago in the steamer from
London. We sailed last Wednesday morning, and ought to
have made the passage by Friday noon, from fifty-five to sixty
hours being the average passage, instead of which we were
six days about it. We had a head wind and very heavy
weather the whole voyage, so that it seems that I have only
to form a resolution, however secretly, to go by sea to any
given place for the wind instantly to make a point of blowing
a gale exactly from that direction. I found here a couple of
notes from Colonel Todd, who has been expecting me at
Liibeck every day according to our agreement, but this most
unconscionable passage has kept me beyond the day of sailing
of the Liibeck packet, in which we were to have gone together,
and as it is the last boat which goes all the way to Petersburg
this season, he was obliged to go without me, and I have

68 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
to make the journey by land. This is nobody's fault but
the steamer John Bull's; and on the whole I do not much
regret it, as a November voyage up the Baltic is not a very
desirable amusement, and, from my experience of steamboating
Ititely, I daresay it would prove quite as tedious and fatiguing '
as the journey by land.
Let me see, I wrote you last, I think, by the Great
Western, a day or tw^o after my arrival in London. After
that I left my letter and card at Lord Lyndhurst's, and also
at Mr. Clarke's, his cousin, to whom Copley Greene, or rather
Mrs. Greene, was kind enough to send me letters. Mr. Clarke
called upon me immediately, and was particularly attentive
to me. I dined with him once, and received another invita
tion from a friend of his during my short stay there. Lord
Lyndhurst was in the country when I arrived, and came to
town only the day upon which I left. He however wrote me
a very polite note, hoping to see me when his family returned
from the country the next week, and, upon my informing him
that I was leaving that day, he sent me a letter of introduc
tion to Lord Stuart de Eothesay, the British Ambassador at
Petersburg, and hoped to see me when I returned to
London. Mr. Clarke is a very agreeable gentlemanlike person, and
I feel much obliged to the Greenes for their introduction, for
which I wish you would make a point of calling upon Mrs.
Greene and expressing thanks. Tell Sumner that I left his
letter and my card at Sir Charles Vaughan's door ; the
servant, however, told me he was leaving town the next day,
so that I expected to hear nothing from him. However, he
came round to my hotel within an hour, and sat some time in
my room flith me, expressed great regard for Sumner and
great regret that his departure from town and mine for St.
Petersburg, etc., etc. In fact, everybody is out of town as a
matter of course ; the end of October and the beeinnino- of
]S"ovember is the hanging season in London and the com
mencement (I believe) of the hunting season in the country,
so that of course everybody is supposed to be hanging them
selves or hunting, and I was very lucky to find as much as I

1841.J JOURNEY TO ST. PETERSBURG. 69
did in London. Sir Charles is a plain, unaffected, agreeable
man, and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing him again in
London some time or other.
I leave this to-morrow (at noon) I believe, for Berlin, and
shall stop one day there and then push on for Konigsberg.
I expect to meet a fellow-passenger on board the John Bull,
a young man ^ (son of Lord Minto) who is attached to the
British Legation at Petersburg, and who left in the diligence
for Berlin to-night. Being both upon the same expedition,
we have agreed to rough it together in the diligence, and I
hope we shall reach Petersburg by this day fortnight.
Colonel Hamilton of New York stopped at the same hotel
with me in London. He came out in the Kamschatha, which
arrived two or three days after us, having made a very long
passage, delayed originally by the same severe gale which
attacked us between Boston and Halifax. Schuyler did not
come up to London, but stayed at Southampton with the
frigate. I shall find them there undoubtedly, as they were to
sail again on Tuesday for Cronstadt, the day before the one
I left London for this place.

To Ms Wife.

St, Petersburg,
November 18ft, 1841.

I wrote to you last from Hamburg ; the next day I went
in an abominable diligence to Berlin. Stayed there two days.
Saw Mrs. Kirkland and George Cabot constantly, they were
both perfectly well and perfectly tired of Berlin, but uncertain
whether they should leave this winter or remain. Staying in
the same house was young Welch, who has joined the univer
sity, I believe. I went with Cabot to the Fay's one evening (the
Secretary of Legation) ; he and his wife are very agreeable
people. Mr. Wheaton ^ I called upon, and he upon me, but
I did not see him, both being out. The next night left
' Now Sir Henry Elliot. ternational Law,' then United State.j
^ The distinguished writer on ' In- Minister to Prussia.

70 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
with my travelling companion, Mr. Elliot, for Konigsberg,
a long pull of fifty-eight hours in a diligence. Wo had the
cabriolet or front part, where one is very comfortable. The
roads are excellent in Prussia, but the country most un
interesting, our whole route in fact, from Berlin to Petersburg,
traversing a portion of that immense plain which reaches from
the Netherlands to the Ural Mountains. It is a good
country to travel at night in, because there is nothing to see
and the roads having all the smoothness and directness of a
railroad without its rapidity, you are able to sleep in the well-
cushioned diligences very comfortably.
Prussia has no history — the reigning family is an ancient
one ; but the State is new, and an artificial patchwork,
without natural coherence, mosaiced out of bought, stolen and
plundered provinces, and only kept together by compres
sion. A Prince of Hohenzollern-something-or-other-ingen
bought the Mark of Brandenburg with the dignity of Elector
of the Empire, and his successors, after having in the course
of two or three centuries subjugated the barbarous Prussia
Proper (already well hammered by the Teutonic knights
and the Polish kings), helped themselves to a slice of
Poland, and stolen Silesia, had the pleasure at the beginning
of the present century of seeing their ingeniously-contrived
kingdom completely sponged out of existence by Napoleon,
and then repaired and put together again by the Cabinet-
making of Vienna. Since then, Prussia is a camp, and its
whole population drilled to the bayonet. It is the fashion to
praise its good administration ; but I have no sympathy with
your good administrations.
Prussia is a mild despotism to be sure. 'Tis the homoeo
pathic tyranny — small doses, constantly administered, and
strict diet and regimen. But what annoys you most is this
constant dosing, this succession of infinitesimal Government
pills which the patient subject bolts every instant. Everything,
in fact, is regulated by the Government ; the royal colours are
black and white, and Government is written in black and white
all over the kingdom. The turnpike-gates are black and
white ; the railings of the bridges are black and white, and so

1841.] KONIGSBERG. 71
are the signs of the taverns, post-houses, etc., etc. In every inn
a royal ordonnance stuck up against the wall informs you how
much you have to pay for everything— for your dinner, your
bed, your schnaps, or your glass of sugar-and-water. This is
well enough for the traveller; but a sort of arrangement
neither complimentary nor gratifying to the inhabitants. But
what nonsense it is for me to be wasting all this time in such
a tirade. I believe it is because I was annoyed at having to
go back (after having walked down to the Berlin Post-office to
take my place in the diligence) for the sake of having my
passport put in order ; • for unless the American Minister, the
Prussian Minister for Foreign Affairs, the police inspector, the
Eussian Minister, and the Ijord knows who beside, all signify
in writing their perfect approval of your taking a seat in the
Schnell Post, the said seat in the Schnell Post is refused to
you by the prigs of the Post-office.
At Konigsberg we waited a day —
" A town, whose greatest vaunt
Besides some mines of zinc and lead and copper
Has lately been the great Professor Kant ;
But we, who cared not a tobacco-stopper
For metaphysics, still pursued our jaunt
Through Germany, whose somewhat tardy millions
Have princes who spur more than their postilions " —
like the respectable Don Juan, who went to Petersburg by the
same route that we did. We, however, killed one lion there,
and the only one worth killing — the old cathedral, a building
five hundred years old, as the sexton said : built by the
Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, and containing
several tombs, monuments, and rude portraits of the old Grand
Masters by whom Konigsberg and " Prussia Proper " (I like
that expression, because all Prussia is so extremely proper)
was governed in old times. One of the monuments, rudely
representing a knight in a reclining position and dying, with
some singular devices scattered about, attracted my attention,
and the old sexton insisted upon giving me a long legend
about it, which had a strong resemblance to the story of the
maid and the magpie. This story, in three words, was that

72 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV,
the knight lost a favourite ring from his finger — circumstances
convinced him that his favourite servant had stolen it, and so
he incontinently cut off his head ; afterwards, a raven's nest was
found with the ring in it, and the dead servant's innocence
being thus demonstrated, the knight had nothing for it but
to die himself. So, upon Tristram Shandy's principle, " that
man bears pain best in a horizontal position," he threw himself
at length upon his elbow with his toes to heaven and so died.
" So Johnny Pringle he laid down and died." A device of a
raven with a ring in his mouth, and a servant with his head
cut off, and other quaint devices, decorate the monument.
The church itself is venerable from its age, but very plain.
The windows are the narrow lancet-shaped ones, without
tracery, which in England are called the Early English ; but
there is very little of ornament in any part of the building —
none of that elaborate carving, that needlework in stone, that
sculptured Brussels lace, which is the charm and the wonder
of the more splendid Gothic cathedrals.
The same night we went to Tilsit, twelve hours from Ko
nigsberg (if you take any post map of Europe or even .any
common map, you may easily trace our route), a place where
Napoleon dictated peace upon a raft in the river Memel to
the Emperors of Eussia and Austria and remarkable for no
thing else, where we stopped a day and night — these stoppages
by the way were owing to our having neglected to inform
ourselves at Berlin about the diligence hours of starting from
the different places. If we had used due diligence in using
the diligence we might have shortened the time four or five
days. However as that would not have shortened the road,
and as our fatigue was the less, it was of no great consequence.
From Tilsit, we went to Tauroggen on the Eussian frontier,
passing through the custom-house so much dreaded by
travellers unscathed and untouched, thanks to our diplomatic
capacity (which by the way, has carried us through every
custom-house with flying colours). At Tauroggen we stopped
a day and night, the inn or post-house most comfortable,
giving one an agreeable impression of Eussian arrangements.
The next morning at ten, we took our seats in the Eussian

1841,] ARRIVAL IN ST. PETERSBURG. 73
mail for Petersburg ; these carriages are without exception
the best public conveyances in Europe ; they carry four per
sons only, and the vehicle consists of two coupes or chariots,
one placed behind the other, and each containing two persons ;
they were filled with spring cushions, leather padded pillows,
lamps to read by in the night, and in fact as comfortable as a
private carriage.
The road from Tauroggen to Petersburg is 14 worsts, and
half of it is what is called in Europe very bad, and what
we should call pretty good in America. We got stuck in
the mud regularly every night, but as we were only passengers
we did not mind, and slept comfortably until they lifted us
out ; this lasted only two or three nights. At Eiga, the
capital of Livonia, we got our first snow storm, after which
the weather became very cold (13 of Eeaumur one night
(the 12th of November), equal to about zero of Fahren
heit, but " it was fine times for those who were well wrapped
up, as the ice bear said when he met the gentleman a
skating," and I was uncommonly well wrapped up. I was
immersed to the hips in a pair of fur boots (furred on both
sides), without which an attempt to make such a journey
would have been a bootless undertaking, and had a pelisse
lined with fur reaching from my eyelashes to my heels : thus
attired I was independent of the weather. It was, however,
not very cold long. The weather in fact, since the 12th of
November, has been like our average weather in January and
February. How it will be later you shall know as soon as
Ida
I have nothing more to say of the journey. The country is
dull and uninteresting beyond all description, and as we had
sixteen hours of dark to eight of daylight, " the whole of its
tediousness was not inflicted on us." I had provided myself
at Berlin with some new novels of Balzac and Paul de Kock,
and passed most of the time in reading, slept very well every
night, and breakfasted, dined and supped very comfortably at
the stations or post-houses along the road, which are in general
very well regulated establishments. The villages through
which we pass are all of wood, generally log huts thatched.

74 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
the houses in the towns are mostly of wood, painted of a dark
colour and sometimes stuccoed, and the people dirty, long
haired, long-bearded, sheepskin-shirted savages. We reached
St. Petersburg, the 17th of November, at half-past two in the
morning. This letter I consider both entertaining and instructive,
unfortunately it is illegible. It will puzzle the spies at the
post office, if they undertake to read it.
J. L. M.

To his Wife.

St. Petersburg,
November Idth, 1841.

I am about moving to-morrow, from the hotel where I
am just now, to apartments in the house which Colonel Todd
has taken. Lodgings are very high in St. Petersburg, and I
am assured by Mr. Gibson, the Consul here, that these are
very cheap compared with other lodgings, and that though
more elegant than I should care for, they cost actually less
than many much more ordinary ones elsewhere. They are
well situated in the Admiralty quarter, large and handsomely
furnished, and when you come, if you conclude it best that you
should, there are additional rooms sufficient to accommodate
us comfortably, for a very small additional rent.
You ask about Colonel Todd. I cannot say anything
farther at present, but that he seems to me a very amiable,
kind-hearted man, and disposed to make things agreeable to
me. We shall probably make a common table together this
winter. He is undecided yet whether his family will join him
or not. Colonel Todd has not yet had his audience of the
Emperor, who is in the country. He is expected, I believe,
to-morrow. I daresay I may be presented next week, but
know nothing yet. As soon as I am settled in my quarters,
I shall make my calls of ceremony which the etiquette
prescribes. I hope before long I may be able to send you something
amusing in my letters. Thus far I have hardly looked about

1841.] RUSSL^N WINTER. 75
me at all. The weather has been cold, though not dis
agreeable, since the 12th November; good sleighing since
that time, with the thermometer in the daytime a degree or
two belong the freezing point. The Neva has been some time
filled with ice and the bridges taken up, although the ice still
floats slowly, so that there is no crossing at all at present, and
everybody is waiting for the ice to fix, which is expected
every day. Tell me about the weather you have, when you
write. I should like to compare it with this, and besides it
gives an additional touch to the picture of home. I was
delighted with your description of Eiverdale at that delicious
season (the middle of October). There is nothing in the
whole world besides like an American autumn. How absurd
it is in you to call your letters dull. You know they are not.
I only hope you will write me thousands just such dull letters
as your last. They had the effect of enchantment upon me,
and while I was reading I heard the voice of my darling little
Lotty, and saw my little Lily's bright eyes, and for a moment
was transported quite across the dreary waste of land and sea
which separate us, and was at home again. You are very
right in agreeing with me that I have the worst of the sepa
ration. New scenes and new faces, what are they to home
scenes and home faces ? Besides, new scenes and new faces
are to me no novelties. I do not know how much to ascribe
to the lonely feelings I experience, how much to my having
already travelled a good deal, and how much to the character
of the place I am in, but I actually feel at present a perfect
want of curiosity, and the lions of St. Petersburg are likely
to remain a long time unkilled in their cages for all me. I
shall, however, make a business of it soon, and I hope to be
able to entertain you a little, if not myself, with the process.
God bless you ! Your own
J. L. M.

76 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.

To his Mother. St. Petersburg,
November 2Sth, 1841.
I have not yet been presented. I am writing this in my
chancery or office, from which Colonel T. has this moment
gone in full rig to have his first audience of the Emperor.
On account of the Colonel's not having had his audience,
I have been unable to make any calls on the corps drama-
tique, I mean diplomatique which is much the same thing.
He had sown his preliminary quantity of cards broadcast over
the town and had reaped his return crop before my arrival.
Etiquette prescribes to a Minister to renew his calls after
his presentation, and accordingly to-morrow I shall accompany
him in his coach-and-four to honour the whole of them with
my pasteboard. After that I have a right to expect return
calls and occasional invitations ; if I get none, it will be no
fault of mine, for, like the General in ' Tom Thumb,' " I shall
have done my duty and have done no more." I have as yet
made no calls, except that day before yesterday I left my
letter from Lord L^mdhurst and my card upon Lord Stuart de
Eothesay — he was out, but called upon me the next day and
sat half an hour with me — a veteran diplomatist, having been
Minister here in the year one — that is to say 1801. He says
that Petersburg has degenerated since that time. That genera
tion, the grandparents of those he is now associated with, spent
all the money, and left them only the great empty houses.
The weather has been most extraordinary. The river
closed a day or two after my arrival (about the 20th, I think)
and up to that time it had been a steady cold (not very cold)
weather, say 28° of Fahrenheit at noon. But for the last week
it has thawed every day, not a warm, sunshiny thaw, such as we
have in January, " not by no means," but a cold drizzling,
something between a fog and a rain, with the glass a degree
above the freezing point, under the influence of which the
snow and ice which covered the ground have nearly dis
appeared, and the droskies, the most awkward and inconvenient
of all jarvies, have succeeded to the sledges, which were

1841.] RUSSIAN PRICES. 77
cutting about when I arrived. The worst of it is that if we
get no snow soon, I don't know what I shall do for a vehicle.
To keep something is as necessary here, where it is as far
across a street as it is from one end of some towns to the other,
as to keep a pair of india-rubbers in Boston. It is not decent
for a Secretary of Legation to go about in hackney vehicles,
which are all very dirty, but luckily it is perfectly correct to
go about in a one-horse sleigh, which you can take by the
month and which does not cost much more than half a coach-
and-two, which would be the only alternative. But without
snow there is no sleighing ; fortunately it is snowing now, and
perhaps we may have a change of weather.
This brings me to speak of the expense of this place. Tell
Mary that if my opinions and experience do not soon change
very much, the expense alone will make me beat a retreat
immediately. Everything is dearer here than in Boston,
which you know is a high standard, but besides that, very
great expenses are incurred for things which I should dispense
with there. I should be afraid to tell you how much I have
been obliged to spend for furs, and that not to please myself,
for I hate the very sight of them, but because they are indis
pensable in themselves, and although I tried to keep as near
the bottom of the ladder of prices (up which you may go for
a single wrapper to $10 or f 12,000) as was consistent with
decency, yet the price was tremendous and would have clothed
me for a year in Boston and three in Dedham. . . .
I remain. Your most affectionate son,
J. L. M.
I forgot to say that owing to the death of the Queen
Dowager of Bavaria the Court are in mourning for twenty-
four days, so that I shall not be presented until the 18th of
December. Colonel Hamilton of New York (son of the great
Hamilton and whilom Secretary of State under Jackson) and
Schuyler, his son-in-law, who both came in the Kamschatha are
to be presented on the same day. They are my only American
acquaintances except the Consul, Mr. Gibson.

78 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
To his Wife. St. Petersburg,
December 14ft, 1841.
My DEAREST Mary, — ... I pass my time almost entirely
alone. There lie upon my table, to be sure, cards by the
dozen of princes and potentates, diplomatists, cup-bearers and
functionaries of all possible names, some of which, being
printed in French, I can read but can't pronounce, and some,
being in Eussian, I can neither read nor pronounce, but not
one of the owners of which do I even know by sight. With
the exception of a slight acquaintance with the members of
the English Embassy and with the Dutch Charge d' Affaires,
I do not know a soul. I know that it is in part my fault, and
that many men in my situation would have rushed round the
town, established intimacies with people whose names I have
not yet learned, and been quite at home by this time. But
this is what I can't, and never could do. I cannot take root
so easily anywhere, and in such an inhospitable and ice-bound
soil as this it requires more than I am capable of.
I am going to a party at the Grand Master of Ceremonies
(Count some long name or other) to-morrow, and I believe
I am to be presented at Court on Saturday next. As it is the
" name's day " of the Emperor, he will probably give a great
blow-out of some kind or another — ball or " swarry," or some
thing to make us comfortable, I suppose, of which see further
particulars in my next. Whether there have been any parties
or not hitherto in the town I know not, there have been none
at Court ; and, with the exception of the English Ambassador's
levee a few days ago, vihexe we all went in our gold-laced
coats, made bows and walked off again, I have darkened
nobody's doors but my own since I moved into my quarters
in the same house with Colonel Todd.
In the absence, then, of anything agreeable to tell you, I
propose giving you some statistical and topographical facts,
which may enable you to come to a decision after reading
this letter, as well as at any other time, concerning our future
plans. First, with regard to the climate, I cannot speak with

1841.] THE CLIMATE OP RUSSIA. 79
very great certainty from my own experience, because this,
they tell me, has been the most extraordinary winter hitherto
that has been known for forty years. When I arrived here
first, a month ago (17th November), the ground was covered
with snow and ice, the sleighing was excellent, the Neva was
filled with floating masses of ice (which stopped about three
days after the 20th, making the river passable), and the
thermometer ranged every day a few degrees below the
freezing point. The winter appeared to be settled at about
the ordinary time of its setting in. About the end of the
month, however, there came a thaw, not a warm sunshiny thaw
such as we have in January, but a cold, drizzly, foggy thaw,
which gradually broke up the ice, melted the snow, and opened
the river again, a thing which does not occur twice in a century,
before the end of April or beginning of May. This weather
has continued without "intermission up to this moment, that
is to say, the glass varies from two or three degrees below the
freezing point, with a sky constantly overcast, and occasional
slight showers of rain and snow. This is unnatural, and
therefore probably unhealthy. I am, however, very well
myself, but it is a great consolation to me to think that the
children are not here, shut up in these close, stove-heated,
double-windowed, unventilated rooms. As to going out, it
would have been out of the question, with the exception of
two or three days ; and it is a positive fact that since I have
been here there has not been one clear, bright, sunshiny day ;
and as to their length, you may judge of it by the fact that
I shave by candlelight very often at half-past nine, and just
now, when I sat down close by the window to write this
letter, I was obliged to order candles, although it wanted a
quarter to three.
I know that it is not fair for me to judge conclusively of
the climate — neither do I. I am only giving you facts. But
it is certain that the only chance of a change is that of
extreme cold weather, which everybody is looking forward to
with great anxiety — the more so as at this season of the year
all the supplies consist of frozen meat brought hundreds of
miles from the interior to this market, which of course at

80 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
present is impossible. I cannot quit the subject of the climate
without quoting to you a passage or two from the erratic John
Eandolph's first and only despatch from St. Petersburg during
his five weeks' residence here : —
" I shall avail myself of the indulgence which the President
has been pleased to accord me, and leave this worse than
Stygian atmosphere in time to escape the rigours of its arctic
winter. This country may well be likened to a comet; we
are now in the perihelion — I shall not wait the aphelion.
Never have I seen so many severe cases of summer disease.
St. Petersburg, built upon a morass, resembles Holland in
everything but cleanliness and wealth. An inundation of the
Neva, the only outlet of the vast Lake Ladoga and its tribu
tary swamps, lays the city under water. The mark of the last
inundation is four feet above the surface of the streets, which
are all on a dead level. The water for drinking is detestable,
worse even than that of Norfolk or New York, and never fails
to engender the most fatal diseases. Dysentery in its worst
form, bilious fever of the most malignant type, are now raging.
The Concord " (the ship which brought him) " is a perfect hos
pital. I have written thus far interrupted every quarter of
a minute by innumerable flies, gigantic as the empire they
inhabit, which attack the face in all its vulnerable points —
nose, mouth, ears, and eyes under the cover of the spectacles.
This is the land of Pharaoh and its plagues. It is Egypt in
all but fertility. The extremes of human misery and human
splendour here meet. Although I succeed an xinglo-Eussian
(in his house) who considers himself very neat, yet an exact
description of the house prepared to receive me, the public
rooms excepted, would not be very pleasing to him or the
reader," etc., etc.
Is it not a hearty ebullition of spleen ?
I like the office part of it very well. In fact, the only part
of the whole business that I do like is the office business — that
is to say, I should like it, but there is none of it. The rela
tions between the United States and Eussia are at present so
completely settled, that there is nothing at all to do. But, as
a stepping-stone, it is nothing. The fact is, the profession of

1841.] RUSSIAN SOCIETY. 81
diplomacy, which I should prefer to any other (and which I
conceive myself better fitted for than any other), does not exist
with us. There is no promotion, and if there were it would not
be desirable ; for I assure you that if I were offered the post
of Envoy Extraordinary to St. Petersburg at this moment, I
would not take it unless I could spend at least from $15,000
to $20,000 per annum. To me it would be a constant morti
fication and annoyance to fill such a post, unless with proper
respectability and dignity. Your own
J. L. M.

To his Wife.

St. Petersburg,
December 25ft, 1841.

This is Christmas Day, my dearest Mary, according to our
style of reckoning, which is twelve days ahead of the Eussian
calendar, and I hope to-morrow will prove a merrier Christmas
to you than to me. I feel that I have no right to communi
cate any portion of the depression under which I am constantly
labouring to you, and so I will say no more about it.
Since I last wrote,, I have been a little into society, and
could go a great d eal more if I chose. I go to two or three
balls a week, and might go to one every night if I chose to
make the least effort to do so, but to say the truth I am totally
unfit for society. Staying at home here by myself is bad
enough, but it depresses me still more to go into society and
see other people dancing about and enjoying themselves.
" They have dancing shoes with nimble souls, I have a soul of
lead," and if it were not for the fear of being snubbed too much
by you, when I see you, for neglecting what you will call
my advantages, 1 would go nowhere. As it is, I go quite
enough to see the general structure of society, which is very
showy and gay, but entirely hollow and anything but
intellectual. Now as you will wish to hear about the ceremony of presen
tation at this paradise of ceremonies, the Eussian Court, I may
as well describe it to you at once.
VOL. I. G

82 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
The " Winter Palace " is one of the largest domestic build
ings in Europe, being about 750 feet upon the Neva by 550
feet towards the Admiralty, but as I intend to go one of these
days and kill all the lions like a man, and as this, with its
adjoining Hermitage and its Spanish pictures, is one of the
principal, I shall reserve a description of the palace, of which I
have only seen a few rooms, and content myself with describing
my own exploits.
We drove round to the Neva side oi the palace, where we
alighted, walked in through a moderately sized door, up a few
marble steps into a long vaulted corridor, with a tessellated
marble floor. Coming to the end of this gallery, we ascended
a broad and splendid staircase upon the top of which were
several pages-in-waiting, dressed in a fantastic uniform com
bining the Highlander's bonnet with the chequered clothes
of Harlequin. One of these skipped out and led us through
several fine large rooms to the " Hall of the Throne," where the
diplomatic body were assembled. There we were left with our
companion in arms to await the arrival of the Emperor and'
Empress. The room is spacious, with crimson hangings, the
walls are starred all over with little double-headed eagles in
gold, and a richly decorated throne occupies a large recess
upon the side opposite the windows. Here we talked and
walked about mingling in a mob of gold lace dignitaries,
amongst whom the ubiquitous Nesselrode was bobbing about
as usual, until a flood of courtiers, pouring into the hall from
an inner one, and passing out followed by a stately procession
of dames of honour and ladies of the Court, with golden tiaras
and sweeping robes of velvet and brocade, indicated that their
Majesties were approaching, having despatched the victims
which had been offered up to them in the hall immediately
preceding. We were now drawn up in " solemn column " by
Count Bosch, the master of the ceremonies, and formed a very
respectable semi-circle, beginning with the " dowager of St.
Petersburg " (as he calls himself). Lord Stuart de Eothesay, at
one end, and tapering off with those who had not yet been
presented. By this arrangement I was of course very near
the foot of the class, and stood between a Danish attache and

1841.] PRESENTATION AT COURT. 83
Sir Eobert Porter, British Charge d'Affaires at Venezuela.
Presently a file of ladies marched in and stationed themselves
along by the windows of the hall opposite the diplomatic
circle. Among these were the Grand Duchess Helena, the
Grand Duchess 01 ga, and various others whose faces I was too
blind to distinguish, and who were too great to be aimed at
with an eye-glass, and immediately afterwards came their
Majesties male and female.
They attacked the Ministers first, beginning with the
English Ambassador, and so on along the line of diplomats
stationed according to their official rank and seniority of com
mission. His Majesty, on reaching our end, despatched each
victim with a bow or a single question, passing to the next
man as soon as each name was fairly announced. My intro
duction consisted in the announcement of my name and office,
and an exchange of bows, for just as he was about to address
me with probably the usual question of " How long have you
been here ? " his eye caught sight of Sir Eobert Porter, who had
lived formerly a great many years in St. Petersburg, and whom
the Czar welcomed with great cordiality — very flattering to me,
wasn't it ? The Empress stopped a moment after I had kissed
her hand in my turn, and the following amusing and instruc
tive conversation took place, which, as you like details, I give
you verhatim. " Did you arrive with the Minister ? " " Non,
votre Majeste." " How did you come ? " " By the Berlin
route." " Ah, did you stop some time in Berlin ? " and with
this she tottered off to the next man. After she had reached
the bottom of the class and heard us all say our lessons, she
passed with the Emperor into the next hall and the school
broke up, or rather we had a recess. The old stagers were
dismissed, but the youngsters who had not yet gone the rounds
were requested to stop to be presented to the Grand Duke
Heritier and his spouse.
We waited accordingly, and after a little while, Count
Bosch again took charge of us, assisted by a quizzical old
chamberlain as whipper-in, and marshalled us through other
rooms (a description of which is of course out of the question,
because we passed so rapidly through them, and because there

84 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV
are more than a hundred splendid apartments upon this
floor) till we reached a long, high, vaulted hall in white and
gold. The walls and pillars of this room are of white stucco
(they ought to have been marble), the floor, like all the
floors, of beautifully polished and inlaid woods of different
colours arranged in graceful figures, the ceiling was massively
gilt, and in the centre of one side looking out towards the
great quadrangle of the Admiralty Square, with the column of
Alexander in the centre, and the triumphal arch with its car
and horses of victory. Beyond is a deep spacious oriel window.
This is the size of a small boudoir, the three sides are formed
of vast plates of glass, comfortable fauteuils are in each recess
by the window, and in the centre is a fine statue of a ball
player. We lounged about this hall for some time, dancing
attendance upon their Imperial Highnesses, who were probably
taking a comfortable lunch in the meantime, while every now
and then a covey of maids of honour and that sort of people
would flock into the hall, and stately dames de la cour would
sail into the room and sail out again with their long trains
sweeping after them. The morning court costume of the
Eussian ladies by the way is very beautiful, and was introduced,
or rather restored, by the present Emperor. The diadem-like
head-dress and short tunic, which constitute the historical
costume of Eussia, and which, made of ruder materials, you see
constantly worn by the better sort of the lower orders, has a
very picturesque effect when united to the long velvet trains,
and is very becoming to pretty women.
Moreover the halls of the palace are so vast, that they have
plenty of room to sweep about and display their finery, without
danger of being jostled or incommoded. For these reasons a
fete at the Czar's Court is a very picturesque show. As Sir
Philip Sidney's life was " poetry put into action," so a Court
circle at St. Petersburg is a lallet in real life. All this pomp
and procession, the gorgeous locale, the glittering costumes,
the fantastic ceremonies, the farcical solemnity of the whole,
remind me constantly of some prodigiously fine ballet. The
tableaux were constantly varying, the grouping was good, the
colours were gaudy, yet harmonious, and e'xcepting that the

1841.] COURT FORMALITIES. 85
materials were brocade and bullion, instead of fustian and
tinsel, and that the scene was a real instead of a mimic palace,
you had every element of a successful spectacle.
At last we were ushered into a room (adjoining the one
in which we had been waiting), which was crimson and gold,
the drapery and furniture being crimson satin and the \\'alls
actually plated or sheathed in gold. This is but natural in a
city where they gild the domes and spires of nearly all their
churches and public buildings. Here we were again drawn
up in a phalanx, " still as the breeze but dreadful as the storm,"
and presently the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrine, wife of
the hereditary Grand Duke, made her appearance, and com
menced operations by flooring Gevers, the Dutch Charge, who
was at the head of the row. She is a sweet, pretty, blonde
and bright-eyed creature, a daughter of Hesse Darmstadt,
whom the young duke married for love, and she went through
the present task very gracefully. Her conversation with me
was pretty much the stereotyped form, consisting of two
questions, videlicet, " Have you been long here ? " " Only
for a week." " Is it the first time you have been in Eussia ? "
" The first time I have had that honour." With that a bow
and a smile, for she has rosy lips which can smile, and she
passed on to the next man, my friend Sir Eobert. The
Socratic method, by the way, is the one universally adopted
by sovereigns. Their observations always come to you in a
questionable shape, and I should think a little catechism
might be composed for them with, which they might make
themselves familiar beforehand, and which would make the
bore of presentation much less fatiguing and embarrassing to
all parties. A few staple questions such as " How long have
you been here ? " " Did you ever see a white bear ? " Such
questions as these, varied a little according to circumstances,
and framed to combine amusement with instruction, should
form the vade mecum of sovereigns, and would, if diligently
committed to memory in early youth, answer the double pur
pose of imparting pleasure, and eliciting information.
As the Grand Duchess retired, her page, immersed to the
hips in military boots, tried very hard to tread upon her train

86 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. TV.
or to lift it up, I could not exactly make out which, but I
could not sufficiently admire the incongruity of his boots with
his office, and comment upon the necessity of our shivering in
our silk stockings and small clothes to the ball the next night,
while the Grand Duchess has a squire in jack boots to carry
her petticoats.
After we were bowed out of this room, we marched back
through the hall with the oriel into a suite of two or three
rooms filled with pictures, where we were to wait the Heredi-
tary's leisure. I amused myself so well with the pictures,
among which were several fine Velasquez, a fine "Descent
from the Cross " by Eubens, one or two Paul Potters, and a
good many fine Spanish pictures, that I came near being left
behind. I came up with the rest, however, before they left
the room where we were served up to the Grand Duke, a fresh-
looking young man, who, like his august father, swallowed
half a dozen of us at a mouthful, myself included, only bowing
as we were successively introduced, and asking questions of but
one or two. However, as the ladies talked to me, I have no
reason to complain. After this ceremony we marched off and
went home.
The Czar is deserving of all the praise I have heard of him.
He is one of the handsomest men I ever saw, six feet three
inches at least in height, and "every inch a king." His
figure is robust, erect and stately, and his features are of great
symmetry, and his forehead and eye are singularly fine.
" The front of Jove himself.
An eye like Mars to threaten and command."
In short he is a regular-built Jupiter ; and so much for the
Court circle, or what would be called in England the Drawing-
room. Now for the ball, of which, however, I am afraid I
shall not be able to say anything new or anything very
interesting. The small clothes being "de rigueur," I was
obliged to exhibit my unlucky legs
" In brilliant breeches spotless as new milk,"
without, unfortunately, being able to add
" On limbs whose symmetry set off the silk."

1841.] A COURT BALL. 87
However, as there was no help for it, I endued myself with
fortitude and the dreaded breeches at half-past eight, and we
drove off early in order to see the grand " star and waltz
entree " of the Eoyal family into the ball room. We arrived
" an perron indique," as the etiquette book directs, alighted,
gave our fur and boots to our faithful Jager, and then marched
along across the tessellated marble of the corridor, up the
same grand staircase, upon the top of which a cluster of the
same pages were lounging as upon the day before, and, after
being led by one of them through a few " halls of dazzling
light," we were at last met by the quizzical old Chamberlain
who had been our yesterday's Palinurus, and who now piloted
us safely into the " Salle Blanche." The Imperial family had
not entered, so we had leisure to look about a little.
This ball room, as its name indicates, is white, richly and
massively decorated with gold. It is of vast dimensions,
spacious enough for a whole nation to dance in without jolting>
and absolutely overflowing with light. The great charm of
scene was the extraordinary brilliancy of the hall. White and
gold light up well of course, particularly when a few millions
of candles are stuck into the myriad sockets of the many
massive, glittering chandeliers. There were three rows of
these immense chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, thousands
of candles placed along and in front of the massive, gilded
gallery which runs completely round the hall. This gallery
was completely filled with spectators, all female, well dressed
and some of them pretty, realising in part the suggestion of
the imitation of Tom Moore in ' Eejected Addresses ' —
" If, instead of those lamps, that a row of young beauties
Shed light from their eyes between us and the pit " — ¦
except that in this case the young beauties and the candles
were combined.
The floor of the hall was thronged with dignitaries glittering
like goldfinches and chattering like magpies, and the great
variety of costumes, the civilians with their stars and garters
and gold sticks, and military officers in every variety of
uniform, with the ladies in the latest Parisian toilettes.

SB MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
furnished a constantly shifting succession of rich and striking
pictures. The most picturesque figures were the officers from
the various Asiatic provinces of Eussia and from the regions of
" frosty Caucasus.'' The Circassians with their keen eyes,
black beards and white caftans, showed their purer descent
from the original stock of the European race, and were well
contrasted with the Cossack officers, some of whom looked as if
they might have served in Attila's army. While I was
lounging about and talking to a few acquaintances, a strain of
solemn music announced the arrival of the Imperial family,
and immediately the Emperor and Empress marched in hand-in-
hand, like Adam and Eve, followed by their whole family. The
Empress was looking better in her ball dress than in her
ceremony robe, and the Emperor was as fine as possible in a
red coat and green ribands and jack boots. Next there came
the Grand Duke Michael, the brother of the Emperor, with his
wife, a pretty woman blazing in diamonds and emeralds, and
then the Duchess Olga, the daughter of the Emperor, who is
a blonde, a stately and magnificent beauty with the Czar's
forehead and eye —
" Who stepped as doth a Spanish barb
Or Andalusian girl from mass returning."
And then came the He'ritier and his pretty wife, and then all
the other little Grand Dukes and Duchesses, down to a little
Grand Duckling of seven or eight years, looking like Puss in
Boots in a cavalry uniform, and who is the youngest but two
of the Emperor's children. They marched round the hall in
a solemn polonaise, followed by about a third of the company,
while the rest looked on for an hour or two to the tune of
slow music ; and after this had continued quite long enough,
quadrilles were formed of the haute voice. At first and after
wards there was " still vaulting by the whole company," till
we went into supper. This was served in the great banqueting-
room (which is about 200 feet by 120), where the four or five
hundred guests sat down without the least crowding.
The effect was very fine, and the banquet, with the brilliant
lights, the sumptuous furniture, the dresses of the guests, the

1841.] A STATELY ENTERTAINMENT. 89
elaborate liveries of the countless servants and the pillared and
vaulted architecture of the hall, resembled a colossal picture
of Paul Veronese. The supper was of many courses and very
good. After it was over we all rose and marched back through
a long suite of rooms to the Salle Blanche, where dancing was
resumed for a little while ; but at twelve the Imperials retired
and dismissed us. I was very glad that it broke early, for I
was constantly thinking " that it was a most excellent piece
of work, would it were over ; " and I daresay you are willing
to siy the same thing of this interminably long letter. I
know you are fond of details, but I think I have given you
enough of them for the present.
I am going to write to mother by this opportunity. Tell
Staokpole that I am much obliged to him for his letter,
and that I shall write to him by the next courier. Tell him it
will be a real charity in him to write often. You have no
idea of the absolute and dreary solitude in which I live ; and
as to hearing anything about what goes on in America, it is
entirely out of the question here ; and if he had known this, I
am sure he would have given me a little more information
about what is going on in public matters. Not that I take a
very great interest therein ; but still, as he wrote after the
Massachusetts election, I should like to have known whether
the loco-focos ^ carried the State or not, as they seem to have
done every other. We know nothing about it here, and shall
not perhaps these three months. The only channel of informa
tion is private letters, as our newspapers come very irregularly
and are always as old as the hills. Ever your
J. L. M.
' The Democrats were so called from put out, was re-illuminated by loco-
an incident in 1884, when u, meeting, foco matches.
at which the lights had been suddenly

90 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
To his Mother. St. Petersburg,
December 20th, 1841.
My dearest Mother, — I have just finished a long letter
to Mary, and am going to spend part of this day and solitary
evening in writing to you. It seems hardly right that I
should communicate a part of my dulness to you and to her,
and I feel that I necessarily must, or not write at all ; but
still I will do what I can to amuse you, although I am quite
sure that my letters must be as stupid as the' place they are
written from. The fact is, I find that I have undertaken a
task almost beyond my strength — that of coming away and
leaving all my home behind me. Still I do not regret
having come, because nothing but my own experience would
have satisfied me upon the subject, and now, being fully
satisfied upon every point, I have nothing to do but to look
forward to a not very distant meeting. I have also one
constant consolation — that I did not bring Mary with me and
my little darlings, " Whose breath was given
By milder genii o'er the deep."
For say what you will of the American climate, there is none
which has more sunshine or is more cheerful ; while here in
this morass, .although that well-known person, the oldest in
habitant, has repeatedly declared that he never knew so mild
a winter as this has been thus far in St. Petersburg in the
whole course of his life, the sun has not shone but three days
out of the thirty-nine I have been here. The weather has
not been extremely cold to be sure, the average temperature
having been very much the same as that of Boston for the
same months last year ; but the shortness of the daylight
(between five and six hours) and the constant gloom of the
atmosphere make it excessively disagreeable.
I have given Mary a long and tedious description of the
ceremony of presentation to the Emperor. To-day I have
been to see the Grand Duke Michael, the brother of the
Emperor, having received a note -from the Grand Master of

1841.] THE IMPERIAL FAMILY. 91
the Ceremonies yesterday stating that 2 o'clock to-day was
the hour appointed. I found waiting in the ante-chamber the
same people who were presented at the diplomatic circle the
other day, among whom was my travelling-companion Elliot
and some other acquaintances. We were received only on
the lower floor, in very ordinary rooms, so that I did not have
a chance of seeing his palace, which is said to be very fine,
and which the Emperor built and presented to him upon his
marriage some years ago. However, next Sunday I shall
probably receive a summons to be presented to his wife, the
Grand Duchess Helena, for such is the ceremonious style of
doing things at this Imperial Court, always reminding me of
Dogberry's observation, " Were I as tedious as a King, I could
find it in my heart to bestow it all upon your Worship."
And such is the number of the people to whom one has to be
trotted out, that it will probably be a month or two before
I have got through my presentations. Next Sunday, then,
I shall probably see the show-rooms of the Michaeloffsky
palace, and I suppose they give balls occasionally during
the winter.
This week the first of the bals de la noblesse, a series of
assemblies, commence, to which I have received a ticket
through Prince Basil Dolgorouki, a gentleman whom I don't
know by sight, but whom I shall investigate next Tuesday ;
and there is another on Thursday at the Countess Woronzow's,
the wife of the Grand Master of Ceremonies, who, as his title
indicates, is a grand and rich seigneur. She is a pretty,
graceful woman, very much admired at St. Petersburg, and
has a very splendid house, where she gives balls once a
fortnight. I was there at the last one. The party was
given in the " small rooms " of the house, consisting of a
suite of six, averaging about thirty feet each in size, of great
height, with the ceilings all painted in fresco and encrusted
in gold. The principal rooms on the lower floor were not
opened. •
The prettiest house I have yet visited is that of Count
Levachoff, whither we went to a ball a few nights ago, and of
which I will now send you the last of my upholsterer's descrip-

92 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
tions. We entered through a small vestibule with the usual
arrangement of treble doors, padded with leather to exclude
the cold, and guarded by the " proud young porters " in severe
cocked hats and formidable batons, into a broad hall, threw
off our furred boots and cloaks, ascended a carpeted marble
staircase, in every angle of which stood a statuesque footman
in gaudy coat and unblemished unmentionables, and reached
a broad landing upon the top, thronged as usual with servants.
Thence we passed through an ante-chamber into a long, high,
brilliantly lighted, saffron-papered room, in which a dozen
card-tables were arranged, and thence into the receiving-room.
This was a large room with a splendidly inlaid and polished
floor, the walls covered with crimson satin, the cornices heavily
encrusted with gold, and the ceiling beautifully painted in ara
besque. The massive fauteuils and sofas, as also the drapery,
were of crimson satin with profusion of gilding. The ubiqui
tous portrait of the Emperor was the only picture, and was
the same you see everywhere. This crimson room had two
doors upon the side facing the windows. The innermost
opened into a large supper-room, in which a table was spread
covered with the usual refreshments of European parties, tea,
ices, lemonade and etceteras, and the other opened into a ball
room, which is a sort of miniature of the Salle Blanche of
the Winter Palace, being white and gold, and very brilliantly
lighted with ormolu chandeliers filled with myriads of candles.
This room (at least forty feet long by perhaps twenty-five)
opened into a carpeted conservatory filled with orange trees
and japonica plants, covered with fruit and flowers, arranged
very gracefully into arbours, with luxurious seats under the-
pendent boughs, and with here and there a pretty marble
statue gleaming through the green and glossy leaves. One
might have almost imagined oneself in "the cypress and
myrtle," instead of our actual whereabout upon the polar
banks of the Neva.
Wandering throTigh these mimic groves, or reposing from
the fatigues of the dance, was many a fair and graceful form,
while the brilliantly lighted ball-room, filled with hundreds
of exquisitely dressed women (for the Eussian ladies, if not

1841.] TAGLIONL 93
very pretty, are graceful and make admirable toilettes), formed
a dazzling contrast with the tempered light of the Winter
Garden. The conservatory opened into a library, and from
the library you reach the ante-chamber, thus completing the
giro of one of the prettiest houses in St. Petersburg. I waltzed
one waltz, and quadrilled one quadrille, but it was hard work ;
and as the sole occupation of these parties is dancing or card-
playing, conversation apparently not being customary, they
are not to me very attractive. The lady of the house and her
daughters are nice people, and so are some of the guests.
But Eussian society to a stranger is freezing and formal, and
it seems to me to a person of my reserved habits it would take
a great deal longer to become intimate here than to thaw the
Baltic. One of my acquaintances here is Miss Porter, the authoress
of ' Thaddeus of Warsaw.' She is staying here this winter with
her brother. Sir Eobert Ker Porter, who is British Minister at
Venezuela. She is a very agreeable, sensible person, and so is
he. He was aide-de-camp to Sir John Moore at the battle of
Corunna, and has been seventeen years in South America.
I like them both, for there is something frank and expansive
about them, which is refreshing after these frigid and rigid
Eussians. Last night I went to see Taglioni in a new ballet. The
subject seemed to be something about Montezuma and the
Spaniards ; but the play-bills are in Eussian, and pantomime
is panto-Hebrew to me, so that I don't know the name, and
could only guess at the subject. I have seen her a good many
times, and Mary will never forgive me when I say that she
is decidedly more graceful and a better dancer than Fanny
Ellsler. Nothing can equal her swimming, sweeping, whirl
ing, floating motion ; her dancing is a perfect abstraction or
emanation. Ellsler has more espieglerie, is prettier, dances
with more elasticity and power, and I dare say excels her in
pantomime — which I hate and don't understand — but she is
not so graceful as Taglioni. The charm of Taglioni's dancing is
its absolute freedom from effort. Her most difficult steps and
postures seem to produce themselves without any volition of

94 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
her own, and the most graceful, and in reality the most
elaborate movements, seem as artless as those of a "three-
years' child." Ever your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

To Ms Wife. St. Petersburg,
January 10th, 1842.
My dearest Mary, — The English courier goes to-morrow,
and you will not be surprised nor disappointed, I hope, to hear
that I have already written to Fletcher Webster, announcing
my resignation. I have had a talk with Colonel Todd, and he
has consented that I should leave whenever it suits my conve
nience. As there is not an earthly thing to do at the Legation,
I have no hesitation in resigning a sinecure whenever I please,
and, as the Minister has made no objection, I shall leave this
some time in March.
I shall leave this in March for Berlin, go to Hamburg, and
from there to the Netherlands, where I wish to pass a few
weeks, and then, if you decide to remain at home, I shall
cross to England, and take passage about the end of May for
Boston. Todd has been perfectly kind and considerate towards me
ever since we have been here, and I have stated this in my
letter to Webster explicitly, mentioning that we have never
had a word of difference on any subject, and that therefore my
reasons for leaving were unconnected with any disagreement
with him.
I dined a week ago at the British Ambassador's, and two days
ago at Sir James Wylie's, where there was a large and pleasant
company. The Prussian Minister, the English, and several
other notables were present. Count Nesselrode was to have
been there, but received orders to dine with the Emperor on
the same day. I don't know whether I have ever described to
you the great bureaucrat of the great autocrat. He is a small
man, with a hooked nose and spectacles, of affable and supple

1842.] NESSELRODE — SIR W. WYLIE. 95
manners, and apparently gifted with ubiquity, for I have
seldom been where he was not. I have been honoured by
several short interviews with him, and I regret tliat I did not
take down his conversation in shorthand, that I might transmit
it to you. The topics have usually been the state of the
weather, the heat of the rooms, and a comparative view of the
state of the thermometer this year and this time last year.
Upon all these subjects of general and exciting interest he
seemed full of general information, and delivered his opinions
with decision, and at the same time with a frankness hardly to
have been expected of a man so deeply versed in the wiles of
diplomacy. Sir William Wylie is a remarkable man. He has been in
the Eussian service fifty-two years, and is now " Inspecteur-
General du Service des Armees," with the rank of Major-
General, having emigrated originally from Scotland as an
apothecary's apprentice, I believe. He is a hearty old gentle
man, upwards of seventy, and goes out bear-shooting in winter
with the ardour of a youth. There has been nothing at Court
since last I wrote. The day after to-morrow is the Eussian
New Year's Day, and we are bidden to what is called a cercle
at the Palace, which is a showy, formal, and most insipid
ceremony. There is to be a ball the same night at Count
Woronzow's ; but I believe there are to be no more at the
Palace this winter, of which I am very glad. I have been
driving round occasionally in my sledge to look at some of
the churches, in the hopes of seeing something worth de
scribing to you. Some of these, with their graceful cupolas
and clusters of turbaued minarets of green and gold, have
a pretty, fantastic effect on the outside, but internally they
are mostly bare and barren. I have been young lady enough
to keep a journal (for your amusement when I return) ; but on
looking over it I find it to be so meagre and so impregnated
with my own dulness that I fear to communicate a portion of
it to you if I transcribe from it, and, after all, there is nothing
worth transcribing.
There are no fine buildings here, although there are many
large and showy ones, and the architectural effects of some

96 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV
of the streets and squares are very imposing from their vast-
ness and regularity. The best thing in St. Petersburg is
the statue of Peter the Great. This, in my opinion, is the
finest equestrian statue in Europe. There is something un
commonly spirited and striking in the action of the horse
and the pose of its rider. He waves his hands as if, Scan
dinavian wizard as he was, he had just caused this vast
collection of palaces and temples, this mighty swarming city,
to rise like an exhalation from the frozen swamps of the Neva
with one wave of his hand. Peter the Great was a great man
unquestionably. He was addicted to drinking, murdering his
son, beating his Prime Minister, and a few other foibles, to be
sure, but still he was a wonderful man. He alone raised
Russia out of the quagmire of barbarism, just as he raised
St. Petersburg out of the morass ; but it seems to me that
just as this city may at any moment, by six hours too long
continuance of a south-west wind, be inundated and swamped
for ever, so may Eussia at any moment, through a succession
of half-a-dozen bad Czars, be submerged in its original bar
barism. The present Emperor is unquestionably a man of
great energy; but how can one man uphold this mass, even
in the state of crepuscular civilisation to which they have
reached? What is really admirable in the construction of
St. Petersburg are the quays and walls along the Neva and
the canals. These are all of granite, of great extent and
most massive and admirable architecture, and, with the many
bridges of the same material, are really Cyclopean works, and
worth all the gilt gingerbread of all these stucco streets and
palaces. These latter, compared to the marble halls of Venice,
Florence, and Eome, are most tawdry and insignificant, although
of great size, and ornamented, like Job Johnson's coat, with
the most lordly indifference as to taste and expense. Your own
J. L. M.

1842.] PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS OF ST. PETERSBURG. 97
To Ms Wife. St. Petersburg,
February 0th, 1842.
My dearest Mary, — I shall take this letter as far as
Berlin myself. My previous letters will have prepared you
for hearing that I am now upon the point of leaving St.
Petersburg. A good opportunity has presented itself, which
I should make a mistake not to seize.
I have been to half-a-dozen parties and a dinner or two
since I wrote ; but as I have already described the general
appearance of St. Petersburg balls in my letters, I have really
nothing to add about them. There was to have been a great
ball at Princess B  's two or three nights ago, given to the
Empress ; but just as we were dressing, we received notice,
that in consequence of the death of a near relation of the
Princess, the ball was put off for nine days, so that I shall not
have the honour of assisting at it. I have likewise been going
the rounds of the various public institutions and things —
hospitals, for instance, which are admirably arranged in every
respect as far as meets the eye, although I hear great com
plaints about the insufficiency of the attendance upon the
patients. To give you an idea of the character of the climate,
there are 50,000 beds in all the hospitals for a population of
about 475,000, and yet thfere are not nearly enough, and it
is with great difficulty that a sick person can obtain a place.
I have also visited the Academies of Sciences and Arts, the
Mining School, the Engineer Corps ; some of their factories
of cotton, linen, playing cards, etc., etc. ; the picture gallery
of the Hermitage, which is very rich in Flemish paintings,
containing the best collection of Wouvermanns and Teniers
that I have ever seen ; the great Foundling Hospital, which
has in its capacious nurseries 18,000 children, which is, how
ever, not much more than half the amount of those in the
Moscow institution, which numbers 30,000. Understand, how
ever, that these immense numbers are not all in the building
itself. The St. Petersburg Hospital contains accommodation
for 1000 infants and 1000 nurses, for each infant is provided
VOL I. H

98 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
with a nurse. This building is the receiving house, and it
receives to the tune of 7000 infants per annum. We met two
well-dressed women bringing in each a baby as coolly as a
bundle, and depositing it without any mystery in the porter's
lodge. The infants are kept six weeks or so in the building,
and then sent with the nurses to the country, where they are
brought up and apprenticed as they become old enough to
different trades. A great many of them find their way to the
Alexandroffsky Imperial factory, where they are supported,
and receive trifling wages besides. From a third to a half of
the whole number, however, die in infancy.
Monday, February 1th. — I have just returned from an un
successful expedition to Casimir Perier's, the French Charge
d'Affaires. I was invited to a soiree musicale there, to hear
Chinti Damoreau sing ; but the father of Vicomte Ferronays
(attached to the Embassy) was just dead, and the soiree deferred.
There was also to have been a ball at Madame B  's, also
given to the Empress, but that also has been deferred, owing
to sickness or death of somebody. It really seems to me that
I carry destruction and devastation wherever I go. So sure
as I dress myself to go to a party, somebody or other makes
a point of dying. This is the third case within three days.
Speaking of Casimir Perier, I daresay you have not taken
the trouble to read in the newspapers the farcical quarrel
between the Courts of France and Eussia, which has furnished
the main topic of conversation lately in this place. Count
Pahlen, the Eussian Ambassador at Paris, left his post un
questionably to avoid making the speech to the King on New
Year's day — a duty which devolved upon him as senior ambas
sador. Louis Philippe retorts by ordering his Charge (the
Ambassador being already away on leave) to be taken ill upon
the day of the Emperor's fete (or day distinguished both as the
name's-day of the Czar and the epoch of my presentation), but
at the same time to exhibit his convalescence immediately after
wards in the most public manner. Accordingly, Perier abstains
from the Court circle on the plea of indisposition, and the next
day appears in the Nevskoi Prospect, and the same evening at
the theatre. The Czar, in a great huff, immediately despatches

1842.] A DIPLOMATIC SQUABBLE. 99
a courier to Mr. Kisseleff, Eussian Charge at Paris, ordering
him to be immediately taken ill, in order not to go to Court on
New Year's Day. Mr. Kisseleff accordingly excuses himself
and Ms aunt at the same time ; makes his appearance at various
salons, announcing himself " indispose par ordre." This com
pletes the first act of the farce. The second act opens at St.
Petersburg, with the countermanding of the Court circle on
the Eussian New Year's Day, which luckily for the successful
development of these operations is twelve days later than that
of the rest of Christendom, and with the appearance of the
French Charge at the Court ball on the following evening.
The Court circle was (probably) postponed because the Emperor
would at that ceremony have been obliged to converse with
Perier, while at the ball he was able to cut him in the sublimest
manner. The act closes with the appearance of the Eussian at
a Court ball at Paris ; the reconciliation is, superficially at
least, effected, and the curtain falls. The whole thing, however,
is chiefly interesting in so far as it illustrates the character of
Eussian society. Since the beginning of the affair, the whole
St. Petersburg nobility have discontinued all intercourse with
Perier. Dinners, etc., were countermanded, because he hap
pened to have been invited before the plot was discovered, and
their whole course displays the entire and abject dependence
of the whole fabric of society as well as of government upon
the will of the Czar. Yours ever,
J. L. M.

To Ms Wife. Berlin,
February 13th, 1842.
3Iy dearest Mary, — I am going to open the letter which I
wrote just before leaving St. Petersburg, in order to slip in this
note. I have but half a moment's time in this apology for a
letter to tell you that I left St. Petersburg on the 8th, and
reached here last night at eleven o'clock. I travelled with
Colonel Townley, the English messenger. He has a comfort
able carriage, and as we had most singularly fine weather, and

100 3I0TLEYS LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
still more extraordinary fine roads, with hard, frozen rivers, we
made the journey of 1200 miles in exactly six days and six
nights, not having stopped at all on the road.
This is very good travelling, and although this is a prettv
long journey, yet by far the worst part of my journey to Paris
is over, and the consciousness of being 1200 miles nearer to
you, dearest, makes me feel quite happy. I shall leave Berlin
by the railroad by Leipzig to-morrow, I think, but possiblv
may be obliged to stop till the next day; thence I go to
Weimar, where I shall probably stop a day ; thence to Frank
fort and Paris.
I have been fortunate in my travelling companions over the
dreary and monotonous route I have just finished.
Townley is a frank, amiable, and agreeable feUow as ever
was ; and by the way, in your last letter, you asked me about
Elliot, who was my companion on my first journey. He is a
very nice fellow indeed, manly, unaffected and intelligent, and
if it had not been for the immense distances at St. Petersburg
and the shortness of the days, which altogether make all social
intercourse such a labour, I should have found the three
months hang less heavily. He was at my lodgings just before
he went away, and quite without any request on my part,
offered me letters of introduction to his familv, which the next
day he brought, namely, one to his brother. Lord Melgund ; one
to his sister. Lady John Eussell ; and another to a friend of his
in Paris, attache of the Embassy, Mr. Howard, brother of Lord
Morpeth. These letters I shall deliver, if I can be in London
long enough to make it an object.

To his Wife. Paris,
February llth, 1842.
I am very glad to find, my dearest Mary, from the tone of
your letters which I had the happiness of receiving on my
arrival here, that you wiU not be dissatisfied or disappointed at
the step I have taken, or rather stride, from St. Petersburg to
Paris. But as 1 have nothing very interesting to tell you of

1842.] "A QUIZZICAL GERMAN TOWN." 101
this place, where I only arrived day before yesterday, I may as
well tell you how I got here. My last letter was from Berlin.
I stayed there two days, and went by railroad to Halle. At
Halle, where I arrived at 5 p.m., I found by some ingenious
blundering upon my part that I was obliged to stop till the
next afternoon. However, I did not object to wandering about
once more in one of the most quizzical of old-fashioned towns
of quizzical Germany.
I had never happened to pass through Halle before, although
I have seen hundreds of just such towns ; and it was amusing
enough to poke about through those narrow, tortuous, entangled
streets, which look as if laid out by an ignis fatuus, and look
up at the tall, toppling, crazy old houses, crowned with gables
like cocked hats, reeling against each other till their heads
knock together, looking like rows of tipsy spectres, although
this was an amusement which would have been soon exhausted.
The Square of Halle, with its fountain guarded by two grim
lions in the centre, a clumsy and most (Tothic statue of a non
descript French Prince Poland made of painted stone stuck
ujD on one side ; its fine old church with its needle spires and
weather-beaten towers, whose bells have rung out many an
alarm in the days of Tilly and Wallenstein ; the rickety old
Eath-Haus, its narrow thread-like streets (arteries almost too
slender even for the slow and torpid circulation of its popula
tion) emptying themselves at all corners into the great Square,
is just such an old-fashioned Gothic picture as I like occasion
ally to look upon.
In the evening I ordered dinner, and was regaled with a
sumptuous repast, which was so perfectly German that I will
describe it to you exactly. It would be easy by borrowing a
little from the imagination to concoct a much more absurd
description; but I give it you literally and unembellished.
First, soup, of course ; then course first, beefsteak and fried
potatoes ; then course second, boiled pork and cabbage ; then
course third, slices of sausage swimming in a sad-coloured
sauce, sprinkled with capers and thickened with flour to " make
the mixture slab and good " ; then course fourth, roast venison
with a sauce of stewed gooseberries and a salad of water-cresses ;

102 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
then a piece of cake with four apples, then bread and butter
and three kinds of pestilential and uneatable cheese, the whole
irrigated with a pint of Medoc and concluded with a tumbler
of wooden toothpicks.
In the morning, to kill the time, I engaged an ingenuous
youth as a valet de place, and began grubbing up the anti
quities. I went first to the Moritz Burg, or Maurice's Castle.
This is a mixed fastness of which the guide related to me this
legend : — Prince Maurice (of some Saxon House or other, be
did not know which) laid a bet with his sister that he would
build a church, now existing, and called the Maurice Church,
in less time than she could build a castle. They set to work
accordingly, but the sister gave two hellers a day to the work
men and he but one, and so she finished her castle soonest.
Whereupon Prince Maurice was wroth and very naturally
murdered her. The ghost may be seen at any time by apply
ing at the ruins of the castle. The Burg is a grey old ruin
with swallows' nests in the heavy mullioned windows and fruit
trees in the fosse. The remains of the chapel are picturesque,
and the view from the rampart over the boundless plains of
Saxony is rather striking. The vault under the castle, and
which extends under a greater part of the town, is occupied as
a storage place by a respectable manufacturer, who will be
happy to furnish you with any quantity of starch at reasonable
prices. In the interior of the Maurice Church, which, like all
the churches in Protestant Germany, has been stripped of its
monuments and escutcheons, there is nothing of interest except
a quaint painted old statue of the desperate Maurice. He
appears, if his portrait be correct, to have been a short duck-
legged man, with the grimmest of beards, and is represented
ivith a girdle of bells about his waist ; which he is said to have
always worn during his architectural operations, to apprise- the
workmen of his coming that they might be diligent.
It was certainly good-natured of the cat to bell himself, and
he must have been an excellent person after all. He was
called " Schellen Moritz," or Maurice with the bells, in conse
quence of this part of his costume.
At 2 P.M. I left in the diligence and reached Weimar the

1842.] WEIMAR AND ITS SOCIETY. 103
next morning at daybreak. In spite of the railroads, upon
which one gets an occasional lift, travelling in Germany by
the public conveyances is exceedingly slow and disagreeable.
The German world, like the ancient world, rests still upon the
back of the tortoise. You must travel day and night as a
matter of course, the diligences are carefully constructed to
prevent you seeing anything, and to pass night after night
pent up with six frowzy travellers who will have the windows
shut, is anything but exhilarating. Still " 'tis not quite so bad
as going to sea," and that is the best that can be said about it.
I went by way of Weimar to see Madame de Goethe. She
was glad to see me, and the two days I passed in Weimar were
spent principally at her house. She is the same lively, agree
able and intelligent person that she was eight years ago ; but
she has grown much older, her hair is entirely grey, and I fear
she is in a decline.^ She thinks so herself, and is going
to Italy in the spring. Her sons are neither of them in
Weimar. I gave her my article on Goethe, which she read and
was pleased with ; but I refused to tell her even the name of
my unfortunate novel, of which she had heard and about ^^•hich
she was curious. I also passed an evening with my old acquaint
ance Mr. de Froriep, and another at Madame de M  's, a
pretty little woman. Her husband is the Eussian Charge at
Weimar, and brother to the one who married William Lee's
sister, who is Charge at the Hague. Mr. Froriep wished me to
go and see the Grand Duke ; but I thought it not worth while
to go through the presentation as I was going away im
mediately. Weimar is not what it was in the old Duke's
time, a little Athens inhabited by all the most illustrious
literati of Germany. Of that splendid army of genius, the
coffins of Goethe and Schiller are all that remain.
I left Weimar with regret, and proceeded by way of Erfurt,
Gotha, Eisenach, Fulda, etc., to Fiankfort-on-the-Main. The
road is pretty, and the weather was delightful, the last patches
of the winter's snow melting rapidly in the sunshine. In fact,
the weather has been as mild in Northern Europe as by your
letter it seems to have been with you, and while south of the
' She was living at Vienna in 18G1 when Mr. Motley arrived there as Minister.

104 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
Alps I hear this winter has been unusually severe. I passed a
day and night at Frankfort. Having nothing to do I tied
myself to the heels of a valet de place and allowed myself to
be dragged through the town. I looked at Goethe's house and
at the Ariadne, a celebrated statue by Danneker. It is spirited
certainly ; but it is not so fine as I thought it was when I first
saw it eight or nine years ago. I went to the square in the
heart of the old town called the Eomerberg, which is one of
the most picturesque places in Germany. Gable ends are my
weakness ; but I spare you any further descriptions after what
I have given you, although the Eomerberg in Frankfort is far
worthier being described than the market of Halle. It was
across this square that the Emperor and his train walked after
the coronation had taken place in the Cathedral, a few yards
off, to the Eath Hans, where a great banquet was provided for
the courtiers, while an ox roasted whole in the square, and the
fountain in the centre spouted red and white wine for the
populace. The old dining-hall contains portraits of all the
Emperors of Germany, and it is singular that the picture of
Francis IL, who was the last Holy Eoman Emperor of Germany,
occupies the very last space that was left. In the old Cathe
dral is a clock placed there in the year 1470, which is a
model of time-keeping to this day. I looked with something
like awe at the grim face of this venerable chronometer, whose
pendulum had thus been swaying for near four centuries, and
whose pulses were beating their loud and healthful music over
the escutcheoned tombs of the devout Barons who are recorded
as having placed it in the cathedral, and who were ashes before
the country of the respected individual who has been tramp
ling upon their graves had been discovered. A part of the
church dates from Charlemagng^ the rest is five or six
centuries later. It contains a few crumbling monuments of
families long since extinct, and a picture by Albert Diirer.
The next morning I packed myself up in the malle paste
which transported me first by railroad to Mayence, where 1
crossed the Ehine and proceeded by way of Forbach, Metz.
Chalons-sur-]\Iarne, etc., to Paris. On crossing the Ehine, I
took leave of frost and snow. The weather here in Paris is

1842.] PARIS— GUIZOT— THIERS 105
spring weather, shower and sunshine, capricious, but most
delightful after the death-like monotony of St. Petersburg
weather, although the winter there has been milder than for
forty years before.
I don't know exactly what my plans are yet, whether I shall
stay here a few weeks and then go to England, or go there
immediately. I begin to talk seriously of returning in a sail
ing ship. I am rather skittish, to say the truth, with regard to
the steamers. There has one just put back after being at sea
seventeen days. However, I shall not return certainly before
April, and perhaps not till the middle of it, so I have time
enough to consider.

To his Wife. London,
April 15ft, 1812.
A few days before I left Paris I went with General Cass to
one of Guizot's soirees. I was introduced to him, and "huge
Plinlimmon bowed his cloud-capped head," but said nothing,
for just as he was going to observe that the weather was very
cold for the season, somebody else was announced to whom he
was obliged to repeat his bow, and upon whom he probably
bestowed his atmospheric observation. Guizot has a fine
monastic sort of face, and a short uncourtly figure. Un
fortunately, though I went several times to the Chamber of
Deputies, I did not hear him speak. However, on one occasion
I heard several of the Ministers speak, besides several of the
Opposition. The only person, however, of those whom I heard who is
really an orator, is Thiers. The others were merely lecturers
(Laplague, Hermann, Duchatel, etc.), who take their speeches
(apparently written out in full) into the Tribune, and drone
away like preachers in a pulpit. But Thiers had very few
notes, and spoke almost without recurring to them. The
subject was a very uninteresting one to a stranger, being a
debate upon Ihe project of a new law for the assessment of

106 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap IV.
direct taxes, submitted by a member of the Opposition.
Thiers hopped up into the Tribune after a recess, rubbing his
hands and smirking about with the most delicious aplomb.
The House would not come to order for a great while, and he
looked down upon them with the most provoking sang-froid,
while the President was ringing his bell like a dustman, and
the greffiers (or whatever they are called) were bawling " En
place, ilessieurs, en place ! " like so many diligence conductors.
At last, when order was restored, he leaned over the Tribune
and began to squeak, not to speak ; and yet, in spite of his
funny voice, every word that he said was distinctly audible,
and his style was so fluent, so limpid, and so logical, his
manners so assured and self-possessed, that, in spite of the
disadvantages of his voice, his figure, and his great round
spectacles, which give him the appearance of a small screech
owl, I thought him one of the most agreeable speakers I had
ever heard. The Chamber is evidently afraid of him without
respecting him, and his consummate brass, added to his ready
wit, makes every one of his speeches gall and wormwood to
his enemies.
I left Paris on the 10th April.
Travelling alone, and by the abominable public conveyances
of the Continent, is such a tedious business that I gave up the
regular tour through the Netherlands which I had at first
proposed, and contented myself with taking a flying look at
the three or four most interesting towns in Belgium. The
old history of Belgium is so picturesque, the towns where its
most striking and stirring tragedies were enacted — Brussels,
Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges — are so picturesque with the cobweb
tracery of their architecture, the colossal filigree of their town
halls, the transparent and fantastic lace work of their cathe
drals, in which stone looks as if it had been spun by spiders,
the elaborate quaintness of their old burgher palaces, with
their gables fashioned like Spanish galley sterns, or Jacob's
ladders, or any other massive whimsy, and all in such ad
mirable keeping with the turbulent history of the Hanseatic
republics gradually changing into Spanish provinces, and with
the showy actors, whose portraits painted by so many immortal

1842.] BRUSSELS — VAN EYCK 107
painters, from John of Bruges to Vandyke, still with their
point lace ruffs and gold chains and velvet robes, harmonizes
so well with the scenery, that a loitering tour made at one's
ease through their towns might be a very pleasant summer's
amusement. But to do this one should remain long enough
to learn something of the history of the towns and their
monuments, and to study their painters, some of whom are
wonderful. John van Eyck, or John of Bruges as he was
called, was the inventor of oil painting, but when you look at
his pictures, remembering they were painted nearly a hundred
years before Pietro Perugino, the invention seems like a
revelation. His colour is not only as vivid and beautiful as if
painted yesterday, but it really seems as powerful and as true
as any of later date. His flesh is almost as good as Vandyke's,
and although there is of course great stiffness and ignorance
in the drawing, yet he has much feeling, much sentiment and
ideality — more than the earlier Italians. There is a Madonna
at Ghent by his brother, Hubert van Eyck, and there are two
or three heads by himself, both at Ghent and at Bruges, which
for mere sentiment and perception, and expression of the ideal
beautiful, may be compared with the works of Leonardo da
Vinci and even Eaphael, while the colouring is inferior to that
of scarcely any later painter.
I went from Paris to Brussels, swallowed up, like Jonah in
the whale's belly, in the interior of the diligence, and of course
obliged to travel day and night. I saw nothing, and know
nothing of the road. I got to Brussels the morning of the
second day. The next morning I despatched Brussels in the
most summary manner, throwing myself into the lion's den
with the vigour of a Daniel. I left Brussels at 1 o'clock the
same day by the railroad for Bruges, where I slept, and the
next day I executed Bruges and Ghent (a few miles further
on) with matchless rapidity. That evening I went to Antwerp,
and the next morning swallowed the cathedral and its con
tents, the town hall, the church of St. Paul and a gallery of five
hundred pictures all at a single mouthful, and at 12 o'clock noon
of the same day found myself on board the Antwerp steamer
for London — delightful and improving work, travelling against

108 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
time, is it not ? I reached London the following morning at
9 o'clock, and here I am, wishing I could annihilate time and
space and find myself with you. I shall certainly sail in the
Patrick Henry from Liverpool 25th April, and hope to be
not much more than thirty days, but it may be sixty, you
know. Still a steamer is so crowded and uncomfortable that
I cannot make up my mind to put myself on board one again.
I shall leave a letter for you to go by the steamer of the 4th
May, which will of course arrive before. Ever your own
J. L. M.

Extract from Diary.
St. Petersburg, November 28th, 1841. — Shopping in the
Gostivoi Dvor, or the Great Bazaar or market, as they call
it, in the Nevskoi Prospect. This, a triangular, two-storied,
arcaded building, with one apex or angle obliquely striking
the Prospect, and one running along the side. Three hundred
and forty shops inside, or rather booths in rows one above the
other. Shops are like cells ; no fire being allowed in them,
the shopkeepers are i\alking about in the arcade wrapped in
their furs. As you walk along, every one officiously makes a
bow, or rather salaam, and invites you to enter his cell — to be
fleeced most unmercifully. The safest way, accordingly, for
a stranger is to take a shepherd with him, in the shape of an
interpreting servant, who will allow no shears to be applied
to you but his own. The appearance of these fellows in their
caftans and caps, moving about the long corridors of their
bazaar, and popping in and out of their cells, is peculiar —
a combination of Mount St. Bernard monastery and an
American penitentiary.
Shaft says butter is about equal to 2 roubles paper at present.
The pot I bought to-day cost 20 kopecks copper, equal to about
6 kopecks silver. I should think it was about the tenth part of
a pound, but will inquire the next time I send. A roll of bread,
two of which make my breakfast, cost 1t^ kopecks silver. Tea
(which comes overland, and therefore better and dearer than

1841.] CHARACTERISTICS OF ST. PETERSBURG. 109
ours) costs from 100 rs. E. N. down to 9 or 10, which I
pay, and somewhat lower, I suppose. Beef is about 3d. English
now. Pork 4tZ. (because the Germans eat so much pork, he
says). Veal and mutton, sold by the quarter, dearer in pro
portion. Fowls the pair, about a silver rouble. These things
all dear now, because they have to be brought from the neighs
bourhood. In the winter (which it should be now) the frozen
things are brought from all parts of the empire at a much
cheaper rate. As no fire nor light is allowed in the Gostivoi
Dvor, , they shut up at dark, which is now about 3 p.m. (I
shave by candlelight every morning about nine). The doors
are first locked ; then they are sealed with a lump of shoe
maker's wax and an impression, for the Eussian burglars are
supposed to have an objection to breaking seals — a supersti
tion, unfortunately, not shared by their superiors at the post-
office ; a rope is then run along the outside pillars of the
arcade to prevent the drunken from falling in, and a dog is
then turned out on a swivel and string to guard the whole.
Imagine an English burglar being stopped by shoemaker's
wax and a dog on a swivel! How much might have been
saved by Gilbert, Davis, and Palmer, and the other victims
of the English swell-mob deputies, if superstition, instead of
the schoolmaster, was abroad in England and America. The
length of the Gostivoi Dvor on the north prospect is 1015 feet.
m 7 November 27th mi i i-i n
Ihursday, y  =  g^ — . — . . . lake a long solitary walk,
nearly the length of the Nevskoi, as far as the bridge where
are the new bronze horses by Baron Kloth. They are very
spirited, though faulty. The effect is good, and the bridge is
'splendid — the pedestals of the statues, the masonry. These
bridges are, in fact, the finest things in St. Petersburg. Call to
see Mr. G  . Long Socratic conversation with him, I cate
chising. Eesults : First, very difficult to obtain any informa
tion here. Source carefully sealed up. He has tried for years
to obtain an account of the annual revenue and expenditure
of the Empire, the source whence the revenue is derived, and
the way it goes. By paying a 1000 rouble bribe to some
employe one might get it, but the Budget is not published, nor

110 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
to be got at. As to the sources of the revenue, they can be
conjectured, though, of course, neither the gross nor the
relative amount. An enormous tariff (protective for Eussian
tobacco -growers, sugar -refiners, linen -makers, cloth -makers,
etc.) upon tobacco, refined sugar . . . must defeat itself to a
degree, and lessen the consumption. Still, as the production
of articles of consumption is not sufficient for the demand, the
customs must still furnish a large amount of revenue. There
is a high duty, and to be increased (they are hammering out
a new tariff), on cotton twist, for they have been establishing
cotton-mills and manufactures in this neighbourhood, which
are thriving, and the quantity of cotton and twist imported is
increasing. High duty upon tobacco, sugar, coffee, linen,
woollens (teas?), and in general, I should think, all manu
factures ; but everything is taxed in Eussia, immensely.
The tax paid by the first Guild merchants is about 4000
roubles per annum ; by the second, about 2500 ; and the third,
about 500, say. Then there is a lower class still, the shop
keepers, for instance, in the Gostivoi Dvor. They are too low,
for the Guilds form a class by themselves. But all pay a tax
to Government, and a heavy one. The Guilds are nominally
divided according to amount of property in its members, but,
in point of fact, the payment of the tax to Government is the
test. A first Guild merchant has a right to own a house, to
drive a carriage-and-four, to carry on the foreign trade ; while
a second Guild merchant can have but a carriage-and-pair,
and confine himself to the inland trade and manufactures.
The first Guild merchant is exempted from the quartering of
soldiers upon him. No trade or calling, from highest to
lowest, can be practised without some emolument, and the
emolument is heavily taxed. Everybody is taxed in his
calling. There is high tax upon the transfer of real estate,
10 per cent. The foreign trade has been for a long time con
fined to foreign merchants, but the Eussians are coming into
it now. The inland trade confined chiefly to Eussians.
The nobles have not only the right of refusing to sell a
serf his freedom, but they often do. Prince  has a slave
(a Eussian merchant) who is worth two or three million

1841.] ST. PETERSBURG. Ill
roubles, and who has repeatedly offered his master a million
roubles for his freedom, who refuses it. All the property in
reality belongs to the master, and there are some (though
rare) instances of the master really enforcing his right to the
acquired property of his slave. The serf is allowed to work
three days in the week, upon land allotted to him by his
master. . . .
I cannot admire the vastness and length of the squares
and streets. To be sure, the architectural effect of some of
them, particularly the part of Isaac's Square, where the column
of Alexander stands, is imposing, and reminds one of some of
Martin's architectural fantasies, representing imaginary views
of Nineveh, Babylon, etc. ; but, on the whole, the want of
proportion ruins the effect. Perhaps it is because I am near
sighted, and so lose all details in attempting to take in the
whole picture ; but it seems to me that the breadth, the
enormous and incredible breadth of the streets, and parti
cularly of the great square, dwarfs the houses and diminishes
the grandeur of the whole. To be as imposing as it ought or
was intended to be, the heights of all the houses should have
been doubled ; the statues, already colossal, should have been
magnified, and the whole enclosed in a f)anoramic building, so
that one might have looked at and taken in the whole at one
coup d'oeil, by means of some telescopic arrangenient. But
the effect would have been the same if merely the distances
had been lessened. Peter the Great's statue, one of the finest
things in Europe, is lost sight of in the dim distance before
one reaches the other end of the square which it ornaments ;
and so with the column of Alexander, the Church of St. Isaac,
and the entrances to the threC' great perspectives.
December 1th _ _ , tj^^ Legislative, the Executive and
December IQtti
the Judicial departments are all, of course, embodied in the
Emperor, who is, like " Cerberus, three gentlemen at once."
He is also the head of the Church; and as the nobility
all take rank, not according to birth or title, but by
seniority in his service, the whole society of Eussia, through
all its myriad links, dangles like a great chain from his

112 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
aristocratic thumb. He is Jupiter Juvans, and he looks the
character and fortunately is equal to it. Social rank in Eussia
has an entirely military organization. There are fourteen or
fifteen ranks of nobility. An ensign is ipso facto noble, and
transmits nobility to his children, and this is the lowest or llth
order. A captain is of a higher class, a colonel of course still
higher, and so on. There are corresponding grades in the civil
service, but here it requires a relatively higher rank to match
the military order. Thus a major in the civil service, that is
to say, an employe, who by seniority in his profession ranks
as high therein as a major would in the army, is only equal
to an ensign in the army, and belongs to the 14th class of
nobility ; and so on up and through all professions, including
physicians and clergymen. It is in fact a sort of horizontal
tariff struck through all classes of society and rating them
into different categories ad valorem.
According to this rule, for instance, an archbishop is equal
to a general-in-chief ; that is to say, they both belong to
the same (the 1st or 2nd class of nobility) ; and by the
same formula of social algebra, the relative proportions of
admirals, archbishops, ambassadors, field-marshals, judges,
cupbearers, cabinet ministers, theatre directors, masters of
ceremonies, clerks, cornets and middies are assigned. This
artificial arrangement was first invented, I think, by Peter
the Great {vide Voltaire's ' Pierre le Grand '), and was most
admirably contrived by that sagacious despot to break down
the power of the Eussian nobility and to strengthen the
autocracy on the ruins of the aristocracy. His principle
that rank should be assigned according to merit, and not
according to birth, carried with it the necessary corollary
in a despotic Government that rank should be assigned
according to the Imperial favour ; and the whole system has
been fully developed and carried out by all his successors. It
needs a strong hand, however, to hold all these powers, and
the autocrats accordingly are as apt to get murdered here
as in Turkey. Peter the Great disbanded and annihilated
the Strelitz or Eussian janissaries, but the nobles retained
strength enough to murder his descendant Paul.

1841.] RUSSIAN FOOD SUPPLY, ARMY, ETC 113
It would require a long residence and very close and strict
attention, to acquire accurate information with regard to the
structure of the Eussian executive and judiciary departments,
and it certainly would not repay the trouble or time expended ;
the barbarous, the arbitrary, the confused, the contradictory
and the mysterious are the prevailing features. The more I
see of other countries, the more I like America. The faults,
the blemishes, which are so apparent and so magnified when
we are close, diminish wonderfully as we recede, while at the
same time the simple and just proportions, the literal and
open structure, wide open to the daylight of truth of the
American Eepublic, present themselves more boldly and
strikingly to the view. . . .
Thirty million pounds of food (Lebensmitteln) are brought in
two months (mid-winter) to St. Petersburg — frozen meats, oxen
slaughtered by thousands of hecatombs. All other animals (fish
from the Volga), game, vegetables, etc., are brought from a
distance of 2000 worsts ^ to the capital — which itself is built
upon a morass, and utterly helpless so far as regards its own
resources. The direction is taken by compass, and away they go
over thousands of miles of frozen snow, without road or rail
road. In summer, the water communication by canals is very
admirable, connecting the Caspian with the Baltic.
The Eussian soldier is reckoned to cost 118 francs a
year, and is the cheapest soldier in Europe. A lieutenant
gets about 600 roubles paper a year. A colonel very often
makes his fortune ; but as he is always supposed to have his
regiment full and fully accoutred, with horses, men and equip
ments, a sudden demand is very apt to ruin him ; still the
post is very lucrative. A private soldier may be promoted to a
lieutenancy, in which case he acquires nobility ; but the choice
of promotion or retreat Avith a pension is given him, and he
almost always prefers the latter. A soldier serves fifteen
years, then at home five, then five years more, and then is free.
In point of fact, however, the conscript is a soldier for life.
The peasants are furnished for the army upon requisition made
by the Crown upon their owners, according to the proportion
' A worst is 3501 English feet.
VOL. L I

114 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV
of ownership. There are certain rules by which the proprietors
exempt some peasants. There are not many poor in
Eussia ; generally the law requires each proprietor to take
care of his own poor. As the means of life are cheap, and the
Eussian wants of food, raiment and lodging are very hw,
there ought not to be a great deal of poverty. Black bread
costs at St. Petersburg seven copper kopecks to a cent and a
half of our money a pound ; and wheat flour in Moscow is
about a penny and a half or three cents. Wood, of which they
require a good deal, is abundant and generally cheap. Very
often, in a season of bad crops, there is literally famine, and
very often the peasants die literally of hunger. The crops
are sold standing by the proprietor, who is often head-over-
ears in debt, carried off, and the peasants who planted, sowed
and reaped it are left to starve, while the fruit of their
toil pays the debts of their owner in St. Petersburg or
Moscow. The prisons and jails I know nothing about. The
hospitals (under the immediate and efficient superintendence
of the Duke of Leuchtenberg) are admirable, particularly the
military hospitals, and I shall go to see them as soon as I
have contrived some means of seeing them to advantage.
The policy and pride of the Eussian Emperors, from Peter
down, have been to encourage and jDrotect domestic manu
factures by enormous and constantly increasing tariffs.
Moscow is the great seat of the Eussian factories. Lord
Stuart says it looks like Birmingham. In St. Petersburg there
are immense factories of looking-glasses, of porcelain, of cloth,
of cotton — in short, in spite of Storck's book written expressly
for the use of Alexander and Nicholas when they were youths,
and which advocates free trade, they have gone on in the same
dull protective career, which all nations begin now, at least in
theory, to repudiate. . . .
Friday, December 31 st. — Thermometer 28° (Eeaumur). Snow
ing slightly all day. At twelve go to a rehearsal of the chanteurs
de la cour. In the Greek Church, there is no instrumental
music, but the effect of this admirable harmony and variety
of voice must be very fine. I have not yet been at mass.
These are the singers of the Eoyal Chapel (in the Palace). It

1842.J ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 115
is in fact a living organ ; the thin, clear pipes of young boys,
mixed with the deep and sonorous bass and thrilling trebles
of men, produce all the volume and all the variety and all
the swelling and sinking cadences of an immense organ. . . .
December 31st, 1841 m, x loo ¦r^ •
Wednesday, ^——^^^^-^g^^. -Thermometer 18°. Drive
at 12 o'clock to the annual sitting of the Academy of Sciences,
to which we received cards of invitation. Went in uniform.
Members of Academy, behind a horse-shoe table, all in uniform
(something between a military and diplomatic dress). Hand
some hall, portraits of Alexander and Nicholas, Catherine I.
and IL, Elizabeth and Paul. Bust of Peter the Great on granite
pedestal. Brazilian Minister and Sir E. Porter only diplo
mats present. Archbishop of Moscow sat in front of me
^blue caftan with a white napkin on the head, grizzled beard,
altogether as reverend a figure as any of those most venerable
individuals the Eussian coachmen. All his acquaintances
kissed his hand. .. Ceremonies consisted in the reading of the
' Compte Eendu,' by the perpetual Secretary, Dr. Frys, in
French, and by an oration or memoir in Eussian by the Vice-
President, Prince Dondoukoff Korsakoff. Introduced to
Admiral Eicard and the Vice-President. As v.e were
coming away. Prince Dondoukoff gave us each a copy of the
printed Acts of the Academy of last year.
Thursday, January 1/13, 1842. — Thermometer 10° all day.
A frozen fog filled the air, the trees were frosted all over with
silver, ditto the beards of the venerable coachmen and the
manes of the horses. The effect on crossing the Isaac's Place
through the mist, as I took my noonday wa\\<:, was singular.
Peter's colossal statue dilated through the mist into gigantic
and spectral proportions. The towers and domes of the
Isaac's Church behind him, loomed up in shadowy grandeur,
and the sun hung like a globe of half-extinguished fire, round
and rayless in the centre of its low arch, and apparently but a
half-hour above the rim of the horizon. The day was cold,
but one did not feel it through one's furs because it was so
still. It has been judiciously said that at St. Petersburg " on
voii lefroid mais on ne le sent pas." Still this is not what is

116 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
called cold weather. Everybody says that 25 degrees, day
and night, for a week or ten days together, is the usual state
of the weather at this season.
Dine with Colonel Todd. In the evening go to the ball at
Woronzow's. Observe for the first time the Duke of Leuchten
berg, Josephine's grandson, who is son-in-law to the Czar — a
tall, slender, common-place looking man, in a Hussar's uni
form. The only other members of the Imperial family present
were the Grand Duke Michael, and the Hereditary, "the
Perpetual Grand," as Dick Swiveller would call him, for he
is at all the parties perpetually, and perpetually dancing the
mazurka. Tuesday, January 6/18. — This being the fete of the bless
ing of the waters, go by appointment of Count Woronzow to
the apartments of Prince Wolkowsky at the Winter Palace,
where one of the Palace servants conducts us into the great
banqueting-room, filled with military, at one of the windows
of which we took our station, directly opposite the pavilion
where the ceremony takes place. As to effect, it makes no
difference in a procession whether the material be velvet,
satin, or fustian; the arrangement of the colours, grouping,
drapery, etc., may be equally produced in coarse materials.
Here go two or three notes to serve as memoranda.
1. Square space in the ice of the Neva, lined and thronged
with multitudes of spectators, say fifty thousand. Their bearded
faces agitated like a strong sea, particularly when they crossed
themselves all in a mass at the appearance of the procession.
2. The pavilion, a gaudy affair of wood, painted and gilded,
open all round, and carpeted with red cloth, on a platform
ascended by some dozen steps.
3. The procession, which was of course not very large,
coming only from the Palace gate across the quay to the
edge of the Neva, where the pavilion stood. First, a double
line of popes, in yellow satin and white robes, their long hair
streaming on their shoulders (bareheaded), and their long
beards, three deep ; behind them a row of pages, all bareheaded.
Between this open line of clergy, the procession of archbishops,
bishops, in rich embroidered cloth of gold robes, bearing

1842.] MILITARY HOSPITALS. 117
banners and emblems, marched ; then the principal archbishop,
then the Emperor, followed by his suite of great embroidered
functionaries, all bareheaded, walk up the steps, and then
descend the interior ones leading to the hole cut in the ice.
Then the archbishop blesses the water, which of course we
could not see, and then a salute of artillery from the fortress
announces the fact. Then they return, the archbishop with a
little mop or swab twirling water on all the dignitaries from
the Emperor down. As soon as they have left the place, general
rush from the ice to dip into the water. Came home, and was
raised to fever-heat of happiness by finding dear, dear Mary's
letter. I shall now begin a letter to her to thank her,
although it can't go until next Tuesday.
Thursday, January 8/20. — Passed out of the citadel and
went a few rods farther to the house of Peter the Great. This
foetus of St. Petersburg is a one-storey log hut, painted red, and
enclosed lately for protection in a brick case. The interior
consists in a small room on each side of the entrance (low
studded, so that you may touch the rafters of the ceiling with
your hat or hand), and a smaller bedroom. One of these is
now consecrated as a church, and filled with frippery of all
sorts, gold and silver pictures, arms and legs tied up with satin
ribbons, and other votive offerings from devout invalids cured
of every bodily ailment by the virtues of the throne. In the
other room, which was Peter's audience-room, is an old wooden
armchair, upon which throne Peter received the foreign
ambassadors. ^
Wednesday, January 14/25. — Thermometer 8° — 10°. Dr.
Cavill came and we went a round of military hospitals. It is
certain that the soldier is taken good care of in Eussia. We
visited four hospitals— The first — that of the Ismaisoffsky
regiment — small, 120 patients — very clean — polished floors —
about ten or twelve in a ward — well dressed and with clean
bedding — over the head of each patient is a board containing
his name, regiment, disease, and diet. . . . There are 3000
men in each regiment and three physicians. There is a
physician night and day in the hospital, and the patients are
visited morning and evening. It is reckoned that the food

118 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Ch.vp. U/
costs about eleven silver kopecks for each inmate of the hos
pitals, the medicine two or three, making about thirteen, and
the cost of wood, attendance, etc., etc., make it up to about
thirty silver kopecks per diem for each patient. The food is
pretty good — white bread for the sick, rye bread for the con
valescents. They are allowed two pounds of bread, and one
pound of meat per diem, but Wednesdays and Fridays are
always fast days, when they get cabbage soup. They have
quassia and a sort of drink made of rye and meal and small
beer. It is not known exactly what all these hospitals (of which
there are seven in St. Petersburg for the thirteen regiments,
and a proportionate number of equally good ones all over the
Empire) cost the Government, at whose expense they all are,
but an approximation may be made out of the cost of each
patient. They are economically arranged, for the overseer
told me there Avas no waste, everything was consumed.
From the Ismaisoffsky we went to one occupied by three
regiments — here were 283 patients, a very small number for
9000 men. The arrangements were similar to the last.
Thence to the Prebazensky Hospital — this the oldest hospital,
having been founded by Peter the Great — very clean, pure,
and regular, but no difference between it and the others. The
officers of the regiment have a library in the same building,
which they showed us — a good collection of history and travels
— about 6000 volumes, and they subscribe a fund of about
1500 roubles per annum to add to it. There were two
Eussian newspapers. They showed also the collection of MS.,
including a book full of the notes, orders, etc., of Peter the
Great, Catherine, and Alexander — all written in Eussian.
From this we went lastly to what is called the great hos
pital, not appropriated by any one regiment, but receiving
patients from several. This was built by Nicholas. Nothing
peculiar, except being on an immense scale. There were
800 patients in it — there are beds for 1300, besides 20 for
officers. There are three stories, and water forced up to
reservoir on top, and let into various washing places for the
patients along the corridor. There is an internal and external
corridor opening to each ward. Each ward contains eighteen

1842.] THE HERMITAGE GALLERY. 119
beds. Good ventilators. Fire-places, as well as an equal
warmth all over the building by Eussian stoves. . . .
Thursday, January 15/27.— Thermometer 10°— 12^ Visit
the Hermitage Gallery. This is one of the best collections in
Europe. I know of none which has fewer bad pictures. . . .
One room is full of exquisite Wouvermans — battle pieces,
hunting and hawking pieces — fights of banditti and all the
favourite equestrian subjects of that great painter of life in
action — of wild, tumultuous, thrilling action. Another room
is full of Teniers — boors, banquets, village dances, cottage
interiors — many of them masterpieces. Strewed about here
and there are several most delicious Euysdaels — with their
dark masses of wood and bubbling brooks, cool valleys, and
embowered church spires. One of these pictures, representing
a grove with the trees up to their knees in water, was a
perfect portrait of a maple swamp in Massachusetts. Several
fine Breughels and Berghems — Paul Potters and Cuyps, and
one room full of Eembrandts. Unfortunately the sun was
shining so powerfully upon the best of these that I could not
see them, and only remember one or two grim portraits in his
very best and strongest manner. There are two or three
Eaphaels in his early Perugino manner. ... In one room are
the pictures forming part of the Houghton Collection, em
bracing some of the best Vandykes in the world — Charles I.,
his Queen — portrait of Sir J. Wharton and the Earl of Danby,
and a most delicious picture of William IL, Prince of Orange,
at the age of twelve, in which I think the flesh and blood has
been put upon canvas more perfectly than I remember in
any picture — one of the most difficult things in painting is to
hit the exact colour of the human face. The rich olive of the
boy's cheek with an undertone of vermilion is the ne plus
ultra of complexion painting. . . .
Monday, January 19/31.— Thermometer 10° — 4°. Visit the
institution for the education of female orphans of officers.
Large, splendid building, of course, connected with the Enfants
Trouves. The two institutions together are well endowed, so
that although the expense exceeds eight millions per annum,
they lay by something every year. In the orphan institute

120 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.
there are 1123 pupils, divided into six classes. They are
taught all the " humanities," reading, writing, history, music,
three or four languages, in short, everything, and the institu
tion constitutes a great manufactory of governesses which
supplies the whole Empire as far as it can — but the demand
is so great that every scholar of good capacity is certain, on
completing her education, to obtain a situation as governess.
Those whose want of capacity condemns them to a humbler
sphere are finished off as ouvrieres, brodeuses, sempstresses,
washerwomen, servants, and some of the enfants trouves are at
present among them, but it is not intended in future that
they should mingle with the others. We went through all
the class rooms — examined the best class in Eussian, much
to their edification and ours — saw their kitchen, dormitories
(iron bedsteads and clean bedding, but too many in a room),
and saw them come into their dining-hall. They marched in
two by two, with merry little faces trying hard to look sedate,
but with smiles stealing out of all the corners of their mouths
and seeming very happy, into the hall, where they all sung
(as is the universal custom of all the institutions) a Eussian
hymn, devoutly crossing and sometimes prostrating them
selves the while — and then all sat down to table chattering
and laughing. The effect of the chorus of small, sweet voices,
piping out a thanksgiving was delicious, and they certainly
ought to be thankful — for how many young ravens are fed
who but for this institution would necessarily drag through a
life of misery and starvation !
This, like all the noblest charitable institutions of Eussia,
was originated by the late Empress-mother. Baron Stachel-
berg, the Director of the Enfants Trouves, was with us — a
very gentlemanlike and intelligent man — of whom the
children were evidently excessively fond — thronging round
him with smiles and all sorts of caresses, " and plucked his
gown to share the good man's smile." The "Enfants
Trouves " has been so often described that there is nothing
.for me to add. There are about 18,000 at present belonging
to it, and 30,000 to the one in Moscow. There are in the
house at St. Petersburg about 1000 infants and a nurse to

1842.] ORPHAN ASYLUMS. 121
each. They keep them here six weeks, and then if well send
them with their nurses to the country — where they are brought
up to trades, etc. There are received 3000 or 4000 per annum.
Two or three had already been brought in the morning that
we were there. We met, in fact, two well-dressed women, each
bringing in a child. The mothers, if they choose, can come in
as nurses. The children are brought openly and deposited in
a little room below stairs. After the depositor is gone, the
child is washed, ticketed, and delivered to a nurse — the food
of the nurses is good — each child has its cradle, which is clean
and good — about one-third of the whole number die.

122 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.

CHAPTEE V.
COMMENCEMENT OP THE ' HISTORY ' — RESIDENCE AT DRESDEN.
Commencement of the 'History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic ' — Arrival in
Europe — Tho Rhine — Holland — The duel with the sea — Polders — The Dutch
Masters — Dresden — Its climate — The Opera — Sontag — A picnic excursion-
Prospects of the Presidential Election — The Madonna di San Sisto — The
Green Vaults — -Progress of the ' History ' — Prince John of Saxony — Death
of Daniel Webster — ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' and the Slavery Question — The
King and Queen of Saxony — The Court and ' its etiquette— Marriage of
Princess Vasa and Priuoe Albert — Court festivities.
[Mr. Motley returned to America in 1842, and in 1844 he
took an active interest in politics. In 1815-47 he contributed
historical and literary papers to the ' North American Eeview,'
and began to collect materials for a history of Holland. In
1849 he served for one term in the Massachusetts Legislature,
and in the same year he published his second novel, ' Merry-
Mount.' In 1851, finding that he could not properly write a
history of the Dutch Eepublic without consulting archives
and libraries in Europe, he threw aside all that he had written,
and sailed with his family for Europe.]
To Ms Mother. Ship Parliament, off Point Lyaas,
July ith, 1851. 1 A.M.
My DEAREST Mother, — Mary has just been writing a
hurried line to Susan to announce our safe arrival at the pilot
ground, and I thought you would like a single line from me at
the same time. They have just been burning blue lights and
firing off rockets on board the ship to celebrate 4th July, and
the pilot has come on board. We expect to reach Liverpool

1851.] THE RHINE. 123
by six or seven o'clock in the morning. Our plans are still
indistinct ; but I am afraid we shall find it difficult to avoid
London, as all the roads seem to tend in that direction. We
shall, perhaps, remain there for a few days, a very few, and
then cross to Holland. I shall, however, write to you again
very soon, and the only reason for my sending this most
unsatisfactory scrawl is, that I am unwilling that the first
steamer after our arrival should sail without taking to you an
expression of my affectionate remembrance. I am deter
mined, however, not to allow myself to be home-sick yet,
although it is very hard to think of Eiverdale and all which it
contains with anything like composure. I feel, however, very
grateful that the children have been so well. Susie ^ has never
acknowledged any difference between ship and shore, proved
herself the best sailor from the very first, has exchanged locks
of hair with the captain, and has been the especial favourite
of both the mates.
Good-night, my dearest mother. You will hardly derive
much satisfaction from this note, except that it assures you
that we are well and that our first thought on reaching a
foreign coast is of you and of home. Ever your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

To Ms Mother. Kouigswinter, August IXth, 1851.
My DEAREST Mother, — I write from a little village some
half-dozen miles above Bonn, with the castled crag of Drachen-
fels over my head, and the wide and winding Ehine under
my nose, so that the situation is as romantic as nature and art,
history and poetry can make any spot in the world.
Much to my satisfaction, Mary decided to give up visiting
Paris this year. I was very glad, for the idea was anything
but agreeable to me, and we are now (having left the bulk of
our luggage at Cologne) making a slow and easy tour on the
» His youngest daughter, now Mrs. Herbert St. John Mildmay.

124 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap V.
Ehine. We came to this place from Cologne three days ago,
and shall leave to-morrow for Coblenz. We could loiter away
a much longer time here, for it is a quiet, dreamy place, lying
at the gateway of the Ehine glories and full of natural beauty
and romantic associations. I am glad to have Mary wait a
little while here till she can form a definite and clear idea
of the stream which we are about to ascend. It is striking
enough for me, having just come from Holland, where I saw
the noble river in its feeble old age dribbling languidly by
Leyden, and suffocated at last on its dull Dutch death-bed on
the Katwyk sands, to witness the copious and exulting flow of
its waters here. It was a melancholy sight enough in Holland.
The river, after having commenced its career by a magnificent
summersault over the precipices of Schaffhausen, and having
pursued its winding and fertilising course through so many
romantic regions in Germany, subsides into the most stagnant
imbecility in the Netherlands, hiding itself in quicksands and
miseries, and forgetting its identity and even its time-honoured
name, which is changed and extinguished before its waters are
lost in the sea. I believe I alluded in my last letter to this
inglorious termination of its career. The river actually
becomes too feeble even to die, and is pumped out of
existence by artificial means at Katwyk. It had lain strang
ling there one thousand years, its mouth having been choked
with a vast mass of sand driven up by a tempest in 840, till
at the commencement of the present century it was helped into
the ocean of eternity or the eternity of ocean by means of
windmills. Up to that period it was lost in nameless bogs and
quagmires. What a dreary termination to its Swiss childhood
and its picturesque and impetuous career through the Land of
Song ! Here the stream is beautiful. Probably no river in
the world has been so lavishly endowed by nature and by art,
by poetry and truth. Its written history extends with
unbroken links from Caesar to Napoleon, the two notorious
individuals whose names are the two greatest epochs of
recorded time. Across that chasm of two thousand years, the
embroidered belt of the Ehine is flung, emblazoned all over
with historical emblems and hieroglyphics.

1851.] THE RHINE— HOLLAND. 125
How different from the silent and solitary course of our own
beautiful but deaf and dumb rivers ! Great events, thick as
the stars of heaven, have illuminated almost every day of its
existence, and ten thousand charming fables from the misty
and legendary mythology of the middle ages have lent a
charm to every rock on its banks and to every brook that
mingles with its waters. Here, where we are at present, is the
first but one of the most enchanting spots which engage your
attention as you ascend the stream. This village is at the foot
of the Drachenfels, and one of the renowned seven mountains.
These hills are all of volcanic origin, having been spouted up
by craters long since extinguished, and consist of basaltic
crags broken into fantastic and jagged outlines. Cornfields
and vineyards grow now in deep hollows, which are very
visibly volcanic craters whose lips were closed long before
those of history were opened. Each one of these crags has its
vineyards on its lap, its crumbling baronial ruin on its brow,
and a little white village at its feet. The Drachenfels, or
Dragon's rock, is the most picturesque although not the
highest of these cliffs. . . .

To his Mother. Brussels,
August 0th, 1851.
My DEAREST Mother, — . . . Holland is a stranger and
more wonderful country than I had imagined. I did not
think that you would so plainly observe how it has been
scooped out of the bottom of the sea. But when travelling
there you see how the never-ending, still-beginning duel, which
this people has so long been waging with the ocean, remains
still their natural condition, and the only means by which
their physical existence as a nation can be protracted a year.
They are always below high-water mark, and the ocean is
only kept out by the most prodigious system of dykes and
pumps which the heart of man ever conceived. It is like a
leaking ship at sea after a tempest, the people are pumping

126 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
night and day for their lives. Tell the governor that the low
land at Eiverdale would be an excellent miniature Holland.
He has only to dyke out the Charles as the Dutch do the
Ehine and the Mouse, cut twelve or fifteen canals at right
angles, and keep them dry by a series of mighty pumps
worked by twenty or thirty windmills. Such an apparatus
would add very much to the picturesqueness of your place,
and would improve the value of the land incalculably. We
could cut up an immense quantity of English grass and
pasture the cows afterwards.
By the way, this is the universal system in Holland. The
country is one meadow, and it is strange enough to witness
thousands of cattle grazing quietly as it were in the bottom of
the sea, usurping the ancient feeding ground of the cods and
haddocks. I visited the great polder of all. A polder is the
designation of a drained lake or pond converted into arable
land. The one I mean is Haarlem lake, which, within the
last two years, has been nearly drained. The task, which
seemed Herculean, has been talked about for centuries, but at
last the danger of inundation which seemed impending over
the whole of Holland caused the job to be seriously under
taken. The lake is about seventy square miles in extent, and
about sixteen feet deep. By means of three colossal suction
pumps, worked by three engines of 350 horse-power, they have
drained three-fourths of the depth. They expect to finish it
in another year. I doubt it, however, for the hardest seems
yet to come. Still, the wonderful feat will be accomplished
within a very short time. I had, of course, but little time
to see the pictures in Holland.
The collections at the Hague and Amsterdam contain some
of the most wonderful paintings of the Dutch and Flemish
'schools. I could only, of course, look at them for a little
^'hile and see how much one loses by travelling in a hurry.
It is strange that those two amphibious, half-submerged re
publics, Venice and Holland, should have instructed the
world in colour. Nothing certainly can exceed the brilliancy
and profound mastery of colour possessed by Eubens, Eem-
brandt, and Van Der Heist. You see these masters nowhere

1851.] THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF TILE DUTCH. 127
in such profusion as in their native land. The landscapes,
too, the Euysdaels and Berghems, you would be delighted
with. After your eyes have been put out by the effulgence
of their great historical pieces and dazzling portraits, such as
Eembrandt and Van Der Heist and Eubens only could paint,
they are refreshed by those cool, calm, rural scenes, with
shady groves and gurgling brooks, such as only their land
scape painters could produce. They seem to have had a
deeper sentiment for landscape, and a greater power in
reproducing natural beauties, than any people.
How strange that this genius should have risen out of the
very bottom of the sea, that a people should have so faithfully
and poetically represented on canvas those charming pastoral
scenes, of which they could have only dreamed among their
native dykes and ditches, without ever seeing them in their
own land ! The Dutch have certainly done many great things.
They have had to contend with two of the mightiest powers
in the world, the ocean and Spanish tyranny, and they con
quered both. Neither the Inquisition nor the Zuyder Zee
was able to engulf them, and yet it is very funny to see a
people after having achieved such triumphs seat themselves
so contentedly in their summer-houses over their very ill-
savoured canals. Every country house has its garden, every
garden its canal, and every canal is always creaming and
mantling like no other standing pool in the world out of
Holland. Nobody knows how stagnant water can be till he
has visited this country.. The canals smell of anything but
Araby the Blest, and yet every summer-house is always
planted directly over it. There sit the placid burghers, pipe
in mouth, and inhale the odours, hanging over them as if
increase of appetite did grow by what it feeds on.
Ever your most affectionate son,
J. L. M.

128 ¦ MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.

To Ms Mother. Dresden,
November llth, 1851.
We live in the most profound solitude. We have exchanged
calls with the British Minister and his sister, and with this
ceremony our acquaintance with the society of Dresden is
likely to have begun and ended. I certainly do not regret
this on my own account, nor much upon Mary's, because I
think that we have become so very much addicted to solitude
that we adorn it more than we should society. We should
feel like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego if we should ever
venture into the fiery furnace of fashionable life, and mightn't
get out of the scrape as respectably as those excellent and
unsinged individuals are said to have done.
Our autumn is drawing to a conclusion, but everything is
very deliberate in this paternal government. I suppose the
weather is regulated, like the price of meat, by the police, in
consequence of which we have never very good or very bad
weather, as we certainly have never anything but most
indifferent beef and mutton. The first frost was, I think,
about ten days ago, or say about the 10th of November. The
month of September was very cold and rainy. The sun
hardly shone once, and the rain was not omitted in more
than three out of the whole thirty days. The glass was never
so high as 70^, and generally was at about 58°. The month
of October was very fine, and fine nearly all the time, as our
best October, which is saying a great deal, as that is the
month we brag the most of. Even till the last week of that
month the glass was for many days in succession as high as
67^, and was hardly ever 20° lower. Since the beginning
of this month it has not been higher than 40°, and rarely
lower than 30°, although for the last two or three nights it
may have been as low as 26°. I talk by the, thermometer on
purpose because all other talk about the weather means but
little. Figures in this respect don't lie, for they have no
interest to do so, that I know of. The horse-chestnut trees
in our garden were full of leaves, which were almost green

1852.] WINTER IN DRESDEN. 129
until about a week since, when the first sharp frost stripped
them. The acacias (rose acacias) under my window and the
other shrubbery in the garden are not yet leafless or yellow.
The dahlias and roses have been dead about ten days, the
grape vines were laid down last week. The grapes here are
Sweetwater, and are plentiful, but this year they were not
sweet. They are cheaper than Isabella's, but I think not much
better. We have already had two trifling snow-storms.
Good-bye, my dearest mother. Love to all, for I am closing
in great haste. Ever your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

To Ms Mother. Dresden,
April 13th, 1852.
My DEAREST Mother,— ... As for Mary.^ she will of course
write, but the serious labour of selection will probably devolve
upon me. She continues to retain her epistolary mania,
which she sometimes wreaks upon me, not rarely addressing
upon me billets and even lengthy letters while I am in the
same room with her. Poor little thing, both she and Lily
have had a somewhat severe illness, a kind of catarrhal fever
or influenza, which kept them in bed and their mbther in a
worry for a few days. They have now recovered, but have not
yet been out of doors, and will not if the sun declines to show
his face so resolutely. I don't know where he is, probably
engaged elsewhere, starring it in some more profitable region ;
at any rate he is rarely visible here now-a-days, not at home
to company at all events. Still the season is about three
weeks in advance of our spring, and there is at least much
more tacked to autumn's skirts, so that the vegetable year is
from six weeks to two months longer. Nature, death and
resurrection being brought just so much the nearer. Your
accounts of winter, however, remind me that in the American,
that is New England, sense there is no such thing as winter here.
We have had an absence of warmth rather than the presence
' His second daughter, now Mrs. Sheridan.
VOL. I. ^

130 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
of cold. Once or twice, but that very rarely, we had the glass
as low as 10° or 15° Fahrenheit above zero, but generally
the temperature in the coldest months hovered about the
freezing point, not going much up or down. The grass has
been green two or three weeks, and the shrubbery is now in
leaf. We have no blossom yet, however, and as the cherry and
plum trees are usually in bloom with you by the last week of
April (if I am not mistaken), you see that there is no very
great difference after all. Thus far I am disappointed in the
spring. We have had one or two warm days, and thought
spring, that genial season of which you read, and of which we
considered ourselves to have been defrauded in America, had
arrived. We get occasionally a bright shiny, silvery spring
day, fine as fourpence, but we are sure to have to take the
change for it afterwards in at least six coppery and cloudy
ones. Still the blackbirds whistle away under my windows
every morning as merrily as any other little niggers, in spite
of the fog and general grimness of the landscape, and there
is a " glory in the grass," and our gardener has dug up
his half-hardy roses, multifloras, and monthlies from their
temporary graves and erected them again on their respective
Ebenezers, and lettuce is already two cents a head, while
asparagus, owing to the sunless atmosphere, remains obsti
nately at a groschen a spear. Strange to say, however, the
east wind seems as natural here as if it blew from the end of
Long Wharf, and it has as bad a character almost as with us.
It's very odd, but entirely true, that in spring an east wind
is detestable and disreputable in every part of the world
where I have ever been. As the Englishman discovered
in Paris, that although the French had no bread, they had a
substitute called " pain " which could be used in the same way
and which answered the purpose, so I have always found
almost everywhere a very good imitation of Boston east wind ;
not quite equal to the original, but sufficient to answer the
purpose, a fact I leave to the meteorologists, at the same time
boldly affirming that a Boston winter cannot be equalled
anywhere in Europe so far as I know, and out of Eussia not
even imitated.

1852.] THE OPERA AT DRESDEN— SONTAG. 131
Since Sontag departed we have had nothing at the Opera.
She played seven nights here, of which we went six, the
seventh being a repetition of a part in which we did not
admire her the most (Eosina). The best tickets, the best
places (and wo had always the best seats in the house, owing
to a small douceur judiciously administered to the box-keeper)
cost three thalers (two dollars and fifty cents) each. You « ill
probably pay much more. It was rather an extravagance, but
Mary has not much amusement here and she is very fond of
music. I think you cannot help being pleased with Sontag,
and advise you to go very often. La Fille du Eegiment is her
best part, but she is quite charming in all. She is very pretty
at forty-seven, looks twenty-seven, is an uncommonly good
and graceful actress in light parts, and her voice, although it
is of course faded, and indeed effaced as to some of the notes,
is exceedingly sweet, and she possesses to perfection the
flowery, arabesque, decorated style of singing, which is so
rarely heard. Of course it is not equal to the passionate and
tempestuous style of the Italians, of Malibran, Pasta, Grisi, but
it comes next to that, and is at least perfect of its kind. She
was much admired here, and the house was always brimming
over, a thing which I have not seen before or since, although
the prices of the seats were tripled. She is to go to America
this summer. Lady Adelaide Forbes told me the other day
that she had informed her, she should be afraid to say what
immense offers she had received from America, for fear she
should not be believed. This reminds me that we had a
dinner-party at Mr. Forbes's, the British Minister, a few days
ago. The party was in a manner given for us, I believe, at
any rate he led Mary into the dining-room while his sister
Lady Adelaide and I brought up the rear. The dinner was
very elegant, and Mr. Forbes and his sisters were very atten
tive and polite to Mary, but they receive company very
seldom. My dear mother, I have now come to the end of my
paper. Good-bye, and God bless you, dear mother.
Your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

132 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
To Ms Mother. Dresden,
June 22nd, 1852.
Mt dearest Mother, — I really believe that your letter of
May 10th has not been answered. I am sure you will soon
write again and not punish me for my negligence by silence.
In truth the time, now that our course of life has subsided into
a monotonous current, goes by so quickly that I forget one
post day after another. I can't say " how happily the days of
Thalaba went by " as an excuse for negligence ; rather flows
the stream of time so muddily, that but little gold seems to
sparkle in the-rsand as it goes by. At any rate, when I try to
sift out a few events that may be worth the postage (fortu
nately, however, you don't have to pay it), nothing seems to
turn up but copper and lead. Spring has gone by and
summer has come. The spring was very like an American
one, and at the end of May we were surprised by a week of full
blown summer weather, just as you seem to have been at
home. It was not quite so hot here, the glass hardly rising
much above 80° or 81° Fahrenheit in the shade. Since the
month of June came in, it has rarely been much above 70°, and
there has been rain very frequently. I am afraid a cold and
rainy summer is the rule here, because I find that those who
have been long resident, complained bitterly of the heat,
during the few days of summer weather, as something they
were not used to, and didn't intend to put up with. In con
sequence it has been frigid enough ever since to satisfy an
Esquimaux. The summer is generally improved, by people
who remain in town here, in making excursions into the
country in small squads. We have been on one or two. The
Noels got up one a little while since, a picnic to an unin
habited chateau on the banks of the Elbe. I am not much of
a hand at chronicling this sort of small beer, which is apt to
get very stale when it has been once uncorked, and I had
hoped that it would furnish Lily or Mary with a topic for
a letter or two, seeing that we all complain so much of the
want of topics.

1852.] RESIDENCE AT DRESDEN— A PICNIC. 133
The excursion had been projected for a long time, and at
last on^ the day when it was finally to come off, it naturally
rained in torrents, so of course it ^as countermanded, and as
soon as that was done the weather naturally began to clear.
So Lily's friend, 0. Paget, who did duty as an aide-de
camp, general and chief clerk to the weather department,
after one or two missions, again announced that the Gesell-
schaft's wagen or company's waggon would soon be at the
door. Accordingly an enormous and wonderful Noah's Ark
soon appeared at the corner of the street. " Six doors off the
carriage staid," not so much for fear that men should say
that we were proud, as because our street was narrow, and the
machine could by no possibility be insinuated therein. It
had places inside for eighteen human beings, and outside for
three quadrupeds — rather a liberal allowance of humanity you
will think. The precious souls all agog to dash through
thick and thin, but who were obliged to dash rather mode
rately, as you may suppose, consisted generally, besides
ourselves, of the Forbes's, the Noels, the Pagets, and her
daughter-in-law and husband. Countess and Count Bethlen
from Hungary, and an English family. On reaching the
old chatee (as Mary used to pronounce the word), we were
joined there by some young ladies of the family to which
it belongs, the daughters of an old General von Miltitz.
whose ancestors have inhabited the spot for nine centuries,
as stated in a tablet on the courtyard. Their present re
sidence is a few miles further down the river, where they have
a very beautifully situated and baronial residence. The
young ladies were very pretty and agreeable, as agreeable as
they could be considering that there were none but middle-
aged beaux provided for them, and those all married. The
table for a miscellaneous entertainment was spread in the
courtyard of the castle, and just as each of the company held
a potato on his or her respective fork, down came a mag
nificent thunder-storm, which had been saving up for us all
that time. Everybody clasped his potato and plate in agony
and rushed upstairs. In inoins de rien, as we say in French,
the tables were spread in " the banquet hall deserted " of the

134 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
old chateau. Everybody having held on to his own plate as
aforesaid, was reinstated in his original rights on taking up
the new position, which in my opinion it would have been
much better to occupy at first.
I don't know that anything else very remarkable has
occurred. We met one evening at the Forbes's Lord Wynford
and his daughter. The next day they were kind enough to
call upon us. A few days afterwards they invited us to dinner,
when besides his family there were nobody but the Lady
Paulett, the Secretary of the English Legation, and another
youth belonging to some Spanish Embassy. Lord Wynford
is an uncommonly agreeable and unaffected person, and Miss
Best is also very agreeable and intelligent. They have cer
tainly been very friendly to us, and insist that we shall visit
them at their country place as soon as we come to England.
I believe these are the only new acquaintances we have made
of late. The Forbes, I fear me, will go before long. We
shall certainly go to Scotland some time or other nEierely
to visit them. Good-bye, my dearest mother. Excuse this
hurried scrawl. I will write soon again.
Love to all, and believe me
Most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

To his Mother. Dresden,
September 13th, 1852.
My dearest Mother,— I have not answered your very
kind and acceptable letter of 3rd August, the last letter which
we have received from anybody. I take it for granted that
General Pierce is destined to win next November in a canter ;
at any rate, to my unsophisticated judgment out here in the
Teutonic wilderness, I don't see how it is to be prevented.
I shall look anxiously, however, for the next intelligence to
see whether there is anything in the contemplated Southern
movements for Webster. When, however, I remember that
the Southern aristocracy is always democratic, with the ex-

1852.] RESIDENCE AT DRESDEN — THE GALLERY. 135
ception of one or two States, I confess I don't see much room
for hope. Perhaps the governor will enlighten me on the
subject. Our general life here is very calm and solitary, infinitely
more so than yours in Dedham. Our acquaintances are almost
all departed, some few to return, others for good. Our
garden is very beautiful, and I wish daily that you could see
it once in a while, for you would appreciate it. We have had
a constant succession and profusion of every flower known
to horticulture — I mean to hardy horticulture. The roses in
their season were uncommonly fine, and now there is a wilder
ness of dahlias, asters, gladioli, and day lilies, geraniums,
fuchsias, and countless others. In the midst of the garden is
a sandbank, and in the midst of the sandbank may be seen
burrowing, at any hour between noon and night, Susie and
Mary, with their friends Adolf and Lulu, children of Madame
de Eumohr, the lady who occupies the other part of our house.
I regret to say that she leaves Dresden before the winter.
Our young Prince is going to Prussia to enter the army, and
Captain de Eumohr accompanies him to Berlin. We shall
miss them all very much, for they are very amiable, kind-
hearted people. The Prince is quite a nice-looking, good-
tempered young man of twenty, with very agreeable manners.
The Captain is a very intelligent and amiable man about my
age. The eldest brother of the Prince has just assumed the
government of his principality on attaining his majority.
Waldeck is the name.
The gallery remains as much a resource as ever. I find that
I have (and Mary also) a most sincere and unlimited love for
the fine arts, and particularly for painting. I am pretty well
persuaded that the ' Madonna di San Sisto ' is the first picture
in the world. I don't think any painter has ever so well hit the
exact combination of the supernatural with the natural which
is always attempted in the face of the Infant Saviour. The
expression, without ceasing to be that of an infant, has still
something infinitely imposing and majestic. The Madonna is
faultlessly beautiful and very human, yet there is an expression
beyond humanity ; not elevated, for it is humble ; not trium-

136 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
phant, for it is sad ; but prophetic and wondering, as of a face
gazing vaguely but earnestly into the depths of the future, and
dimly conscious of the coming struggles of humanity. There
is a sentiment that the child in her arms is the Saviour and
the Judge of unborn millions ; there is the submission of a
mortal to a superhuman destiny ; there are tenderness, patience,
pathos, and transfiguration above the clouds of common
emotions ; everything, in short, which painters have from the
beginning of Christian art endeavoured to typify by that mys
terious image, the Madonna. I don't think that it is possible
to exaggerate the beauties of this picture with regard to its
suggestive effects. It has no fault as a composition, which
is a great virtue, for even Eaphael often has something which
jars upon the mind, even in his most harmonious pictures.
But here there is nothing discordant — everything is musical.
The Madonna and Child are inexpressibly beautiful and
lofty, the venerable figure of the kneeling pope is full of
piety and fervour. The Barbara is a model of grace and
modesty, and the two cherubs at the base of the picture are
exquisite expressions of innocence and infantine devotion.
As you are perfectly familiar with the composition by the
engraving, I do not apologise for speaking of the picture,
otherwise I should do so, for I hold that to have to listen to
the description of a painting of which you have never seen any
copy or sketch is an infinite nuisance. I said that this picture
was the best in the world, and I have tried to explain why I
think so. Because it is the highest flight into the regions of
the sublime and beautiful to which the mind of Eaphael ever
attained. I never wish to criticise it. It hushes'" criticism.
It ifi the only picture which awes me into silence. When I
go away I readily admit that there are many paintings much
superior as works of art. It does not compare to the ' Trans
figuration,' nor to Titian's ' Ascension,' nor to Eubens'
' Descent from the Cross,' as a finished exhibition of colour
and handling and technical power. There is in truth but
little colour, and that is fading. It looks almost like a fresco
already. The body of the Child is a mere smooch of lamp-
blacl^, the shadows are generally without transparency, except

1852.] THE MADONNA DI SAN SISTO. 137
in the drapery, which has been retouched. The face of the
Virgin, however, is exquisitely coloured, and that of the
Child, although by no means strongly painted, has still warm,
life-like tints. The truth is, the picture is a sketch wholly
from the hand of Eaphael, and dashed off in a moment of
enthusiasm. It is thought that it was painted for a banner to
be carried in a procession. Only imagine a wonder of the
world originating in such a way. Of course a standard is
only a peg above a sign.
Nothing is known of its history. Contemporary writers
don't speak of it. I don't know that there is any historical
proof that Eaphael painted it. Ten or fifteen years ago
they found that the top of the picture behind the frame
was closely rolled, and the canvas cut into such a shape
as to make it probable that it had been fastened on a
pole. This idea seems to explain the thin, sketchy, and
slight manner in which the whole was executed Eaphael,
having dashed it off at a few heats (some people talk most
ridiculously of eighteen hours as the whole time occupied
upon it), probably thought it good enough for a banner, and
gave it to the monks of Piacenza without thinking more of
the matter. And in the refectory of the jolly friars it re
mained till the middle of the last century, when it was
purchased for $20,000. I suppose it would be worth a king's
ransom now if offered for sale, and kings have risen lately as
well as Eaphaels.
The engraving by Miiller gives a very good idea of the
composition. Even that old thing which we left at home,
which you have often seen, an impression taken after the
plate had been retouched over and over again, and was almost
worn through, is worth looking at. It is, perhaps, the best
engraving which was ever made of any picture. Of course
you can form no idea of the value by looking at one of
these worn-out impressions. Ours has nothing left of the
original power or beauty of the engraving, it serves only as
a memorandum of the composition. It cost $5. The value of
a copy before the letter, when it can be found, is 1000 thalers,
say $750. I don't mean to purchase one even if I find it.

138 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
The King has got six, but I have not heard that he thinks
of sending one to me ! Miiller's engraving is really a work
of genius. Yet one would think the engraver's profession
must make a man of genius frantic. To work upside down,
scratching away upon a half-covered plate of copper with a
kind of cobbler's awl, producing no effect from day to day,
being obliged to wait so long before an opinion as to the
result can be formed, must be a severe trial to the nerves, and
seems enough to drive an impatient person mad. And by
the way Miiller did go mad over this very engraving. Poor
fellow ! he was so excited, exhausted, and used up after
finishing it that his brain was turned. He jumped off a
precipice and broke his neck.
Besides the gallery, there are a great many other remark
able collections in Dresden. These and the beautiful en
virons of the city have made its fame. The engraving
cabinet is perhaps the best in the world. It contains four
hundred thousand prints, comprising a full history and exem
plification of the progress of the art, and of course a large
supply of all that is most masterly and curious and celebrated
among its achievements. Then there is the collection of
rarities and objets de gout and jewellery, called the Green
Vault, the name given to a series of rooms in the royal
palace where the remarkable museum of trinkets is kept. All
sorts of beautiful toys, statuettes, drinking cups, carved in
ivory ; exquisite cabinets and caskets of every age, of mother-
of-pearl, agate, amber, ivory, buhl and ormolu, adorned with
topazes, emeralds, rubies, carbuncles, sometimes of very con
siderable value; magnificent goblets and basins of silver,
carved, engraved, embossed by the hands of the most eminent
jewellers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; beautiful
paintings in enamel, splendid vases, clocks in Louis XIV.
style, and in style much earlier and much richer than that
of Louis XIV., with numerous puppets once bobbing about
and performing all sorts of antics in obedience to the same
machinery which moved the hands, but now silent and
motionless, run down and worn out, used up for ever ; splendid
tables of Florentine mosaics, jars and obelisks of jasper, sar-

1852,] DRESDEN— THE GREEN VAULTS. 139
donyx and chalcedon ; drinking horns, baptismal fonts, layers
and wine coolers, all of beaten gold; caskets of elaborate
workmanship crusted all over with beryls, sapphires, diamonds,
and rubies as thickly as Aaron's breastplate or ephod, or
whatever you call it, which contained all the precious stones
in the world, besides others ; bushels of intaglios and cameos,
both antique and modern ; curious cuttings in wood and ala
baster, two small and very singular landscapes or hunting
pieces in waxwork, so minutely done that the leaves on the
trees, the nails in the horses' shoes, the lace on the riders'
ruffles are distinctly finished.
Perhaps, however, the most remarkable part of the col
lection is the complete department of the works of Dinglinger,
the Saxon Benvenuto Cellini, a man who wasted a good deal
of real genius and the whole of his life in the production
of these curious and exquisite, but, after all, somewhat taste
less toys. There are whole rows of monster pearls, some
of them as large as a pullet's egg, but so mis-shapen and
imbedded in their shells as to be inseparable from them.
These, according to the taste of the seventeenth century,
have been made use of as caricatures, legs and arms, heads
and wings having been ingeniously fitted to them, so
that they furnish counterfeit presentiments of little niggers,
Dutch women skating, cobblers and pedlars, humpbacks and
cripples, dragons, goblins, and chimeras dire with tails and
without, and a whole wilderness of monkeys, lizards, toads,
and other oddities, as curious and expensive a collection of
gew-gaws as could well be found in Christendom, and a most
wonderful baby house, not without beauty, and even utility,
in its way, but one not likely to be formed again by anybody.
Perhaps the most curious thing in the whole museum is a
representation of the Court of the Grand Mogul Aurengzeb,
who sits on his throne in the centre, and is surrounded by
hundreds of figures in every variety of costume known to that
region as described by travellers. This is Dinglinger 's master
piece. It occupied him seven years (from a.d. 1701-1708),
and he received for it 59,000 thalers, about $45,000. Certainly
an expensive toy. Ask the governor to calculate how much

140 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
the money would have come to if kept in the savings bank
to this day. For his behoof I have given the date as above.
The ' Madonna di San Sisto ' was a better speculation viewed
in that ignoble light, but I doubt if Dinglinger's chef d'oeuvre
would bring much if offered for sale now.
The old Electors of Saxony had a turn for the magnificent.
I could fill a dozen more sheets by telling you of the different
museums which they have here. The armour collection is re
markably fine, for example — one of the first in Europe. The
Elector Christian IL, who died at the close of the sixteenth
century, had no less than ten suits of armour, of which one
was by the most celebrated armourer of Germany, Holman of
Augsburg, and another was by the world-renowned Benvenuto
Cellini. This last is a most interesting object of art, and
stamped throughout with the genius of that remarkable per
sonage. It is a complete panoply for the horse and rider, is of
hammered steel, and is covered all over with the most exquisite
sculpture or alto relievo, representing the wars of the gods, the
combats of centaurs, and other mythological battles, all pour-
trayed with the boldness, accuracy, and beauty which always
distinguishes the hand of the man who made the statue of
Perseus at Florence. After all, it is a luxury to have your toys
by Dinglinger, your Madonnas by Eaphael, and your coats of
armour by Benvenuto Cellini. Those Saxon princes, obscure
as they were, except in the Lutheranism which they have
since repudiated, certainly knew how to spend their money
like gentlemen.
And now add to the advantages here enumerated a magni
ficent library of 450,000 volumes, and very excellent oppor
tunities for education, besides a very beautiful and picturesque
country surrounding the city in all directions, and you will
understand why Dresden is so often selected as a residence.
It is a dull little place no doubt, but I like it the better for
that. It is better for dull little people like ourselves. If I
could get the hang of it, I could live as well for $2500 as in
Boston for $5000. Unfortunately it always takes as much
time as you can spare for a place to learn to live in it. The
children and Mary are all well, and send much love to you

1852.] RESIDENCE AT DRESDEN. 141
and the governor, and to all. Susie's mind is beginning to
expand. She told me last night that when she was a thousand
millions years old she should know how to sew, and should be
as big as the washerwoman. Eather a commonplace result to
contemplate through so long a vista. Good-bye, my dear
mother. My paper is exhausted, and your patience.
Ever affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

To his Father. Dresden,
May 18th, 1852.
My dear Father,— My last despatch was, I think, about a
month ago, and included a letter to Tom, and another to
mother. Since that time we have had the pleasure of receiv
ing a letter from Susan and another from Lodge. There has
literally been nothing on our side of the world to communi
cate. Political events and general news reach you from the
great centres of intelligence quite as soon as they do us.
There is so little active existence, and so little interest felt, or
allowed to be felt, in what is going on in the world around,
that one soon finds the old-fashioned drowsy Eip Van Winkle
feeling coming over him, and begins to think on the whole
that it is better to be governed than to govern, to accept a
paternal government as ordained from heaven, and to behave
as good boys should, go to bed at ten, shut the door after you,
smoke a pipe, drink a pot of beer, listen every day to a
groschen-worth of instrumental music, never allude to politics,
nor to anything which interests grown-up men, but leave all
that to your betters, and rely for your personal and political
rights on the Emperor of Eussia, and Austria, and the police,
and so "easy live and quiet die," as comfortable burghers
should. There is something almost refreshing in the utter inanity
which seems to form the atmosphere of these peoples' lives,
which is refreshing for a time, after the noisy splutter
ing politics which constitute our vital elements. I don't

142 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
think I should like it always, but now occupied as I am ten
hours a day, with folks who lived three centuries ago, it is
rather a convenience than otherwise not to have my attention
taken off by anything that is going on about me. It is a
comfort, as I can't make speeches or write articles in the
newspapers (if I wished) against General Haynau, or Emperor
Nicholas, or President Bonaparte, to be able to pitch into the
Duke of Alva and Philip the Second to my heart's content.
It is quite satisfactory to express sentiments, which if I had
the advantage of living three hundred years ago, and had had
the audacity to express myself as freely, would have entitled
me to be burned alive on an average twice a day, and to
know that the only martyrdom I am likely to experience is
that of not finding a publisher for my treason, for fear that it
won't pay ; tho only rack that of being roasted on the gridiron
of some singeing, scorching, red-hot review.
I have just finished volume No. 2, begun since I was esta
blished here, that is about a seven months' child. A year more
will carry me as far as I mean to go alone, particularly as the
expense of publishing three volumes at my own risk, which
perhaps I shall be obliged to do, will be as much as I shall
choose to venture. I don't fear much of a loss, although I
shan't stand much chance of making a fortune. At the same
time I don't care to venture much more. Money is a thing
of which I haven't quite as much to spare as time and labour.
These I am very profuse with. Time they say is money. No
doubt of it, only I never could get mine into active circulation.
Labour is the foundation of all value. Equally certain it is,
then, that I have been digging a cellar big enough, and lay
ing a foundation extensive enough, for a most valuable edifice,
if one would only brings his pigs to market. Still there is
something very healing in these portable maxims. You can
always stick one like a piece of court plaster over the wounds
of your vanity. Moreover it should never be forgotten that
Milton's ' Paradise Lost ' was sold for £5, that Samuel Johnson's
' Dictionary ' brought him in about as much for his labour as if
he had been sawing wood or sweeping a crossing. Further
more Galileo confessed before the Inquisition that the earth

1852.] PROGRESS OF THE HISTORY. 143
didn't move, and Harvey was laughed at for circulating a
story about the circulation of the blood ; so whenever a char
latan can't find and believe in his tricks of mesmerism or
biologism, or whatever may be the latest neologism, when a
literary blockhead can't sell a book, he has only to call from
the vasty deep the spirits of Milton and Galileo and Harvey,
Dr. Johnson and Dr. Jenner, and all the rest. They are sure
to come when called for, being no doubt Ijy this time quite
used to the business ; though they probably think that their
last condition is worse than their first, being thus ol^liged to
console and sanction so much mediocrity. So if a man can't
make anything of his writings, it proves nothing but that he
is probably a second Milton in disguise.
I wish you would say to Mr. Ticknor, with my particular
regards, that I should have written to him before this, as
a slight acknowledgment of the friendly interest he took in
providing me with introductions and advice before starting,
but that I was really ashamed to write so very uninteresting
a letter from Europe as mine must necessarily be at present.
To one's immediate family one can write about oneself, but
it is a most disagreeable and barren topic to me, and ^e
live so retired, and see so little, that beyond the incidents
of our family circle there is nothing to state. Wo might
as well be on the Charles as on the Elbe ; at the same
time I have enough time to do my work, and the children,
particularly Lily, who is really making progress, are very
well disposed of. I have not (as Mr. Ticknor knows, I be
lieve), presented myself at Court. Mr. Forbes and his
sisters, owing to the letters given by Mr. Ticknor and Mrs.
Eitchie, have been very friendly, invited us to a dinner, and
offered all that we can require whenever we wish to go into
general society. Moreover please say to Mr. Ticknor, that
after the Court festivities were finished, I thought it proper to
pay my respects to Prince John of Saxony,* who is a regular
correspondent and friend of Mr. Ticknor. I called in com
pany with my friend Noel on Baron O'Bryan (not an Irishman,
but of Irish distraction), the head chamberlain of the Prince.
' Subsequently King of Saxony, father of the present King.

144 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
A few days afterwards the said Baron called on me in a
friendly way, and said the Prince would be happy to receive
me the next day informally. I went accordingly, and had
an interview of half an hour with his Highness, who re
ceived me with great kindness. Mr. Ticknor had been good
enough to mention me to him, and he hoped therefore, as I
purposed staying another year, to cultivate my acquaintance,
etc., etc. He spoke with much affection and respect of Mr.
Ticknor, and alluded in terms of high praise to his History.
He also spoke of Prescott's works, particularly the ' Conquest of
Mexico,' with admiration. Please also by the way to inform
Prescott, that if I meet with anybody, prince or plebeian, who
don't ask me about him, I will be sure to write and let him
know. It will be rather refreshing than otherwise. I find by
the way that his Highness had just that morning received a
fresh letter from Mr. Ticknor, which he had not had time to
read, but of these matters of course there is no need of my
writing. As Mr. Ticknor by the way has so good a corre
spondent at Dresden, it would hardly be necessary for me to
apologise for not troubling him. You are perhaps aware that
the said Prince John would have been a distinguished pro
fessor, if he had not happened to be born in the purple. It is
not as a Prince merely, that his acquaintance was worth culti
vating. Mr. Ticknor might have • said to him, as Voltaire did
to Congreve when he was disposed to sink the shop and put
on the fine gentleman, " If you had only your genteel birth,
it would have been long before I should have sought your
acquaintance." Prince John's translation of Dante's 'Divina
Commedia ' has really great merit. The notes and illustra
tions, furnishing a running commentary on that great poem,
have been translated and are much esteemed in Italy. He
certainly received me with great politeness, and I beg you to
express my thanks to Mr. Ticknor for having taken so much
trouble about us, which our inclination for retirement and
obscurity has prevented our turning to so much account as we
should have done.
Our society consists principally of the persons already
introduced to you in previous letters. The Noels (Mrs. N.

1852.] LIFE AT DRESDEN. 145
by the way is a near relation and friend of Mr. Ticknor's
friends, the Counts Thun, she is a Bohemian and a very
amiable person), the Pagets, the Mellys (Americans') and the
Forbes's. These last, a mother and two daughters, are distant
relations, and intimate acquaintances of the Minister here.
They are the most affectionate people in the world. Lily
speaks French certainly as well as I do, and begins to speak
German very tolerably, and in general matters she is in quite
a satisfactory condition of mental health and improvement.
Mary has not yet found a school. We have sent her to
a kindergarten (child's garden), but this is nothing more than
an infant's school, and she already reads German better
than the little children there. Speaking, too, she can prac
tise with her little Eumohr friends and neighbours, and
the bonne is quite competent to give her lessons. As for
Susie she is as sweet and saucy as ever, much the most
amiable of all the children, and therefore much the more
spoiled. She takes a great deal of spoiling, ^\•hich I consider
high praise. Lily and I took a long walk yesterday in the
Grosser Garten, or Park. When we got back about seven in
the afternoon she said : " This is just the time I used to go
and sit with grandmamma on the piazza, I wish I could go to
night." You may be sure I echoed the wish most heartily,
though hopelessly. Most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

To Ms Father. Dresden,
December 23rd, 1852.
My DEAR Father, — Our life is as usual monotonous, fur
nishing few topics for letters. I am working as hard as a
wood sawyer, and am of course as independent as his clerk.
I find the atmosphere congenial to literary labour, or perhaps
because my time is so wholly my own, I have it more m
my power to make long pulls without getting out of the
traces. I dare say, like the remarkable cab horse immor-
L

VOL. I.

146 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
talised by Pickwick, I should fall flat if taken out of the
shafts, and I only keep up because I keep a-going. That
you may see that this is not an idle brag so far as work
goes, I will state that I have written a volume since the 13th
July of this year, one which will make rather a large printed
octavo, and which is the second that I have written since
I came to Dresden. As this labour includes of course the
digging out of raw material out of subterranean depths of
black-letter folios in half a dozen different languages, all
which works are dark, grimy, and cheerless as coal pits, you
may suppose that I am not likely to be a very agreeable
customer when I come out of my diggings. The worst of it
is when a man is smashing quartz with a sledge hammer he
gets paid for his pains ; but here am I working away with my
pick-axe or sifting painfully the sand of buried ages over
which the river of Time has so long been flowing, and yet I
don't know whether I shall at last find a few grains of pure gold
in my cradle, to' reward me for my labours. Metaphorically, of
course, not literall)^, for I don't employ myself in writing and
studying history to make money out of it. " Base " as the
"slave who pays" is the slave who pursues money and not
truth in any scientific field.
But I confess that I have not been working under ground
for so long without hoping that I may make some few people
in the world wiser and better by my labour. This must be
the case whenever a man honestly " seeks the truths in ages
past " to furnish light for the present and future track. And
if you only get enough oil to feed a very small lamp it
is better than nothing. A little lantern may help you to
find an honest man or so in the dark corridor of history ; but
not if you look for them in the spirit of Diogenes. It is
always much harder to find commendable than accusable
characters in the world, partly perhaps because the world
likes better to censure than to commend. I flatter myself
that I have found one great, virtuous and heroic character,
William the First of Orange, founder of the Dutch Ee
public. This man, who did the work of a thousand men every
year of his life, who was never inspired by any personal

1852.] DEATH OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 147
ambition, but who performed good and lofty actions because
he was born to do them, just as other men have been born to
do nasty ones, deserves to be better understood than I believe
him to have been by the world at large. He is one of the
very few men who have a right to be mentioned in the same
page with Washington.
Christmas, Saturday. — I was interrupted the day before
yesterday, and my letter has lain unfinished in my drawer till
now. ... I have the greatest sympathy for you and the
country for the loss of Daniel Webster. It is one which
can never be made good to us. He was not only the
greatest living statesman, but the greatest whom we ever
produced in America, so much beyond all of them past and
present in intellectual force, that it is hardly a compliment to
speak of him as first among the political men of the country.
Very little is known of him in Europe. On the Continent few
have ever heard his name. One literary old maid, who has
written and published books, asked me if he was not one of
our principal poets, and then when I laughed, confessed she
had never heard of him. Yet she had lived fifteen years in
England. The English had of course heard of him, and he
was known to the statesmen ; but nobody imagines that he was
a personage to be compared to their great men, and probably
not one hundred men on the continent of Europe has ever read
a line of his speeches, if indeed there be as many who knew
that he ever made any. The fact is, no interest is felt in
America or American institutions among the European public.
America is as isolated as China. Nobody know s or cares any
thing about its men, or its politics, or its conditions. It is,
however, known and felt among the lower classes, that it is a
place to get to out of the monotonous prison house of Philis
tines, in which the great unwashed of Europe continue to
grind eternally. Very little is known of the country, and
very little respect is felt for it, but the fact remains that
Europe is decanting itself into America, a great deal more
rapidly than is to be wished by us.
When I say that nothing is known about America, I am
wrono-. Everybody kno«-s that slavery exists there, for every-

148 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
body in Germany has read ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' I am
glad of it, because I believe the only way the curse is ever
to be taken from the nation is by creating such an atmo
sphere all round the Slave States, that a slaveholder may
not be able to thrust his nose outside his own door without
scenting that the rankness of his offence is tainting every
wind of heaven. The only way in which the system can
cease to exist is, it seems to me, by working the children of
the present slaveholders. The coming generation in each
of the fifteen Slave States are the people who must grapple
with this question ; but the question won't be staved off for a
third. It is all up for your generation or for mine. If one
or two States, like Kentucky and Tennessee, should come to
abolish the system and should succeed, well ; afterwards the
great obstacles would be removed. Of course, the blaCk race is
not by nature capable of social or intellectual equality with
the white ; nor have they ever desired it so far as I know.
But it is begging the question to say they will be insolent,
and that they won't work after emancipation. Certainly they
are orderly enough and industrious in Massachusetts. Besides
slavery is an immense crime, while refusing social equality is
a matter of taste, and is only denying to the blacks that which
does not exist, and never did exist anywhere with regard to
the whites. But here in Europe nobody knows anything
about the matter, saving only that slavery exists. They have
no idea that America is a confederation of States, each of
which States is competent to establish and abolish slavery at
its pleasure, and that the general government has no power to
do one or the other. I believe everybody in Europe thinks,
so far as he thinks at all, most of them contenting themselves
with bragging, that the President of the United States could
abolish slavery to-morrow by an edict, just as the Emperor of
the T'rench abolished the Eepublic by half a dozen lines of
proclamation, or if that can't be, nobody goes so deep as to
conceive a doubt that the Congress could abolish it as easily
as it could pass a tariff law.
To revert to Webster. I hope you will send me Hillard's
eulogy, and also his and the other speeches which were made

1853.] LIFE AT DRESDEN. 149
formally. I always take great interest in everything Hillard
writes or says, for I have great respect and regard for him.
As for thinking of America without Webster, it seems like
thinking of her without Niagara, or the Mississippi or any
other of the magnificent natural features which had belonged
to her since I grew up, and seemed likely to endure for ever.
You see now why I don't write oftener. It is absolutely im
possible to amuse or edify under my circumstances, and there
fore I have no self-reproach to make for being silent longer
than I should be if I had anything to say. Here I ha^-e
written three or four pages of stuff which would have been bad
enough if uttered between sleep and wake at the fireside
corner, but which deliberately put upon paper " is enough," as
Mr. Macaulay says of Bob Southey's printed pleasantries, " to
make a man ashamed of his species." Therefore I will now
pause for a reply. Very affectionately your son,
J. L. M.
P.S. — Up to this time we have had no more snow nor cold
weather than we often have at home in October. The grass is
perfectly green in the fields, which stretch out before my study
window as far as Saxon Switzerland. Please to say to Mr. Cabot
that his young friend and kinsman, Mr. Higginson, presented
himself not long ago to us. He is a very honest, ingenuous,
intelligent lad, who is taking a vacation on account of his
eyes. He comes and dines whenever he chooses, ^vhich is
generally once a week, and he dines with us to-day, Christmas.
Please tell his father I am happy to have made his son's
acquaintance.

To his Mother. Dresden,
February 3rd, 1853.
My dearest Mother. — We jog on as usual, the days and
nights succeeding and certifying each other with the regu
larity of your kitchen clock. The monotony of our life was
interrupted a little while ago by our going to Court, and

150 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
perhaps you will think that I ought to send you a minute
description of the ceremony. But to tell you the truth, these
things are to me so insipid that I am unable to extract juice
enough out of them to flavour a letter ^ith. I wish I could
tell you anything that would entertain you concerning our
presentation on New Year's Day, and the Court ball which
followed the succeeding week. But I do lack something of
the gamesome spirit which enables one to be amusing on such
topics. Besides I prefer to leave the details to Mary, who
vnll wake from her slumbers one of these days and send,
either to you or to S  or A  L  , an account of her
achievements. The palace here is a rambling old barrack
externally, but within, the rooms are spacious and sufficiently
elegant. The principal apartments have been recently painted
in fresco by an artist called Bendemann, who is thought by
the Germans to be inferior only to Eaphael and Eubens. The
frescoes have certainly considerable merit as far as drawing and
grouping are concerned, but in grace and colour they are not
above mediocrity.
The King and Queen receive masculine friends on New
Year's morning. His Majesty is a mild old gentleman,
wadded and bolstered into very harmonious proportions. He
has a single tooth worn carelessly on one side, which some
what interferes with his eloquence. I do not think that I
took notes enough of his conversation to be able to give
you a report. He was glad to hear in answer to a question
that I proposed passing the winter here. And as I felt how
much unalloyed satisfaction the circumstance must really
cause to his bosom, I internally resolved not to change my
plan. The Queen is very tall and very queenly. Nothing
can be more elegant or more winning than her manner. She
is, I believe, very benignant in character, and certainly her
address is perfectly in accordance therewith. I am not at
liberty to mention her conversation with myself. Indeed I
did not tmderstand a single word she said, and was entirely
ignorant in what language she was speaking, but I have since
ascertained that it was probably French. This is a general
observation. She speaks in so low a tone and with such a

1853.] THE SAXON COURT. 151
kind of gentle roucoulement that it is almost impossible to catch
her words with any distinctness except after considerable
practice. The King and Queen have no children. The heir
to the throne is Prince John, whom I have already described
to you. He made many inquiries of me again about
Mr. Ticknor, for whom he certainly entertains a sincere
friendship. He is more fortunate as a pere de famille than
his brother, his progeny sing, " Wo are seven." Two of the
princesses (Anna and Sidonie) are very pretty. The ball was
not particularly brilliant. The costumes of the gentlemen
were slightly shabby. Those of the ladies were not remark
able. The royal party were of course well dressed. The
Queen wore a magnificent tiara of diamonds. The Princess
Augusta was in a green blaze, being covered with the most
gorgeous emeralds I ever saw. Some few of the high Court
ladies were well jewelled also, but the rank and file were
rather ill-dressed so far as I could judge.
Turning from the fair women to the brave men, it was
funny to observe the profusion of orders and decorations with
which every other person was covered. There were the states
men of world-wide reputation, the sages and law-givers on
whose accents the world hangs with enthusiasm, the generals
of a hundred stricken fields in which the fate of empires has
been decided, whose names I cannot yet give you, because I
have not ascertained them, but they must all be as eminent
as Metternich or Talleyrand, Wellington or Bliicher, Marshal
Ney or King IMurat, to judge from the trophies on their
bosoms. Each manly chest, like the spacious firmament on
high, was covered ^^ith stars innumerable. I am quite
satisfied that they are all destined for immortality. As 1
before observed, there is something like constraint in the
general atmosphere of one of the balls. The etiquette is
perhaps more formal since the reaction after '48. I suppose
it is thought necessary to effect thorough repairs in the
divinity which hedges kings, the said hedge having had so
many gaps made in it by irreverent poachers in latter days.
So the good people all fall back, opening to the right and left,
standing (not at ease) on both sides of the ball-room, when

152 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
it is understood that their Majesties and the august family
are approaching. After a little preliminary flourish and
flutter, you hear two or three mysterious raps (something like
your spiritual knockings, I suppose), and then enters the
royal cortege, headed by an old chamberlain with a gold stick
in his hand, the personage who, from his high rank or great
services or his imposing bald head, is supposed to be the
most " fit and desartless man " for Court Constable. After this
Dogberry in high life come a few Court cards, whose costumes
look a deal like those of Tommy Crehore's after the pack has
seen a little service. Then come their Majesties with the
rest of the family, bowing to the right and left with great
benignity, and making happy "the upturned wondering
looks " of the mortals who fell back to gaze on them. They
pass, and the solemn hush is succeeded by a chatter of relief.
The ducks, who have been rolling their eyes as the thunder
storm was passing (as is their well-known nature), now begin
to quack again and to waddle about and to expatiate gene
rally, till another rap and another gathering cloud in the
distance makes all silent once more.
This is thought very good fun in Dresden and in many
other places, and no doubt some amusement may be extracted
from such scenes, but then you must have more inclination
and more time to make acquaintances than I have. I work
like a m.ule all day long, a»d I am therefore not equal to the
fatigue of requesting introductions and making myself agree
able to the big-wigs. You will naturally ask why, having
these dispositions or indispositions, we take the trouble to go
out at all. My reasons are twain — one furnished by Lord
Bacon, the other by some anonymous philosopher of almost
equal wisdom. The sage of Verulam enumerates among the
things for a traveller to see and study, " the courts of kings
and princes." As Mary has never been in Europe before,
and as we could go through the kindness of Mr. Forbes with
very little trouble, I thought it best that she should take
the opportunity. Your most affectionate son,
J. L. M.

1853.] MARRIAGE OF PRINCESS VASA. 153
Tell Uncle Edward that my next letter will be to him. I
am ashamed that I have not written to him for so long, because
I know it gives him pleasure, and I should like to give him
all the amusement in my power. I have been so dull myself,
and at the same time working so hard, that I have let a long
time slip by without writing anything but my book, which will
be finished this week, that is to say Part I., in three or four
volumes, and all perhaps that will ever be written, unless its
publication gives me encouragement to continue. Part I. is
a complete whole in itself, therefore posterity will not be
injured by a total stoppage. Affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

To Ms Mother. Dresden,
June 30th, 1853.
My dearest Mother, — We have, contrary to my expecta
tions, been obliged once more to turn out at Court. We have
been marrying the Princess Vasa to the eldest son of Prince
John, and heir eventually to the Saxon crown, or throne rather,
for there is no crown. This young lady was, as you may have
read in the papers, the object of Louis Napoleon's aspirations.
The Princess Vasa is of a family which was sovereign for three
centuries, having risen from obscurity in the early part of the
16th century, in the person of Gustavus Vasa, a man of great
talents and very humble birth. This is but a brief pedigree
to brag of, particularly as the be-all of the end-all is already
arrived at, and it must be confessed that in any historical or
philosophical sense the house of Bonaparte is more illustrious
per se, according to the common notions of illustrations, than
that of Vasa.
The Swedish family is however connected by numerous
alliances with all the potentates of Europe, and is a recognised
party to the family compact which unites all the Lord's
anointed into a band of brethren and sisters. The present

154 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V,
marriage was one of affection, a rare thing among people in
their line of life. Prince Albert, a fine^ manly young man,
fell in love with the young lady, a pretty, pleasing, gentle
young damsel of eighteen. The reception in the town was
early in the forenoon of the 18th of this month by a cavalcade
of burghers, peasants, and military. The streets were very
prettUy decorated, the houses being hung with garlands, and
triumphal arches as smart as paint and gilding could make
them, and the citizens all putting on their best attire and
culling forth a holiday in the most approved fashion.
The nuptials were solemnised in the Catholic church. All
persons who had been presented at Court were invited to the
wedding. It was also intimated that the ladies were to go in
trains, and be presented to the bride afterwards at a drawing-
room to be held at the palace, between which and the church
adjoining there is a gallery of communication. Mary had
however already turned her train into a gown, and was not
inclined to buy another, and you may suppose that I was most
happy to escape the dravsing-room. It was well known that
many people would go to the marriage and to the ball a few
days afterwards without going to the presentation. We sent
an excuse therefore, like many others, and received tickets for
the body of the church instead of the gallery, where the
ladies in full dress were accommodated. In the nave below, the
ladies, all much dressed, of course, but in morning costume,
were arranged on one side, and the gentlemen, all in uniform,
military, civil, or diplomatic, on the other. The day was fine,
the hour about noon. The church is spacious but modern,
and of no great beauty of architecture or richness in decora
tion. The grand altar was a blaze of light. Numerous
candles, glittering sacramental furniture, and the splendid
robes of the priests made a very effective show, at the end of a
long vista, formed by a vast tulip bed of gaUy dressed ladies
thickly planted in rows upon one side, and by a noble army of
fine gentlemen, gorgeous as hollyhocks, on the other.
At the appointed moment, the bishop, with his mitre on his
head, his crozier in his hand, an effulgent gown of brocade
embroidered with gold on his back, and a lackadaisical simper.

1853.] MARRIAGE OF PRINCE ALBERT AND PRINCESS VASA. 155
intended to be a general benediction for the world at large,
heretics excepted, upon his pumpkin face, set forth from the
high altar, followed by a string of highly-bedizened eccle
siastics. The procession passed close to me, as I was fortunate
enough to have a place at the end of one of the benches or
pews directly upon the principal nave. (Mary on her side
of the church was equally fortunate.) The clerical procession
went forth to the main door in order to meet the bridal party,
which was now advancing through the gallery above, and which,
though invisible to us, was sufficiently manifest in its effect
upon the serried ranks of the ladies in the galleries. A general
rustle and flutter of the whole throng, a simultaneous bending
of feathered heads like the swaying of a field of ripe corn when
the summer breeze passes over it (my similes seem to be very
agricultural this morning), made it obvious that the glorious
presence was revealing itself to them, although it was yet
hidden to the upturned eyes of mortals who were gazing from
below. Directly afterwards the two streams mingled at the
church door. The bishop received the royal party and coun
termarched them all to the altar. So the whole procession
advanced through the aisle for our gratification. First came
the said bishop, his head bobbing from side to side with an
expression of " goneness." Then came the mob of ecclesiastics.
They were followed by a long train of menials in brand-new
clothes. The royal livery being a most intense yellow, this
swarm of lackeys looked like a flock of gigantic canary birds.
After these came a troop of underlings in sky-blue habili
ments, a set of officials occupying a middle position between
servants and gentlemen, household divinities of one kind or
another, ushers, inspectors, or what not. Then the grand
dignitaries of the kingdom, in fullest fig, made their appear
ance, chief marshals, lord chamberlains, ministers of state,
gold sticks and silver sticks, equerries and cup bearers, all
" fine " as Adam, Ealph, and Gregory.
Thus heralded came the King and Queen, followed by the
young and pretty bride, wearing a wreath of diamonds and
orange flowers on her head, and walking between her mother
and her future lather-in-law. Prince John. Her train was

156 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V.
held up by her future sister-in-law, young Princess Sidonie,
who is very good and very handsome. Her train again was
held up by her lady of honour who came behind her. Various
princesses and grand duchesses followed in like manner, all
staggering under loads of diamonds and all strung together
by their long satin tails. Then came the bridegroom with
his friends and relations of the masculine gender, looking
as little sheepish as could have been expected under such
trying circumstances. In due time the party were arranged
round the altar, the two sufferers got themselves comfort
ably on their knees, and the ceremony began. The good
bishop, thinking it necessary in compliment to his company
to be as "tedious as a king," held forth at a most un
merciful length. But as all things come to an end, so did
his exhortation, and at last the booming of cannon and the
rattle of musketry outside, with a magnificent Te Deum
thundered forth by the organ within, announced to the world
that the marriage was complete. Soon afterwards, the same
procession again moved down the aisle, and up through the
galleries into the palace. Those who had chosen to go to
the drawing-room went upstairs after them. The rest of us
went home to dinner.
On the following evening there was a very general and
effective illumination of the town. On the next evening
there was an opera at the theatre, to which no tickets were
sold, all being distributed by the Court. To this " theatre
pare," as it is called, because everybody must go in full
Court dress, we received tickets, but could not go as it was
on Sunday. On the next was the Court ball, at which we
made our appearance, and which was a particularly brilliant
one by reason of the numerous foreign princes and dignitaries
who were present. Among these the observed of all observers
was the Duke of Genoa, brother of the Kins: of Sardinia. He
is very handsome and picturesque in appearance, looking like
a' knight of old, such as Titian might have painted, having
the chcvaleresque air which befits a man who has fought well
in the field for Italian nationality against Austrian tyranny,
as becomes a son of Charles Albert, and a scion of a house

1853.] COURT FESTIVITIES. 157
\\hich, almost alone in Europe, recognises the possession of
political liberty by its subjects.
I had hoped that Mary would have mustered up energy to
send you a description of these fine doings. It would have
been a topic which she would have described with much more
vivacity and emotion. I am not good at these gauds. In
truth, they weary me beyond measure, but I think JMary
would have made a grand mistake not to "have improved the
opportunity of seeing what she could for once in a way of the
humours of a Court. This ceremony of a royal marriage too
(and a Catholic one) does not often turn up for outsiders, and
she was very much pleased and interested. As for me, I am
Mackintoshed into impermeability and such things all descend
upon me, and run off leaving me as dry as ever.
Ever your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

158 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI.

CHAPTEE VI.
PUBLICATION OP THE 'RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
m
The Hague — Residence at Brussels — Mr. Motley's daughters — Letter to 0. W.
Holmes — Daily life at Brussels — Companions of past generations — The
River Senne — The Archives — Literary silkworms — Rubens and his art —
The Shakespeare of painting— Arrival in London — Mr. Forsyth — Prelimi
naries of publication — John Murray — English and American politics com
pared — Preparations for publication — Mr. Prescott— Frankfort — Basel — Visit
to Herr von Bismarck — His character and career — His family life — Return to
England — An English hotel — Florence- Theodore S. Fay — Paris under
Louis Napoleon — Americans in Florence — Miss Alexander — Thomas Ball —
Mr. Motley's constitutional melancholy — Description of Florence — Her
brilliant past — Her achievements and her feuds — Her present condition —
Publication of the ' History of the Dutch Republic ' — Mr. Prescott's praise of
it — Criticisms in the English and in the American press — Sorrento — Letters
about the History from T. S. Fay — 0. W. Holmes — C. C. Felton — Letter to
O. W. Holmes on his poem — Letters about the History from G. Bancroft
and Washington Irving. To Ms Mother. Brussels,
November 20th, 1853.
My dearest Mother, — The six weeks we passed at the
Hague were pleasant for Mary and the children, and useful
for me. The children were ducked in the North Sea, and
I was buried in the deej) bosom of the Dutch Archives,
much to the invigoration of all. The Hague is a mild,
stagnant, elegant, drowsy, tranquil, clean, umbrageous little
capital smothered in foliage, buried in an ancient forest, with
the downs thrown up by the North Sea surging all round it,
and the ocean rolling beyond. We made a good many
pleasant acquaintances at the Tables d'hote, where Susie was
the observed of all observers. The hotel where we stayed had
its dinner at 5 p.m., and as there were not many foreigners
staying there, the company were principally of the natives
and of the very best class. Many members of the Chamber

1853.] RESIDENCE AT BRUSSELS. 159
of Deputies and of the Senate, Ex- Ambassadors, and Cabinet
Ministers were constantly there and all were exceedingly
cordial, affable and agreeable. A very warm attachment
sprang up between Susie and an old gentleman named Donker
Curtius, the Minister of Justice, who was exceedingly diverted
with her talk and her comicalities at table.
Our Charge d'affaires there, Mr. Folsom, and his wife, were
very polite to us. Mary drove out with them almost daily,
and the children were all very intimate with each other, and
got on very well together. Since we have been here they
passed through the town, where they dined with us and spent
the evening. They have now gone to Italy to spend the
winter. Our friends, the Forbes's, of whom you have heard us
speak so often and with whom we have been intimate so long-
in Dresden, came here as much as anything to visit us, and
have just terminated their stay here, having left for England
by the way of Antwerp two or three days ago. We are now
entirely alone, and we do not wish to make any acquaintances.
Of course I came here to study in the Library and Archives.
It is, however, as good a place as we could find for the
children to learn French. Paris would be out of the question
from its dearness, but we have found a most excellent little
day school, kept by a lady from Paris.
You asked me to tell you of the children when I wrote. To
begin with Lily. She is improving very much in character
and is much more willing to be gentle than she used to be.
Mary is constitutionally irritable, but she is one of the most
single-hearted and disinterested children that ever lived. She
is always thinking of something to do for other people. She
is singularly industrious, I never saw her a moment idle. She
is, like her mother, very handy with her fingers, and is already
very distinguished in rugs, and crotchets, or whatever you call
them, and furnishes all her friends in parlour or kitchen with
caps and pinafores. Moreover she has long since constituted
herself almoner-general of the establishment, and for years
has always confiscated every piece of copper money that her
mother or I may be in possession of for the benefit of the poor
of the parish. And as the poor we have always \yith us.

160 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI.
you may suppose that she has always recipients for her
bounty. If her means were as large as her heart she would
feed and clothe the whole continent. She often thinks and
talks of home, and has a most tender remembrance of her dear
grandpapa. I am sorry to say that she is about as feeble as
ever. She is complaining, and has been for some days, of a
pain in her side. Sometimes she has a cough. At the same
time I don't believe but that she may turn out right
after all. I don't want to go to a doctor and have him tap
her all over and hint suspicions of tubercles, for then we
should never dare to look her in the face again, for fear of
reading confirmation of his doubts. Moreover I really believe
that she will yet conquer a constitution for herself.
As for Susie, she is the light of our eyes and the sunshine
of our lives; she is perfectly good, amiable and gentle.
Coming so recently from the hand of God she has lost nothing-
yet of her innocence and ha])piness, and has all the freshness
of daybreak still about her. I never saw such insolent
happiness, as if she had been put into this prison house for no
other purpose but to sing and chatter all day long. She has
brought a good phial full from the fountain of perpetual
youth, and she means it to bubble and sparkle as long as
possible. Poor creature ! she will find out soon enough that the world
was not made for singing and laughing, but in the meantime she
is happy. She speaks German quite as fluently and correctly as
she does English. Of course she makes mistakes, as she does,
and all children do, in whatever language they speak, but it is
quite the same as her mother tongue to her, and nothing can
exceed the swiftness of her jabber in either language. She
observed this morning at breakfast, " that very few people had
seen so much of the world as she had," and then began to
enumerate the places she had visited, beginning with Dedham,
and ending with Briissel, as she always calls Brussels.
Your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

^S23-^ LIFE AT BRUSSELS. 161
To Dr. 0. W. Holmes.
Brussels,
November 20th, 1853.
My dear Holmes,— Most certainly both Mary and myself
felt deeply your kindness in writing to us, for although your
letter was addressed to me personally, she assumes a joint and
several character with regard to it in all respects except in
the responsibility of responding, and if I could have merely
taken up my pen (style of the earlier part of this century in
which you and I began to flourish) and acknowledged the
kindness, and so rendered you my debtor instantly for another
letter, you may be very sure that you would at this moment be
writing to me your sixth or seventh. Honestly and most
warmly I asseverate that my delay in answering was only
because I felt unable to write anything that would be worth
your reading. I was too conscientious to think that one sheet
of paper with a post-mark was equal to another sheet of paper
with a post-mark, and I hoped not to be forced, as I am at
last, to tender a pound of lead in payment for a pound of gold.
Do, however, be merciful, take your pen and write four score
as if I had really discharged the debt. If you knew how
often we have read your letter, and how much pleasure it has
given us, and how often Mary has been goading me into
answering in the mere sordid expectation of getting a second,
till at last even the incrustations of time and self-conscious
stupidity have penetrated, you would I am sure be willing
once more to write to us. You may be sure even if I have
myself, "no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man,"
that I am quite able to appreciate and to treasure yours.
I do not really know what to say to you. I am in a town
which for aught I know may be very gay. I do not know a
living soul in it. We have not a single acquaintance in the
place, and we glory in the fact. There is something rather
sublime in thus floating on a single spar in the wide sea of a
populous, busy, fuming, fussy, little world like this. At any
rate it is consonant to both our tastes. You may suppose, how
ever, that I find it rather difficult to amuse my friends out of the
VOL. I. M

162 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
incidents of so isolated an existence. Our life is as stagnant
as a Dutch canal ; not that I complain of it, on the contrary
the canal may be richly freighted with merchandise, and be a
short cut to the ocean of abundant and perpetual knowledge,
but at the same time few points rise above the level of so
regular a life, to be worthy of your notice. You must there
fore allow me to meander along through the meadows of
common-place. Do not expect anything in the impetuous
and boiling style.
I do not know whether you ever were in Brussels. It is a
striking, picturesque town, built up a steep promontory, the
old part at the bottom, very dingy and mouldy, the new part
at the top, very showy and elegant. Nothing can be more
exquisite in its way than the Grande Place in the very heart of
the city, surrounded with those toppling, zig-zag, ten-storied
buildings, bedizened all over with ornaments and emblems so
peculiar to the Netherlands, with the brocaded Hotel de Ville
on one side, with its impossible spire, rising some three hundred
and seventy feet into the air, and embroidered on the top with
the delicacy of needlework, sugarwork, spiderwork, or what you
will. I haunt this place because it is my scene, my theatre.
Here were enacted so many deep tragedies, so many stately
dramas, and even so many farces, which have been so familiar
to me so long, that I have got to imagine myself invested with
a kind of property in the place, and look at it as if it were
merely the theatre with the coulisses, machinery, drapery, etc.,
for representing scenes which have long since vanished, and
which no more enter the minds of men and women who are
actually moving across its pavements than if they had occurred
in the moon. When I say that I know no soul in Brussels I
am perhaps wrong. W^ith the present generation I am not
familiar. En revanche the dead men of the place are my inti
mate friends. I am at home in any cemetery. With the fel
lows of the sixteenth century I am on the most familiar terms.
Any ghost that ever flits by night across the moonlight square
is at once hailed by me as a man and a brother. I call him
by his Christian name at once.
When you come out of this place, however, which, as I said.

1853.] WORK AMONG MUSTY ARCHIVES. 163
is exactly in the heart of the town, the antique town in the
modern setting, you may go either up or down; if you go
down you will find yourself in the very nastiest and most
dismal complications of lanes and culs de sac possible, a dark
entanglement of gin shops, beer houses, and hovels, through
which charming valley dribbles the river Senne (whence I
suppose is derived senna) — the most nauseous little river in
the world, ^-hich receives all the outpourings of all the
drains and houses, and is then converted into beer for the
inhabitants — all the way, breweries being directly upon its
edge. If you go up the hill instead of down you come to an
arrangement of squares, palaces, and gardens, as trim and
fashionable as you will find in Europe. Thus you see that
our Cybele sits with her head crowned with very stately
towers, and her feet in a tub of very dirty water.
My habits here for the present are very regular. I came here,
having, as I thought, finished my work, or rather the first part
(something like three or four volumes octavo), but I find so
much original matter here, and so many emendations to make,
that I am ready to despair. However, there is nothing for it
but to penelopise, pull to pieces and stitch away again. What
ever may be the result of my labours, nobody can say that I
have not worked hard like a brute beast ; but I do not care for
the result. The labour is in itself its own reward and all I
want. I go day after day to the Archives here (as I went all
summer at the Hague), studying the old letters and docu
ments of the sixteenth century. Here I remain among my
fellow worms, feeding on those musty mulberry leaves of which
we are afterwards to spin our silk. How can you expect any
thing interesting from such a cocoon? It is, however, not
without its amusement in a mouldy sort of way, this reading
of dead letters. It is something to read the real bond fide
signs manual of such fellows as William of Orange, Count
Egmont, Alexander Farnese, Philip the Second, Cardinal
Granvelle, and the rest of them. It gives a " realising sense,"
as the Americans have it. However, you see how insensibly I
fall into talking about myself, and yet no topic is more dis
tasteful to me. I hate myself, and am bored by myself, and I

164 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
rarely commit the sin of egotism. Yet I feel as if it were in
writing to so old and kind a friend as you, whose good opinion
I so highly value, and to whom I feel grateful for thinking
that I am really industrious and capable of being useful. I
feel, I say, bound to say something of my occupations, and
feel that it would be affectation to be altogether silent on the
subject. At the same time I am, in German slang, rather
objective than subjective, and 'would rather entertain my
friends with anything than with myself.
There are not many public resources of amusement in
this place if we wanted them, -ivhich we do not. I miss the
Dresden Gallery very much, and it makes me sad to think
that I shall never look at the face of the ' Sistine Madonna '
again, that picture beyond all pictures in the world, in which
the artist certainly did get to heaven and painted a face
which man never saw on earth, so pathetic, so gentle, so
passionless, so prophetic, " half of earth, and half of heaven ''
— you see I cannot break myself of quoting you to your
face. There are a few good Eubens here, but the great wealth
of that master is in Antwerp. The great picture of the
' Descent from the Cross ' is free again, after having been two
years in the repairing room. It has come out again in very
good condition. What a picture ! It seems to me as if I had
really stood at the Cross, and seen Mary weeping on John's
shoulder, and Magdalen receiving the dead body of the
Saviour in her arms. Never was the grand tragedy repre
sented in so profound and dramatic a m^anner. For it is not
only his colour, in which this man so easily surpasses the
world, but in his life-like flesh and blood action, the tragic
power of his comjDosition. And is it not appalling to think
of the large constitution of this man, when you reflect on the
acres of canvas which he has covered ? How inspiriting
to see with what muscular masculine vigour this splendid
Fleming rushed in and plucked up drowning Art by the locks,
when it was sinking in the washy sea of such creatures as
Luca Giordanos and Pietro Cortonas and the like. Well
might Guido exclaim, " The fellow mixes blood with his
colours ! "

1853.] THE SHAKESPEARE OP PAINTING. 165
He is certainly the Shakespeare of painting. I did not say
that originally: I wish I had. It is worthy to have been
said by you. How providentially did the man come in
and invoke living, breathing, moving men and women out
of his canvas ! sometimes he is ranting and exaggerated as
are all men of great genius, who wrestle with Nature so
boldly. No doubt his heroines are more expansively endowed
than would be thought genteel in our country, where cryp
togams are so much in fashion; nevertheless with all his
exaggerations there is always something very tremendous
about him, and very often much that is sublime, pathetic, and
moving. I defy any one of the average amount of imagination
and sentiment to stand long before the ' Descent from the
Cross ' without being moved more nearly to tears than he would
care to acknowledge. As for colour, his effects are as sure as
those of the sun rising in a tropical landscape. There is some
thing quite genial in the cheerful sense of his own omnipotence
which always inspired him.
There are a few fine pictures of his here, and I go in some
times of a raw foggy morning merely to warm myself in the
blaze of their beauty.
I have just read over your letter again, rather well thumbed
by this time, in order to see whether there was anything espe
cially requiring an answer. I find no interrogations, but you
speak of Thackeray and his lectures. Of course I know
nothing of them, but I heard here that he was very much
delighted with you — not the citizens of the U.S.A., but with
O.W.H. Mary sends you an infinite deal of the kindest remem
brances. I wish you could come in and enliven our silent
fireside (silent after the children have been got to bed) for
one evening. My children are all very well and none the
worse for their European experience. Most affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

166 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL

To his Wife.
Long's Hotel, New Bond Street, London,
Monday morning. May 8th, 1854.
My dearest Maey, — You see I have arrived at my desti
nation safe and sound. I reached the hotel last night about
11 P.M. The journey was not fatiguing to me. The trains
were not crowded, so that I was able to sit in a corner and
read quietly all day. We got to Calais at about 2.30, 1 think.
It blew pretty fresh, and there was a nasty chopping sea, so
that the deck was very wet. Almost every passenger was
sick. I was not, but should have been much better if I had
been. My head was so twisted about, that it will take
another four-and-twenty hours to put it straight again. If
I had been turned inside out, I should have been all right
to-day. Instead of which, I am sorry to tell you I am
suffering from one of my worst headaches at this moment,
so that I feel almost unable to write coherently. I knew you
would wish to hear of my safe arrival, and as my first and
last thought is you, I could not set about anything to-day
till I had sent you a line. I have a decentish kind of room
here, and I think I shall stop. I was certainly very fortunate
in the weather yesterday. The day was perfect for travelling
— no rain nor dust, nor too much sun. There was no rain in
crossing, so that I was able to go on deck the whole time. If
I had gone into the hospital below, I don't believe I should
have emerged alive. The groans which occasionally ascended
seemed as from a Gehenna. The vessel shipped so many seas,
however, that I was completely drenched ; but as I never catch
cold, you know, that was of no consequence. You will be sorry
to hear that my great-coat, which you think shabby, was
almost entirely ruined with dust and salt-water commingled,
so that I bashfully requested the porter of this hotel this
morning to accept it, and was afraid that he would answer that
he did not like to deprive me of it. However, he thanked me
and took it. I am afraid when he looks at it he will return
it. My dear, dear Mary, I can't tell you how forlorn I am at

1854.] PRELIMINARIES OF PUBLICATION. 167
being separated from you. It seems to me that I can't go
along through the day without seeing you. I have become,
I fear, altogether too dependent upon you. I hope that you
will not be melancholy. My company is not very lively ; but
in the evenings it is better than nothing, perhaps. You have
the dear children, however. I hate to think of them now.
Dear little Susie, she looked so wild yesterday morning
sitting up in bed half-awake, wondering at my going. Kiss
her twenty-one times for me, and give as many to my dear
Lily and to my dear little Mary. I hope they will all be
good children, and not give you any trouble while I am gone,.
Ever thine,
J. L. M

To Ms Wife. Loug's Hotel, Bond Street,
May 10th, 1854.
My dearest Mary, — I wrote to you day before yesterday
under the influence of a most ferocious headache, the natural
consequence of my journey. That letter was all that I was
capable of accomplishing that day. I called at the Sturgis's
to-day, but all were out. Gardiner Hubbard and his wife are
staying there. Gardiner called to-day upon me, but 1 was
not at home. Yesterday I made an ineffectual attempt to
see Mr. Forsyth. To-day I was more fortunate. I found him
at his chambers in the Temple — a most intelligent, agreeable,
gentleman-like barrister, about my own age I should guess.
He was kind enough to look up for me all the English law of
copyright as regards foreigners, and there is no doubt that
the property of the American author is protected if he pub
lishes first, by however small an interval, in England. We
talked over the whole matter very thoroughly. He decidedly
recommended my trying Murray first ; gave me a note to him,
with which, and with that from Dr. Thompson, I forth^^ith
proceeded to the renowned publisher's door. Murray received
me most civilly, and impressed me very agreeably. He seemed
interested in my subject, and entertained the question of

168 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
publishing as favourably as I could expect. When I went
away, his porter accompanied me to my hotel, which is only
one street from Albemarle Street, where Murray resides, took
away the whole of the MS. in his bag, and it is at present
in the publisher's possession. Murray is to give me an answer
in a fortnight at farthest. So, at any rate, I have made one
step forward, and I don't see that I can take another. If
Murray refuses it after all, there will not be time to offer it
to another, and to wait for the decision. Therefore I shall in
that event try to make some arrangement to have it offered,
and have the answer sent me by letter. If Murray declines,
however, I shall doubt very much whether anybody will accept,
because history is very much in his line, and as I have been
particularly recommended to him, he would be more likely to
treat with me than anybody else. I must, therefore, pause
for a reply. Of course, I shall let you know as soon as I hear
from him.
Meantime, Mr. Forsyth came to see me here to-day ; invited
me to dine next Monday ; and is going to take me to the
Courts to-morrow, and to the House of Lords, before a Com
mittee of which he is to argue a case. In the evening I mean
to go, if I can get a ticket, to the Opera — ' Don Giovanni,'
and Bosio as Zerlina. But it makes me so sad to think that
you will not be at my side, that it will destroy all my
pleasure. I went at four o'clock to-day to the Noels' — found
Mrs. Noel at home. She received me in such a warm-hearted,
affectionate manner that I felt very much delighted. I called
yesterday at the Legation, and was introduced by Bigelow
Lawrence to Mr. Buchanan. He has obviously no intention
of returning my call, but he hoped I would call again. I shall
probably omit " calling found," however. I went to-day to see
Bigelow Lawrence's new wife. She is very pretty and pleasing.
By the way, I forgot to tell you that Arthur Forbes called on
me yesterday. I had called on him in the morning, found
him out, but was fortunate enough to be at home when he
called. He is just like them all— frank, agreeable, kind-
hearted. There, my dearest Mary, I have said all I have to
say. The amount is meagre enough. I am dreadfully home-

1854.] LONDON. 169
sick, and long to be in your arms. My dear children— it
seems impossible for me to exist the rest of the month without
them and you. To-day the weather has been fine but cold.
Monday and Tuesday it poured pitilessly all the time.
Ever thine,
J. L. M.

To his Wife. 'Long's Hotel, Bond Street,
Wednesday morning. May 18th, 1854.
My dearest Mary,— As it is three days since I wrote last,
I am sitting down in my den before going down to the coffee-
room for breakfast, in order to scratch you hurriedly a few
lines merely to say that I am very well, and to thank you for
your dear letter, which I found upon the table the day before
yesterday morning. I like Mr. Forsyth very much. He is a
very good advocate. I heard him argue an appeal case
yesterday before the House of Lords, that is to say before the
Lord Chancellor, two ex-Chancellors, and one or two other
peers, sitting as a High Court of AppeaL He spoke very well,
as did his colleagues in the case, although they are sure to
lose it. By the way, I had also an opportunity of hearing the
Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham, and Lord St. Leonards
deliver judgment successfully upon another case, and that was
about the most interesting thing I have seen in London.
Brougham is much flattered in Punch, the actual phy
siognomy being much more quizzical, but his manner is
impressive, and the old man has still much blood in him.
The present Chancellor, Lord Cranworth, is charming, pre
siding with most unaffected grace and suavity of manner,
courteous, smiling, gentle, with a constant attention to every
thing said by the counsel, and making all his interlocutory
observations in a most musical voice.
I dined on Sunday at the Sturgis's. She is certainly
extremely handsome, much more so than she ever was.
Mrs. Hubbard and Gardiner made a thousand most affec
tionate inquiries about you. After dinner. Mr. Cabot's health

170 MO'TLEY'S LETTERS [Chap. VL
was proposed by Sturgis. Yesterday, in Bond Street, I came
plump upon Lord Wynford. He was passing, but half looked
at me. When I accosted him and told him my name, he was
extremely cordial, shook me warmly by both hands, hoped I
could come to see him, etc., etc. We talked five or six minutes
in the street, and separated affectionately. He made the most
earnest inquiries after you, for whom I am sure he has a
sincere liking. Ever your own
J. L. M.

To Ms Mother.
... I went last Friday night and heard a long and dull
debate in the House of Commons. Such speakers as Webster
and Choate are not to be scared up in England just now. I don't
say this in glorification of our free and enlightened Eepublic.
Don't suspect me of too much patriotism. I have vastly more
respect for the Government of England than for our own —
the nation I can't help considering governed by higher prin
ciples of action, by loftier motives. They at least try to
reform abuses and admit their existence. We love our dis
eases, and cling to them as the only source of health and
strength. When you look at America from a distance, you
see that it is a great machine for constantly extending the
growth of cotton and expanding the area of negro slavery.
This is the real motive power of our whole political existence,
and such a principle can only carry us over a precipice ; yet all
who lift their tongues and voices against the course, or who
express their disgust at the hypocrisy of a nation prating of
freedom when its whole aim is to perpetuate slavery, are
esteemed mischievous and malignant. England is just now,
with the most tremendous naval armament which ever existed
in the world, engaging reluctantly in a war of duty to oppose the
encroachments of the Eastern despotism ; and we are playing
the part of Eussia in the West, and seizing the opportunity,
while France and Great Britain are otherwise occupied, to

1855.] PREPARATIONS FOR PUBLICATION. 171
pick a quarrel with Spain, and so steal Cuba, and annex half
a million more negroes. However, I don't see the use of
my boring you with all these profound reflections. If the
governor abuses me for want of patriotism, he ought to recol
lect that his patriotism took root and grew up when General
Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, George Cabot,
and others, were the guiding spirits of the country. We are
now in the epoch of ... . and it is hard to revere such
creatures, or the country which looks to them for guidance.

To his Father. Vevey,
March 3rd, 1855.
My dear Father, — In answer to your P.S. to Susie's letter
received yesterday, I would say that I am quite aware of the
dictum of Lord Cranworth to which Mr. Prescott alluded. I
am not able to take advantage of it, however, as the expense
of going a second time to England would be more than the
copyright is worth. I suppose the time of publication will be
about Christinas, at which season I should be in Italy. To
leave my family and go to England and return again, would
be very expensive, and hardly «-orth while to secure a copy
right which I could not sell for £100. It may be very well
for Mr. Prescott to do so, as he can sell his books for £1000 a
volume or more. Please tell him, by the way, with my par
ticular regards, that I have been upon the point of writing to
him every day for the last four years, that I have not done so
is because I cannot overcome my repugnance to writing and
talking about myself, and I have nothing else to talk about,
leading such a recluse and obscure existence. We had a
perfect understanding about our respective plans before I went
away. I remember that he thought that it might be better if
we should arrange to publish at somewhat different times, as
the works are a good deal upon the same subject. As this is
a consideration, however, which only affects me, as my work
can't interfere with the sale of his, I have never thought it a

172 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI
matter of great consequence, particularly as I don't know, and
never shall know, when I ought to publish.
Now I am on the subject, however, I wish you would add
that my work (that is to say the portion of it which is really
for publication) stops at the year 1584, with the death of the
Prince of Orange. This was unavoidable, as it was quite im
possible for me to speculate in more than three volumes at
once ; and although I have cut away at my MS. with a broad
axe in order to reduce it, I can't squeeze it into less. If I
receive enough encouragement, which I don't expect, to finish
this work, I' shall write three more volumes, in order to bring
my history down to the Peace of Westphalia, 1648. Philip
the Second, although he is, of course, the Deus ex macMna in
much of my present work, is not my head devil, and he will
have still less, and almost nothing, to do in the continuation.
I still mean to write to Mr. Prescott, but I thought I
would send him this message through you, for I would not
have him think me forgetful of the many acts of kindness
and friendship which I have received at his hands, and it
is possible that he might wish to hear my plans. With
regard to my time of publication, I am inclined to leave that
to you.^ You, in the most generous manner, have con
stituted yourself my fellow-victim, and you shall choose the
time of immolation. I suppose by the time this reaches
you, or very soon afterwards, the two copies of Volume I.
will be received. I have already mentioned in my letter to
Annie ^ all that I have to say thereanent. I should not like
Mr. Cabot to see it till it is finished, because I know he
would feel an interest in it, and it will seem so flat taken in
piecemeal. The same principle applies to Uncle Edward. I
should not like him to read it till he can do it all at once, and
make a job of it. At the same time it is, of course, quite at
his service if he chooses to do so. I am afraid that he will be
a good deal of the opinion of the old gentleman to whom
Jedediah Cleishbotham showed the first series of the ' Tales of
My Landlord.' The friendly critic informed the author, you
' Mr. Motley's first historic work, was published in 1856.
'The Rise of the Dutch Republic,' ^ His sitter, Mrs. Alfred Rodman.

1855.] FRANKFORT— BASEL. 173
know, that he has lately been reading a work which gave him
no peace at all, that he had not been able, however desirous,
to lay it down till he had read every line of it. On the other
hand, he congratulated Jedediah that his work had no such
defect, but that it was one which could be laid down at any
moment with the utmost tranquillity. This would be rather a
reason for the sage of Fort Hill ^ to begin upon the ponderous
task at the earliest opportunity. At the same time I advise
him not to do so. I shall write again before long, before it will
be necessary to square our accounts, which won't be till the
autumn, I suppose, when the job will have to be paid for. My
love, and all our loves, to my dear mother, as well as yourself.
Ever yours affectionately,
J. L. M.

To his Wife. Frankfort,
July 21th, 1855.
My dearest Mary, — The waiters have brought me a tre
mendously large sheet of paper, but I am afraid that I shall
hardly be able to fill it up in a very interesting manner. My
journey to Basel, notwithstanding the rain, was pleasant
enough. The road is not at all interesting, all the beauty
being in the Minster Thai, in the other direction. My com
panion in the coupe was an old epicier, or something of the
kind, from Berlin, who appeared to have been making the
first journey of his life. He had been up the Eigi, the Wen-
gern Alp, etc., and although he seemed about seventy-five, he
assured me he had suffered no fatigue. Pie had no teeth, but,
en revanche, had a bouquet of Alpine roses in his hatband. His
artless prattle was very refreshing- for a little while, but when
he began to put the usual questions about my intentions,
objects in life, occupations, etc., he became a bore, and I took
refuge in a novel. . . . The journey to Basel only occupied ten
hours, the last hour on the railway, so that you get to the
hotel soon after five. . . . The next morning I started from the
' His uncle, Edward Motley, a most kind fiiend.

b

174 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI.
railway terminus (the railroad is finished to Basel) at 7.30,
and reached Frankfort at 4.30. As soon as I was dressed I
started for Bismarck's house, having previously learned that
Keyserling,^ to my great regret, had not arrived.
When I called, Bismarck was at dinner, so I left my card,
and said I would come back in half an hour. As soon as my
card had been carried to him (as I learned afterwards) he sent
a servant after me to the hotel, but I had gone another way.
When I came back I was received with open arms. I can't
express to you how cordially he received me.^ If I had been
his brother, instead of an old friend, he could not have shown
more warmth and affectionate delight in seeing me. I find
I like him even better than I thought I did, and you know
how high an opinion I always expressed of his talents and
disposition. He is a man of very noble character, and of very
great powers of mind. The prominent place which he now
occupies as a statesman sought him. He did not seek it, or
any other office. The stand which he took in the Assembly
from conviction, on the occasion of the outbreak of 1848,
marked him at once to all parties as one of the leading
characters of Prussia. Of course I don't now go into the
rights and wrongs of the matter, but I listened with great
interest, as you may suppose, to his detailed history of the
revolutionary events of that year, and his share in them,
which he narrated to me in a long conversation which we had
last night. He wanted me to stay entirely in his house, but
as he has his wife's father and mother with him, and as I saw
that it was necessary to put up a bed in a room where there
was none, I decidedly begged off. I breakfasted there this
morning, and am to dine there, with a party, to-day. To
morrow, I suppose, I shall dine there en famille. I am only
afraid that the landlord here will turn me into the streets for
being such a poor consommateur for him, and all I can do is to
order vast quantities of seltzer water.
The principal change in Bismarck is that he has grown
' Count Hermann Keyserling, a fel- since leaving the Universities of Get
low-student at Gottingen. tingen and Berlin.
* It was the first time they had met

1855.] BARON BISMARCK, CHARACTER AND CAREER. 175
stouter, but, being over six feet, this is an improvement.
His voice and manner are singularly unchanged. His wife
I like very much indeed — very friendly, ii^telligent, and per
fectly unaffected, and treats me like an old friend. In short,
I can't better describe the couple than by saying that they
are as unlike M. and Madame de  as it is possible to be.
In the summer of 1851, he told me that the Minister,
Manteuffel, asked him one day abruptly, if he \\ ould accept
the post of Ambassador at Frankfort, to which (although the
proposition was as unexpected a one to him as if I should
hear by the next mail that I had been chosen Governor of
Massachusetts) he answered, after a moment's deliberation,
yes, without another word. The King, the same day, sent for
him, and asked him if he would accept the place, to which
he made the same brief answer, " Ja." His Majesty expressed
a little surprise that he made no inquiries or conditions,
when Bismarck replied that anything which the King felt
strong enough to propose to him, he felt strong enough to
accept. I only write these details that you may have an idea
of the man. Strict integrity and courage of character, a high
sense of honour, a firm religious belief, united with remarkable
talents, make up necessarily a combination which cannot be
found any day in any Court ; and I have no doubt that he is
destined to be Prime Minister, unless his obstinate truth
fulness, which is apt to be a stumbling-block for politicians,
stands in his way. . . .
Well, he accepted the post and wrote to his wife next day,
who was preparing for a summer's residence in a small house
they had taken on the sea coast, that he could not come
because he was already established in Frankfort as Minister.
The result, he said, was three days of tears on her part. He
had previously been leading the life of a plain country squire
with a moderate income, had never held any position in the
Government or in diplomacy, and had hardly ever been to
Court. He went into the office ^\ith a holy horror of the
mysterious nothings of diplomacy, but soon found how little
there was in the whole " galimatias." Of course my politics
are very different from him, although not so antipodal as you

176 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI.
might suppose, but I can talk with him as frankly as I could
with you, and I am glad of an opportunity of hearing the
other side put by a man whose talents and character I esteem,
and who so well knows le dessous des cartes. M. de Veh is
here, but goes back to Vevey, I believe, to-morrow. Bismarck
has invited him to dinner to-day. He is as surprised as I
not to find Keyserling, and can't account for his absence.
Good-bye, my dearest Mary, I have got to the end of the
sheet without saying a word about you and my darlings ....

To his Wife. Frankfort,
Saturday, July 28th, 1855.
I have just consented to wait here until Wednesday morn
ing. ... I send the despatch from Bismarck's house, and I
have just come back to write you this hurried line, as I must
go back to dine with him at four. Madame de Bismarck
begs me to convey the kindest messages on her part to you,
and to say that she depends upon the pleasure of making
your acquaintance here this autumn or the end of the
summer, and I have promised that we will stop a day or two
in Frankfort on our way to Paris. I am perfectly sure that
you will like her — you could not help it. She is so amiable,
gentle and agreeable in every w^y, that I feel as if we
had been ten years acquainted. She and her mother have
both assured me over and over again that Bismarck was
nearly out of his wits with delight when he saw my card.
/ should certainly not say such a thing to anybody but you, but
yen and I are not so overburdened with self-esteem but that
we may afford to tell each other the truth in such matters,
and it really gives me pleasure to know that a man of whom
I think so highly has such a warm and sincere friendship for
me. I am sure that you will like him, and I only regret that
we can see so little or nothing of each other for the rest of our
lives. There are three children — a little girl named Marie, as
sweet as Susie, to whom I gave this morning a little locket in

1855.] BISMARCK'S HOME. 177
Susie's name, and told her that Susie would give her a lock
of red hair to put in it when she saw her. She put her arms
round my neck and kissed me, and trotted off in the greatest
glee to show it to her grandpapa and grandmamma.
I feel as much at home already as at Mr. Cabot's, and I should
have almost as little fear of wearing out my welcome here as
there. At the dinner yesterday were some strangers — Prus
sians — Count Eoedern, brother of the Prussian Minister in
Dresden, and his wife and sister. M. de Veh was there, and
as friendly and agreeable as ever. He is off this morning to
Schwalbach, and to-morrow returns to Vevey. After dinner,
Bismarck and his wife, myself, and a youthful attache with
the terrific name of Baron Schreckenstein, took a long ride
on horseback in a beautiful forest on the other side of the
Main, and on our return found M. de Veh and the father-in-
law still deeply absorbed at the chess-table where we had left
them. At eleven o'clock we tried very hard to eat supper,
but nobody succeeded very well, and at twelve I came home.

To his Wife. Frankfort,
Monday, July 30th, 1855.
.... The Bismarcks are as kind as ever — nothing can be
more frank and cordial than her manners. I am there all day
long. It is one of those houses where every one does what
one likes. The show apartments where they receive formal
company are on the front of the house. Their living rooms,
however, are a salon and dining room at the back, opening
upon the garden. Here there are young and old, grand
parents and children and dogs all at once, eating, drinking,
smoking, piano-playing, and pistol-firing (in the garden), all
going on at the same time. It is one of those establishments
where every earthly thing that can be eaten or drunk is offered
you, porter, soda water, small beer, champagne, burgundy or
claret are about all the time, and everybody is smoking the
best Havana cigars every minute. Last night we went to the
VOL. I. N

178 ^rOTLEY' LETTERS. [Ch.^p. VL
theatre to see the first part of ' Henry IV.' The Falstaff was
tolerable, the others very indifferent. By the way I was glad to
find that both Bismarck and his wife agree with me that Emil
Devrient was a very second-rate actor. I must go out directly
and buy a brooch for my dear little ilary. Little Bill, as the
Bismarck's call their youngest boy of two years, was born on
the same day, and I am going to buy him a trumpet. A
thousand kisses to Lily, Mary and Susie, and accept for
yourself the fondest and deepest affection of Your own
J. L. M.

To Ms Wife. Long's Hotel,
Thursday morning, October 18th, 1855.
My dearest Mary, — I write these few lines merely to tell
you that I arrived sain et sauf in London yesterday forenoon
at half-past ten. I crossed the Channel at three. The weather
was very good, and the sea very smooth. The ladies on board
were all desperately sea-sick, much to my astonishment, such
demonstrations being entirely unauthorised by any of the
circumistances. I stopped at Dover for the night, finding it
very ridiculous to hurry up to London at midnight, as every
body in that metropolis was likely to get on very well without
me till the following morning. The inn, the " Lord Warden
Hotel," is one of the best in England. My washing-stand in
itself was enough to inspire one with veneration for the whole
British nation ; two great water jugs as big as those in the
'Marriage of Cana,' by Paolo Veronese, a wash basin big enough
to swim in, celestial sIojd jars, heaps of clean towels, etc., and
more water than was ever seen in one place in Paris, except
in the Ecoles de Natation, all made one feel very comfortable.
A Frenchman would have been wretched, however, for there
were not two clocks or even four mirrors in the chamber, but I
solaced myself with the remembrance of the splendour I had
left in Paris, and with the potentiality of being clean a few
brief days in England. I am sorry, however, to say that I am

1855.] THE FORTHCOMING 'HISTORY.' 179
not as well off here. I have a good enough bachelor chamber,
but it looks like a hospital for invalided or incurable furniture.
The bed is as wide as Oxford Street, it is also quite as hard,
the mattresses being evidently stuffed with paving stones
from that classic and stony-hearted step-mother. I stopped at
Chapman's on my way up from the railroad, so commenced
business sooner than if I had not slept at Dover, filled up the
form of application for the copyright, and in short did all that
was necessary before coming to Long's. We have decided of
course to defer actual publication till the other (American
edition) is ready. . . . Ever your own
J. L. M.

To his Mother. Florence,
November 18th, 1855.
My dearest Mother, — We have arrived at the only stop
ping place which we shall have for a long time to come,
having taken lodgings for three months in a quiet house with
the southern sun upon it. . . . You have been aware of our
whereabouts by the letters which Mary has occasionally
written, and by the notes which have been dropping between
the governor and me from time to time. I can't omit
this opportunity of expressing my deep gratitude to him for
his most efficient and generous assistance in the matter of
my history. I am highly gratified with the pleasure which
the work seems to have afforded to him, to you, to Uncle
Edward, and other members of the family, and I beg you to
thank Tom for the great trouble he has taken in regard to the
matter. I fear A'cry much, however, that the governor and
the rest are doomed to much disappointment in regard to
its success. It cannot take in England, and moreover the war,
Macaulay's new volumes, and Prescott's, will entirely absorb
the public attention. I am extremely gratified that Hillard
has been so kind as to write an article upon the book. I
think that the governor quoted his opinion, as upon the

180 ' MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Ch.ap. VL
whole favourable, and certainly nobody could be more compe
tent to review it, or can write more brilliantly. I think some
thing was said about his only having time to write a short
article. I would rather he should take time and defer it to
the April number, than not have ample room and verge
enough allowed him. The book is so ponderous that it
ought to sustain a weighty article. Of course the governor
will pay heed to this suggestion, and so no more of this
subject. We left Vevey after more than a year's residence
(very profitably employed for the children) towards the end of
July. We passed some little time in Berne, at which place I
left my family in charge of the Fays, in order to make a visit
to an old University friend of mine, Baron Bismarck, with
whom I was very intimate twenty years ago in Gottingen and
Berlin, and who is now almost the most important statesman
in Prussia.
During my absence, Mary and the children have passed
the time very agreeably in Berne, owing to the constant and
unremitting attentions of Fay ^ (our Minister to Switzerland)
and his wife. I believe I have mentioned them often in my
letters. If not, I will only say that he is almost the best man
I ever knew, one who is never thoroughly happy unless he is
conferring a favour upon some one else. Y''ou may judge of
the pain which was caused to all of us a few weeks afterwards,
by our hearing at Interlaken of Mrs. Fay's death. Fay wrote
to me repeatedly during her illness, and telegraphed to me at
its melancholy termination, and I went immediately to Berne,
and was with him till after the funeral. She was a very
honest, frank, kind-hearted, devoted person, and is an irrepar
able loss to her husband and her only child. They came
afterwards to Interlaken for a little while. He bears the loss
very well, being, fortunately for himself, the most believing
and devout Christian I ever knew. I have not heard from him
since we left Switzerland, but I shall write to him to-morrow.
Upon leaving Switzerland, we passed a month in Paris.
I don't like to say much about that episode in our history,
because the immense fatigue and expense of passing four
' Theodore S. Fay.

1855.] PARIS UNDER THE EMPIRE. 181
weeks in that place so entirely counter-balances all satis
faction which can be derived from it, that I cannot speak
upon the subject without injustice and exaggeration. At
the same time, there is no doubt that the city itself is the
most beautiful in the world. Most of the works of im- |
provement going on there now are very extensive and ex
pensive, and many of them have been carried on at a sacri
fice of much that was striking and picturesque in ancient
Paris. They are occasioning vast outlay, for which a heavy
debt has been created, partly by the State, partly by the
Municipality, to defray the interest of which the taxes are
rising daily. It is also very difficult for small tradesmen and
mechanics to get houses and shops, all having been pulled
down in many quarters to make room for lengthening lines of
palaces and arcades, which yield no lodgings for poor devils.
Yet it is the custom to say that Louis Napoleon is doing
wonders in providing work for the poor people. I suppose if
the Massachusetts Legislature and the Boston City Govern
ment should create a debt of $40,000,000, in order to build
a palace, reaching from the old State House to Eoxbury Line,
for Governor Armstrong and his descendants to live in, and if
they should create a further debt, in order to knock down all
the town between Park Street Church and Copp's Hill, and
put up in the place of the demolished buildings a series of
granite, eight-storey palaces with continuous arcades, it would
be considered an act of great wisdom and benevolence, con
sidering the number of Irish hodmen and other labourers who
would be sure to get employment, and yet this is pretty much
«hat is going on in Paris.
After leaving Paris, we took the train to Lyons, stopping one
night in Dijon. At Lyons, we found by appointment an Italian
vetturino, with whom we had made many journeys in Switzer
land, and who has four very good horses and a comfortable
carriage. With him we went to Chambery, over the Mont
Cenis to Turin, and then by rail to Genoa, where we resumed
our vetturino, and came with him to Florence, for a vetturino's
horses are like " the pampered jades of Asia," which, accord
ing to Ancient " Pistol," cannot go but " forty miles a day."

182 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI.
We found Frank Boott here, ¦v\ho had kindly saved us much
trouble by looking over the vacant lodgings, so that our work
was much simplified. . . . We spent an evening with Mr. and
Mrs. Putnam last week. The Alexanders were there, and we
saw a large quantity of Fanny Alexander's drawings, and I
assure you they are really wonderful.'^ She draws entirely
with pen and ink, composing out of her own imagination or
from her recollection. But her facility and grace and purity
of style are unequalled by any modern drawings which I ever
saw. She has the good taste to form her artistic education in
the school of the wonderful Quattro Centisti of Florence, the
painters, I mean, of the fifteenth century, whose works have
spread such a halo of glory around this city, and which
heralded the extraordinary effulgence which was to illumine
the world in the early part of the fifteenth century. In these
pre-Eaphaelite productions Florence is very rich. Miss
Alexander has not tried her hand at painting yet, although
she believes herself to have more feeling for colour than for
any other department of Art. She draws outlines, human
figures. Madonnas, peasant girls, saints m endless variety,
and illustrates old Italian songs, of which she furnishes
herself very pretty translations. She is a young person of
unquestionable genius, and as simple and unaffected as she is
clever. There is also a sculptor here named Thomas Ball,
^^¦ho came out here a year and a half ago, and who is now
going home again. He has modelled a very admirable
statuette of Washington Allston, and would like very much
to have an order to execute it in marble. I wish you would
go ^\ ith the governor to see it when he arrives, which will be
in spring or early summer. Ask Mr. Frank Gray to look at it.
I should not have written you to-day, my dear mother, feeling
that I have nothing to say which can possibly amuse you, had
I not received a letter from Chapman yesterday, in which he
says he is to publish my History forthwith.
Ever your affectionate son,
J. L. M.
' Miss Alexander still lives at Florence.

1855.] FLORENCE. 183
To his Uncle, Edivard Motley. Florence,
December \3th, 1855.
My dear Uncle Edward, — I have been intending day after
day and week after week to write to you. I am sorry that
your last generous present of £100 arrived before I had
written, because it looks almost now as if I proposed to
make payment by a few sheets of notepaper, and I am
afraid that even your indulgence would hardly consider my
letters as cheap at such a price. I don't pretend to thank you
for all your generosity. I have already told you that your
constant kindness has made me a bankrupt in the means of
repaying you even in words just now ; I feel as it were over
whelmed by the liberality with which I have been treated
both by you and the governor. I am sure I don't know how
I should have extricated myself from my printing and pub
lishing difficulties but for the timely and most generous
assistance which I have received.
I wish I knew how I could make a letter interesting or
amusing to you. The truth is that I am so oppressed by a
constitutional melancholy, which grows upon me very rapidly,
as to be almost incapacitated from making myself agreeable.
You know how to sympathise with this frame of mind, and I
should apologise to you for talking about my blue devils,
when I know that you are yourself haunted, except that I
thought by sending a swarm of them across the Atlantic, they
might have an encounter with the legions there, and mutually
destroy each other.
Florence is thought in many respects to be the most beau
tiful town in Europe, yet I suppose few people ever look about
them at first without astonishment that it should ever have
attained such a reputation. The reason is that the city itself
is but the central point of a vast periphery of palaces, villas,
castles and villages, which extend over the large basin of the
Arno. The city itself is compact — the gates are narrow ; the
houses vast, massive, and sombre, with fortress-like walls,
narrow windows, and huge butting cornices; the churches

184 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
heavy, stern, and gloomy. The territory in the midst of
which the town has been standing one or two thousand years
(to be precise) is singularly beautiful. The City of Flowers
(for that is its fragrant appellation) is built upon a garden.
A flat, verdant, luxuriant plain of three or four miles in width
is encircled by a chain of gently flowing mountains ; and if
there ever were any little hills which " clapped their hands
and skipped like lambs " according to the Psalmist, these are
the ones to do it. The character of the environs is as jocund
as that of the city is sombre. All the hills are sown broadcast
with palaces and castellated mansions, monasteries and villages
gleaming whitely through silvery forests of olives, luxuriant
vines and solemn cypresses. The town itself, with the towers
and belfries in its centre, is but the heart of the vast flower ;
the stamens and pistils and inner petals are here, while the
beautiful and vast corolla unfolds itself far and wide as far as
the eye can reach. To feel this, one has but to ascend any
steeple of any height outside the town, and see how Florence
is wrapped up and encircled by a series of little Florences.
The Arno is not much of a river in appearance, yellow and
shallow and full of gravel banks, yet it serves to keep green
the velvet cushions upon which the luxurious city lies ex
tended like Cleopatra on a couch. The river is however capable
of much mischief, and in times past has produced inundations
very like the deluge. Five hundred years ago the whole town
was laid under water to the depth of ten feet. Since the
canalisation of the river to Leghorn, however, such pranks have
become impossible ; but even last year the whole country
round was overflowed, and it was almost as bad this autumn.
It is not used, I need not say, for purposes of navigation, and
it would be quite impossible now for a city placed as this is
to attain to a tithe of the commercial and political importance
which it enjoyed in the 14th and 15th centuries. If one
subtracts from the list of articles of commerce such trifles as
tea and coffee, sugar, tobacco and cotton, which make up
pretty much the whole bulk of the world's merchandise just
now, one can understand how a city which from its position
could take no part in such traffic, could rise to eminence at a

1855.] THE GLORIES OF FLORENCE. 185
time when those necessaries of life had not been invented.
Before compasses, Capes of Good Hoye and Horn, Californias
and Hong Kongs came into fashion, it was easy for a few
cities to monopolise the business of the world's little inter
changes of commodities. Genoa had its factories in the Crimea
and received the caravans from the North and East ; Venice,
its colonies in the Levant, and Florence, with its great banking
houses and manufactories, its large capital, its sound metallic
currency, its corn and oil, received the golden streams as they
flowed from the urns of its sister cities, and conducted them
northward through the marble aqueduct of a few splendid cities
in Germany and the Netherlands. All this is changed now.
Moreover the trade and the enterprise of the city flourished
only during its republican organisation. I think the advo
cates of a democratic system had better rest their case on the
achievements of two cities, Athens and Florence. I doubt if
either, in the day of their greatness, were very comfortable
places to live in, but there can be no question that the
amount of intellectual vigour displayed by both at the
epoch of their utmost turbulence, was superior to anything
ever heard of in history. The fierce rivalries and passions
of Florence — the constant conflicts of mind with mind,
man with man, and mass with mass — the never-ceasing
human attrition, brought out intellectual electricity enough
to make the whole world vibrate so long that its throbs are
still distinctly felt and traceable to their cause — intellectual
flame enough to light the torches of civilisation over the earth
after they had been extinguished in the Gothic deluge —
intellectual names brilliant and numerous enough to people
the whole firmament with immortal constellations. We are
proud of Boston as the Athens of America, but we shall be
prouder when she has produced, even with Portland and
Newburyport to back her, such names as Dante, Petrarch,
Boccaccio, Cimabue, Giotto, Arnolfo, Brunelleschi, Leonardo
da Vinci, Michel Angelo, Macchiavelli, and Galileo ; and I
only mention names such as rise spontaneously like spirits
when the magic name of Florence is pronounced — names
which have echoed for centuries everywhere in the world

186 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI.
where the progress and the triumphs of the human intellect
in the various fields of the Arts and Sciences are looked
upon with sympathy. Hundreds of other names might be
mentioned, kno^vn not only to scholars but to the world at
large ; and it must be confessed that no satisfactory reason can
be given for such splendid corruscations of genius around one
single spot but the vivifying presence of political liberty.
The period of this liberty v,as a short one and a turbulent
one. It was coincident, however, with the revival of letters and
of civilisation. It was in Italy that the spirit of municipal
liberty first roused itself, after it had been crushed by Eome,
and buried under Eoman ruins by the brutal, blundering
but juvenile energies of the German races. Five centuries
after the fall of the Western Empire — until nearly a thousand
years from the birth of Christ — lasted the syncope, the coma
tose trance of Europe, and with her first struggles after
awaking from her lethargy, the little, now almost forgotten
Eepublics of Amalfi and Naples became visible. Here the
elements of Greek, Eoman, Byzantine, and Saracen civilisa
tion are preserved and combined — and transferred to the more
vigorous municipalities of Pisa and Florence. A couple of
centuries of fighting between the Emperors of Germany and
the Popes of Eome succeed, during which the cities of Italy
seek a shield against imperial oppression in the assistance of
the Church. Here was the fatal flaw by which the vase of
Italian liberty was cracked when it was first moulded. To go
for liberty, human progress, intellectual development, and to
expect these things by fighting under the banner of the
Church was a delusion to be sure, but it was a fiction which,
like many other poetical fables, did good work. The Church
party, the Guelphs, were in reality a phalanx of intellectual
opposition to iniperial and brutal dominion. Papal Eome,
even while inventing the Inquisition and the mendicant
orders, was the champion of Cities against Kaisers ; and this is
the principal good that the Church has ever accomplished.
With the downfall of the Suabian dynasty, at the close
of the thirteenth century, Florence, which has long had a
republican but aristocratic organisation, while alternatively

1855.] THE VICISSITUDES OF FLORENCE. 187
resisting and acknowledging the sovereignty of the Em
perors, is strong enough to set up for itself. Thirty years
the noble families of the place have been at feud, fighting
like Kilkenny cats till nothing is left but their tails,
calling themselves Guelphs and Ghibellines, but ranging
themselves on one side or the other solely according to their
relationship to one of two families which had been set by the
ears in consequence of a young gentleman jilting a young
lady whom he was to marry thirty or forty years previously.
Thirty years of this kind of work have weakened the pugna
cious capabilities of these families, and their result is that the
tails as aforesaid — all that is left of this very quarrelsome
species — are thrown out of the place altogether. It is a
curious fact that not only were the nobles deprived of poli
tical power, entirely disfranchised by the Florentine Eepublic,
when at this epoch it first "made the people," as its early
statutes express it, but it became a mode of punishment, and
one often inflicted, to degrade individuals and families by
making them noble. In a single year five or six hundred
persons have been chastised for political offences by seeing
their names enrolled in the lists of the nobility; and this
example was followed by the municipal authorities of other
cities governed or controlled by Florence.
No doubt this was a stupid as well as a virulent proceed
ing. It kept an organised band of powerful, disaffected, and
dangerous brigands ever ready to pounce upon the democratic
city which had provoked their hatred and their vengeance,
while it established in time a second class of nobility, an
office-holding oligarchy of mere vulgar origin, without purer
motives, by which the liberty of Florence was eventually
overthrown. The duration of this liberty was, after all,
wonderfully short. The democracy was established at the
close of the thirteenth century, and at the beginning of the
fifteenth the Medician oligarchy had succeeded. By the
middle of the sixteenth the Medici "were made into Grand
Dukes of Tuscany, and there is an end of Florence. That
family died out before the middle of the eighteenth century ;
and as there happened to be a poor king going about at that

188 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
time without a crown to his back — one Stanislaus Lecszinski,
whose daughter had married the respectable Louis XV. of
Fiance — it was thought desirable to make him Duke of
Lorraine. There being, however, a Duke of Lorraine, who
objected to being unduked, he was pitchforked into Florence,
much to his disgust, and was very much astonished afterwards
to find that the degrading step had ended in making him
Emperor of Germany. Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Tuscany,
married with the Empress Maria Theresa, and saw himself and
family established on the throne of the Ca3sars. Thus Tuscany
is a sort of appanage for the younger sons of the Hapsburg
family. One reigning Grand Duke has already succeeded to
the imperial throne, and transferred the duchy to a younger
son ; and the present Grand Duke, who has reigned for many
years, was naturally set up in business again, after the general
smash in 1848, by his powerful relations at Vienna.
Florence is, however, freed at present from the Austrian occu
pation, and things seem to go on peaceably. Provided a man
does not talk politics or read the Bible, he gets on well enough.
This would be somewhat of a deduction from the daily habits
of New Englanders, but the Tuscans have been so long having
their skins taken off that they like it. Of the present aspect
of the place, therefore, in a political point of view, I shall not
discourse. Florence is a dead city — a splendid tortoise shell,
from which the living animal has long since disappeared.
The shell will, however, be long an object of wonder. There
is no town in the world of its size which contains such a
profusion of works of art. There are three large galleries of
pictures. All of them together would, perhaps, be equal to
the gallery at Dresden, which singly, however, surpasses any
one of them. The best gallery, that of the Pitti Palace, is
exactly opposite our doors, so that it is easy for us to look at
the finest pictures in the world from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M., quite
enough to satisfy any reasonable person. I shall not begin
to you about pictures, however, because nothing could be
more jejune than any description of masterpieces which I
could send. A catalogue is an extremely convenient thing
to have in one's pocket when in a gallery, but the dullest of

1855.] PRESENT CONDITION OF FLORENCE. 189
literary performances would be a running commentary from
me to you about pictures which you never saw, and never
intend to see. At the same time I feel sure that if you were
here you would enjoy them as much as I do. Hillard has
written the best book upon Italy which I have ever read.
The charms of style and of word-painting can go no further,
and his pages have the effect of finely coloured photographs
of the scenes he has visited. It is so difficult to fix the
fleeting impression produced in one's mental camera obscura
by an object seen but for a moment, that I quite wonder at
his success. I have saved reading the book till on the spot,
and am glad of having done so. At the same time it indis
poses me to send home Italian descriptions. Nothing can be
more scholarly and elegant than the whole expression of his
book ; and, although I should occasionally dissent from some
of his criticisms upon the old masters, yet I admire it on the
whole very much. I shall say no more, because, as I have
already had the pleasure of receiving a kind word of approval
from him in a postscript to the governor's kind letter, you
will think I am trying to get into the Mutual Admiration
Society. Perhaps you would like to know a little of prices, if I have
not already bored you sufficiently by my historical and
political disquisitions. Before you condemn me, however,
for lengthiness on those topics, think what you have escaped.
Florence, according to one of its oldest chroniclers, was built
by the great-grandson of Noah, who came to Tuscany "to
escape the confusion growing out of the Tower of Babel."
That being the case, it has probably grown up, little by little,
to its present size, just as Calais did, according to the theory
of Tristram Shandy; and I might have given you a much
larger dose of history if I had taken up matters at the fountain
head, that is, at the Deluge.
A good house, or lodging as large as a house, without furni
ture, and on a lease of two or three years, could be had for
$300 a year. Beef and bread, the two staves of life, are
10 and 5 cents a pound respectively. A respectable turkey,
such as would not be ashamed to see himself roasted on

190 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
Thanksgiving Day in Portland, costs 50 cents. A pair of
iowls, 30 to 40 cents. A cauliflower, as big as your head,
3 cents. Celery, and such things, pretty much nothing at all.
Groceries, however, are comparatively dear. Tea, coffee, and
other colonials, as they call them, rather dearer than with us.
Cotton is dearer ; ladies' apparel dearer ; men's clothing much
cheaper. Lessons of all kinds (except first-rate musical
instruction, which is $1 a lesson) average about 30 cents an
hour, whether for one or half a dozen pupils. You see that
for a resident Florence is, as compared to Boston, fabulously
cheap. A passing stranger gets no great advantage, however.
I hope to be able to write you again very soon, if you have
not had enough of this. Meantime Mary and the children
desire to be most affectionately remembered to you.
Believe me, yours affectionately,
J. L. M-

To his Mother. Florence,
April Isf, 1856.
My dearest Mother, — We decided to pass the winter in
Florence, principally because the children would have the
benefits of instruction at a cheaper rate. We shall probably
go from Eome to Naples early in May, and return by steamer
either to Genoa, and thence over the Simplon, or direct to
Marseilles, a voyage which I dread, and hope not to make.
Our plans, however, are somewhat foggy. I have heard nothing
from Chapman touching the sale of my book, and suppose that
very few copies have been sold.^ It has been very favourably
received in the Athenasum, the Press, and some other papers,
and Mr. Fronde's article in the Westminster Bevieiv for April
is uncommonly well " written and extremely flattering. I
have heard of nothing more, and if the edition is eventually
sold, it must be a long time first. It takes a good time to
read such a long work. We parted with Frank Boott and
' Seventeen thousaud copies were sold in England during the first year of
publication.

1856.] RECEPTION OF THE 'DUTCH REPUBLIC 191
L  with great regret. We have seen them constantly
since our arrival here, and have passed much time very
agreeably together. He has the same excellent and sterling
qualities and truthful character which he always had, and she
is a very interesting and intelligent child.
Your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

From Mr. W. H. Prescott. Boston,
April 28th, 1856.
My dear Motley,^— I am much obliged to you for the copy
of the ' History of the Dutch Eepublic ' which you have been
so kind as to send me. A work of that kind is not to be run
through in a few days, particularly by one who does his read
ing chiefly through his ears. I shall take my own time there
fore for going thoroughly through the book, which I certainly
shall do from beginning to end, notes inclusive. Meantime I
have yielded to my impatience of seeing what sort of stuff it
is made of by pitching here and there into various places,
particularly those with which I am most familiar myself and
which would be most likely to try your power as a ^\ritcr.
The result of a considerable amount of reading in this way
has satisfied me that you have more than fulfilled the pre
diction which I had made respecting your labours to the
public. Everywhere you seem to have gone into the subject
with a scholar-like thoroughness of research, furnishing me
on my own beaten track with a quantity of new facts and
views, which I was not aware it could present to the reader.
In one passage I remember, the sack of St. Quentin, you give
a variety of startling and very interesting particulars, and
when I envied you the resources at your command for
supplying them to you, I found they were all got from a
number of the ' Documentos Ineditos ' which slept harmlessly
on my shelves from my o\^n unconsciousness that it contained
anything germain to the matter. Your descriptions are every
where graphic and picturesque. One familiar with your

192 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
romances, will not be surprised at your powers in this way.
But yet after all the style for history is as different from \\hat
is required for romance as that of a great historical picture is
from a scene-painting for a theatre. You prove that you
possess both. Your portraiture of character is vigorous and
animated, full of characteristic touches, from a pencil that ig
dipped in the colours of the old masters.
You have laid it on Philip rather hard. Indeed you have
whittled him down to such an imperceptible point that there
is hardly enough of him left to hang a newspaper paragraph
on, much less five or six volumes of solid history as I propose
to do. But then you make it up with your own hero, William
of Orange, and I comfort myself with thfe reflection that you
are looking through a pair of Dutch spectacles after all. As
to the backbone of the work, the unfolding of the great
revolution, I am not in a condition to criticise that, as no one
can be who has not read the work carefully through. But I
have conversed with several, not merely your personal friends,
who have done so, and they bear emphatic testimony to the
power you have exhibited, in presenting the subject in an
original and piquant way to the reader. Indeed you have seen
enough of criticism probably from the presses of this country
and of England, to satisfy you that the book has made a
strong impression upon the public mind and that it must be
entirely successful. There is one little matter which I have
heard quarrelled with, and which I must say I think is a
mistake, but which relates to the form not to the fonds of the
work — that is the headings of the chapters, and the running
titles of the pages. They are so contrived as to show the
author's wit, but nothing of the contents of the book, and have
the disadvantage of giving a romantic air which is out of
place in history. But this sort of criticism you may very well
think is like praising one for his intellectual, his moral, and
all that, and then taking exception to the cut of his waistcoat.
You have good reason to be pleased with the reception the
book has had from the English press, considering that you
had no one particularly to stand godfather to your bantling,
but that it tumbled into the world almost without the aid of

1856.] EXGLISH CRITICS. 193
a midwife. Under these circumstances success is a great
triumph. . . .
With my kindest regards to your wife, believe me, dear
3Iotley, Very sincerely vouts.
Wit. H. Prescott.

To his Father.

Rome,
3Iay 13th, 1856.

My dear Father, — I perceive that the Harpers have pub
lished the ' Dutch Eepublic ' at last. No doubt they are the
correct judges of the correct time ; but I must say that I should
have liked to have had it published in time to allow a review-
in the April number of the North American. You say nothing
of this in your letter. Have you observed in one of Mary's
letters a request to send a copy to Sam Hooper and to E. P.
Whipple ? The latter is one of the most brilliant -nriters in
the country, as well as one of the most experienced reviewers.
I am glad you received the Press. Some of the papers have
been decidedly disagreeable ; a weekly, called the Saturday
Eevieiv, and the Literary Gazette, ioT example. The Examiner,
too, is very censorious as well as patronising. The warmest
article is in a weekly called the Nonconformist, date April 30th,
and if Chapman has not sent it to you or to Harper, I wish
you would send for it, as it would be desirable to have it repub
lished. I don't know who the editor of the paper is, nor the
author of the article. The Forbes also sent me a very flat
tering notici? of the book from the Edinburgh paper. The
Scotsman. On the whole, it has been treated as well as an
unknown production could expect in England, where success
belongs to those only who have already succeeded. I have heard
nothing from Chapman since the book was published, but I
feel sure from the silence that very few copies have been sold.
I shall be surprised if a hundred copies are sold at the end of a
year. I directed that a copy should be sent to Mr. Bates with
VOL. I. O

194 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
your regards. I suppose you have retained t"ne list of persons
to whom I wished copies sent. One person in particular I beg
may receive one, if he has not already done so, Thomas G.
Bradford. Have the kindness when you next write to look
over this letter, and answer these various matters propounded.
I repeat that the greatest satisfaction which I have derived
from the writing of the History is the pleasure and occupation
which it has given you, and were it not such a very expensive
matter to both our pockets, I should like nothing better than
to write another immediately ; but It hink it safer to pause
upon the road to ruin. I remain, yours affectionately,
J. L. M.
P.S. — I am glad you sent a copy to Mr. Deblois. My
regards to him as well as to his "guide, philosopher, and
friend," the sage of Fort Hill.

To his Father. Castellamare, near Naples,
June 6th, 1856.
My dear Father, — I repeat what I have more than once
said already, that the principal pleasure I have received in
publishing my History is the great satisfaction which you and
my dear mother have derived from it, and the warm expressions
of sympathy which I have met with from my friends. I always
knew that Mr. Cabot and William Amory were my friends,
but I confess that I had not expected even from them such
enthusiastic approbation, the echo of which from beyond the
Atlantic has touched Mary and me most deeply. I shall be
most grateful to them as long as I live. I was, of course, much
pleased with Tom's last letter containing a cojDy of that article
from Harper's. I ascribe the necessity of printing the second
edition to Cabot's and Amory's tremendous cornering opera
tions in the first. I have received Mr. Prescott's very kind and
hearty letter, and will answer it at my first moment of leisure.
31r. Ticknor's I cannot answer because he is already in Europe.
Please to thank Hillard most warmly for his article in the

1856.] RECEPTION OF THE 'HISTORY' IN AMERICA. 195
Courier. I could not be otherwise than extremely grateful to
be made the subject of such very high and elegantly expressed
commendation, although I feel at the same time that I am far
from deserving such praise. Will you take an opportunity
to present my compliments to the editors of the Boston Post,
and thank them sincerely for the handsome and very fiattering
friendly manner in which they have noticed my labours ? I
feel very sensibly any commendation coming from my native
place now that I have been so long resident in foreign lands.
Don't forget, too, to give my regards to Epes Sargent, and to
thank him for the warm and friendly interest which accordino-
to the extracts sent me he has manifested so constantly in
the work.
By the way, will you tell me what arrangement has been
made about the North American Review? I suppose, as a
matter of course, that Hillard has not written two reviews of
the book ; but I should be very sorry to lose a regular article
in the North American Review, to which I think the book is
fairly entitled, and it would be a pity to leave it to the chance
mercy of the editor whom I don't know and who may be
unfriendly. I read the article in the Tribune, and was satisfied
with it. It is curious that everybody who has censured me
severely either in England or America has attacked the
headings of the chapters, and it would be amusing if my
letters to Chapman could be found and printed, to see how
vigorously I remonstrated against, and how reluctantly I
consented to making these kind of titles, thinking the
summary at the head of each chapter quite sufficient. If I
had the opportunity, which I have not at present, of making-
alterations, perhaps I should do so on this point, although
it looks rather sneaking to back out in consequence of
criticisms. We made a very pleasant excursion to Sorrento yesterday.
An old friend of mine. Baron Canitz, who is Prussian Minister
here, and whom I knew twenty years ago in Germany, has
been extremely cordial. He came down here with his Secretary
of Legation yesterday, and we all went together. He invited
me to dine to-day with him with the Prince of Saxe Meinin-

196 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
gen, and a dozen bigv.-igs of the corps diplomatique, but the
weather is too warm for such efforts on my part, and' I insisted
on declining. I shall write as soon as we have crossed the
Simplon, and Mary will probably write next week from
Genoa. Meantime, with the best love of all of us to my dear
mother and yourself, and with kindest remembrances to every
member of the family, never forgetting Uncle Edward, of
whose health I wish you would give me a little better account,
I remain Most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

From Mr. TJieodore Fay.
United States Legation, Berne,
June 18th, 1856.
My dear Motley, — I am afraid to tell you what I think of
your History ! It is one of the finest I ever read. You need
be under no apprehension. It is destined to immortality. It
is a noble painting largely done, the delineations of character
not only by a master hand but from a heart that sees right
through the souls of men and means to speak the truth. I
do not know that there could be found a period of grander
interest, or a historian more able to represent it with all the
force of truth. The drama is opened and conducted with
superior power. The figures rise upon the mind in fearfully
vivid colours but without exaggeration. There is a rare
union of simplicity and strength, of poetry and truth. The
style is limpid, forcible, unaffected, and eloquent. Many of
the descriptions eminently beautiful, as, for instance, that of
the cathedrals. The author has received from nature a high
historic power, and the marks of conscientious study and
reflection are felt in all the details. No library will be com
plete without your work. I congratulate you upon what must
prove a complete success, and I only hope all men may read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest the meaning of such a
character as Philip Egmont, and the grand and noble William
of Orange. For my part I shall consider forwarding your
manuscript as one of the honourable distinctions of my life. It

1857.] OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 197
was a higher act than you supposed, for I did not suspect how
proud I should be of it. We are well. My daughter, who is
my reader, as my beloved wife would have been, owes her first
ideas of history to your pen, and joins in all my praise and
kind regards to you and yours. As ever your friend,
Theo. S. Fay.

From Dr. 0. W. Hohnes.
September 23rd, 185G.'
My DEAR Motley, — I welcome you and all yours back to
your country and your friends, among whom I know you count
me as not the newest or the least attached. I should have
been to see you before this, but for reasons of little conse
quence in themselves, but just enough to keep me at home for
some days, and perhaps for the rest of this ^^eek. There are
many things I should love to talk over with you, but chiefly
your own labours and experiences in the pursuit of your noble
object, the fruit of which it is not too much to say is spoken
of everywhere among us with admiration rather than common
praise. Your wife and children, too — have I not known one
from girlhood, and the others from infancy, and shall I not
have a prattle with them as soon as may be ?
So you expect my bodily presence shortly for an hour's talk
— this week if I can, but next week whether I can or cannot.
Until then, and always thenceforth. Believe me, truthfully yours,
O. W. Holmes.
From the same old habitat, 8, Montgomery Place, Septem
ber 23rd.

From 0. W. Holmes.

8, Montgomery Place,
January 9th, 1857.
SIy dear Motley, — I promised you a glass of wine one
day, and you must let me redeem my promise by sending yon
' Mr. Motley passed the wmter of 1856-7 in Boston.

198 MOTLEY',-? LETTERS, [Chap, VL
these haK a dozen bottles. They are marked in Judge Jack
son's catalogue '¦ Essex Madeira, bought and imported through
Mr. Isaac P. Davis in ISIS." and have been commonly caUed
¦¦ Essex Junior." Mr. Parker (of P. i.'t Codman) says the
wine is well thought of. and I remember Mr. Isaac P.
wanted to purchase all the Judge had in his cellar at o::ie time.
But good or bad, there is a bouquet of old friendship under
everv cork, and to borrow the words of a poet of the nine
teenth centurv, an admirer of your genius, and a near relation
in the ascending line of the youth who brings you the friendly
tribute (or would have brought it if nijt tuo heavy) —
" It is not the sunset that glows in the wine.
But the smile that beams over it makes it divine.''
Don't answer this note, but nod your acknowledgments over
the next glass of wine we drink together. Y^ours faithfully,
0. W. Holmes.
P.S. — Washington Irving^ says '-reliable," and Worcester
credits the word to Sir Eobert Peel.

From Mr. C. C. Felton.

Cambridge,
April llth, 1857.
My dear Motley, — Some days ago I received a copy of
your 'Dutch Eepublic,' which you have the great kindness
to send me. I assure vou there are few things which could
have given me so much gratification. Instead of acknow
ledging your kindness immediately I sat down to read the
book, and have occupied myself -nith it all my leisure moments
since. Fast-dav was thus converted into a most delightful
feast-day, and I am still under the magician's spell. It so
happens that I have before only had time to read here and
there a chapter — enough to form an idea of its characteristic
merits. I had intended to take it up in the summer vaca-
' • Life of Washiugton,' ii.. 210.

1857.1 FRIENDLY CRITICS. 199
tion and study it carefully; but, having it on my table, I
cannot resist the temptation nor postpone the gratification
so long.
I congratulate you very sincerely on your good fortune in
having added a permanent and precious contribution to the
historical literature of our age. I consider him the happiest
of mankind who, having a taste for letters and the genius re
quisite to accomplish great work, is so favoured by his outward
fortunes that he can follow his tastes and give free scope to
his genius. This happiness you have, and you have shown
yourself to be worthy of it by the great achievement you have
accomplished with the freshness of glowing and vigorous early
manhood still upon your spirit.
May your future career in letters correspond to the auspices
of the present, and may I live to refresh my mind, wearied
with daily labours, by many a brilliant page of picturesque
eloquence, sustained by love of truth and ethical justice, fear
lessly and forcibly expressed, from you.
Ever, my dear Motley, your obliged friend,
C. C. Felton.

To Dr. 0. W. Holmes.

18, Boylstou Place,
May 3rd, 1857.
My dear Holmes, — I do not believe that my affection for
you has led me astray while endeavouring to form an im
partial judgment upon your poem. I have read it a great
many times, and I have admired it more at each successive
reading. Each of the episodes has freshness, strength and
beauty, and the whole fabric is simple and noble. What
gives me particular pleasure is, that the more lofty the strain,
the better and grander becomes the poetry. The episode of
the young Eoman is handled with much- classic elegance, as
well as with great tenderness and truth. The best portion,
however, is that which embodies the mother's secret. The
pictures are finished with an artistic delicacy of touch, and a
piety of feeling, which remind me of the Florentine painters

200 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI.
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Webster
photograph is bold, shadowy and imposing, but would pro
bably elicit more hearty applause from a public audience than
from some of us who have perhaps pondered too much the
unheroic and the unpoetical elements which constituted so
much of that golden-headed and clay-footed image.
The same remark I should be inclined to make upon the
fraudulent banker. You have painted a very vigorous picture,
but there is something in the details which are too inhar
monious with the ideal. I suppose that you will not agree
with me, and very likely it is some narrow-ness on my part,
or over squeamishness, but the particulars of a modern dinner
party will refuse to make poetry to my imagination. The
more lifelike they are (and nothing can be more vivid than
your sketch), the more does my mind rebel at them. At the
same time, I beg you to believe that I feel as warmly as any
one can do the genial glow of the atmosphere, and the genuine
ring of the verse, even in the passages which I put below the
other parts of the poem in comparison. Indeed, the descrip
tion of the ruined home on Apple Island is almost the best
thing in the poem. I have taken the libertj' to say exactly
what I think, because, although you may not accept my
criticisms, I am sure you will accept the spirit in which they
are -written. If I thought that you had said your dernier mot,
and that you were not likely in future to excel yourself, T should
then, as one of your warmest admirers, as well as one of your
oldest friends, have poured out for you, what 3Iiss Edgworth
says will alone satisfy an author, "large draughts of un
qualified praise." I could have done that, too, with a clear
conscience. But as I believe you to have it in you to write a
great poem, and as I consider everything which you have
hitherto written only as stray nuggets, golden pledges of the
unfathomed and unsunned ore below, I am the more inclined
to be critical.
As I said before, the loftiest passages in this, as in your
other poems, are much the best. One of your tendencies,
not a bad one if properly understood by you, is to rise
above your subject. Therefore, if you will select a grand.

1857.] MR. BANCROFT. 201
earnest, heroic theme, and put your whole soul and strength
into it, I believe that you can accomplish what has not yet
been done in this country. You have strength of mind
enough to rise to the highest imaginative regions, and to
sustain a long and measured flight therein. You have at
your absolute command the difficult but noble measure which
will always ring in our ears with the true heroic clang until
Dryden and Pope are forgotten. But you cannot do what I
wish you to do except upon two conditions : one, devotion of
your faculties and of your time to the one great object ; the
other, cotton-wooling your ears absolutely to all hand-clapping
and greasy mob applause of mercantile lecture-rooms. Discard
from your verse every word and every thought that has not
the ring of the pure metal. To the morally pure and noble
there is no need of my exhorting you. To that you are always
instinctively and unerringly true. To the intellectually
beautiful and sublime you are equally loyal. I have marked
with parallel lines (as Channing used to do our themes) tho
passages which please me most. You will see that I have
marked a very large part of the poem. I have also ventured
several criticisms, generally verbal ones, on the margin. Do
not be vexed with me if you think them stupid, and reject or
accept just as many of them as you think proper. Meantime,
I remain, as ever. Sincerely your friend,
J. L. M.

From Mr. George Bancroft.

Newport, R.I.,
July llth, 1857,
My dear Motley, — You can make me but one compensa
tion for having missed your visit in New York. Come down
and pass a day, or two days, or three or more as your time may
warrant. Come next Friday in the morning train and boat ;
you will be here at eleven. On Thursday I may possibly run

202 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL
up to hear Mr. Everett, though I doubt. Next week I may
go to New York to work, for work here is impossible.
Yours of the 9th I received yesterday morning. I shall
value very highly, I assure you, the copy of your History from
its author. You send it at least to a house where it is valued.
Mrs. Bancroft has read every word of Harper's three volumes,
and was among the earliest to take her place as one who does
full justice to the work ; and, of course, my self love is pleased
with this, for you may suppose I have trained her. to good
judgment on such matters. Indeed there is but one opinion
on what you have achieved. My friend Eipley, whose judg
ment in this case was unbiassed by personal friendship or
acquaintance, and whose judgment under such circumstances
I think the best of any one in New York, has always in private
conversation and in public given you the tribute you deserve,
and I believe thinks in his heart that you have excelled
us all.
But come on Friday in the morning train and stay as long
as you can, and we will talk of all sorts of things before you
put an ocean between us. Ever yours,
Geo. Bancroft.

From Mr. Washington Irving. Sunnyside,
July llth, 1857.
My DEAR Sir, — Mr. Cogswell apprises me of his having
received at the Astor Library a copy of your work which you
have done me the honour to send to his care for me.
A short time since on reading the first volume of your
history I was so much struck by its merit that I was on the
point of writing to you to express my admiration of this great
literary achievement and my delight at such a noble accession
to our national literature ; but I checked the impulse, lest it
should be deemed an intrusive assumption on my part. You
may judge therefore how sincerely and deeply I appreciate the
proof you give me of your favourable consideration. I am now

1857.] WASHINGTON IRVING. 203
on the third volume of your History, reading it with unflagging
interest and increasing deference for its author. The minute
and unwearied research, the scrupulous fidelity and impartial
justice with which you execute your task, prove to me that
you are properly sensible of the high calling of the American
press — that rising tribunal before which the whole world is to
be summoned, its history to be revised and rewritten, and the
judgment of past ages to be cancelled or confirmed. I am
happy to learn that you are about to return to the field of your
labours — an ample field it is — and the three teeming volumes
you have so suddenly laid before the public show how well you
know where to put in your sickle.
With warmest wishes for your continued success, I am, my
dear sir. Most truly your obliged friend and servant,
Washington Irving.
J. L, Motley, Esq.

204 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII.

CHAPTEE VII.
BRUSSELS — AT WORK ON ' THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.'
Letter to 0. W. Holmes— Access to the State Paper Office — Nice in December-
Work on the ' History of the United Netherlands ' — At Brussels and in
Holland — M. Gachard — M. Groen van Prinsterer — Reception of the ' Dutch
Republic' in Holland — Dutch Society— The Hague— Work at the Ar
chives in Brussels — And in Paris — ^Visit to the Bismarcks — Frankfort.
To Dr. 0. W. Holmes.
Walton-on-Thames, September 16th, 1857.
My dear Wendell, — This is not a letter, not even an
apology for one. I only wish to say to you that I intend to
write very soon, and that I hope to hear from you as often as
you can overcome your avaricious tendencies. I am myself
excessively miserly at this moment, for I am almost distraught
at the circumlocution and circumvolutions of London. To
try to do anything in a hurry here is to " hew down oaks with
rushes." Sisyphus with his rock was an idle, loafing- individual
compared to the martyr who is doomed to work up the pre
cipice of English routine. I have been in London a month,
and my rock has just come down upon my toes for the fourth
or fifth time. I have not yet got into the State Paper Office,
where I expected to have effected my entrance after the first
day or two succeeding my arrival. I thought to have done a
great deal of work there this time. But the American Minister,
and the Blinister of Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of the
Interior, and the Master of the EoUs (who by the way is not a
baker, as Lowell would probably suggest), and various other
dignitaries have all to be made aware (in a Pickwickian sense)
that an insignificant individual like myself is desirous of
reading some musty and forgotten old letters which not one
of them could read or would wish to if they could. A friend

1857.] THE STATE PAPER OFFICE. 205
of mine once went into a soda-water shop in Boston on a very
hot day, and -was told by an elderly individual behind the
counter that his son John, proprietor of the establishment,
had gone to Portland, but that upon his return he would
undoubtedly be very happy to prepare him a glass. This is
exactly my case. The Earl of Clarendon is absent with the
Queen at Balmoral. Panizzi of the British Museum is in
Turin. Dallas is at the Isle of Wight, and others are hiding
themselves in other corners or pretending to be absent, even
if actually here, because in September it is disreputable to be
in London. No moral or religious person therefore would
acknowledge himself to be here. When these illustrious per
sonages all get back, they will unite to prepare my glass of
soda-''>\-ater. By that time I shall be in Paris. I have also
had time during the last two or three weeks to go over a mass
of MS. in the British Museum. Mais ilfaut casser des oeufs
pour f aire une omelette.
Eoutledge tells me that your poems (particularly the Punch-,
Boivl), are familiar to everybody in England. I have been a
recluse till now. We are at present staying at this magni
ficent place. Mount Felix, near Walton-on-Thames, enjoying the
princely hospitality of our friends, Eussell Sturgis and his wife.
I wish you were here too. Eemember me kindly to Lowell and
Agassiz and Felton, Longfellow, Tom Appleton, and all the
members of our Club, which I hope you have regularly joined
by this time. My wife joins me in warmest remembrances
to you and your wife and children. I am provoked that I
have been writing all about myself. I shall write to you ere
long again, and will not use this horrible pap4r. Nee tenui
penna is a good motto, but Nee tenui charta shall henceforth
be mine. Do write me occasionally, if only a single sheet of
notepaper, and pardon the detestable stupidity of this.
Ever most sincerely your friend,
J. L. M.
An English admirer of yours, Mr. Synge, attache in Her
Majesty's Foreign Office, who is staying in this house and who
has heard much in your praise from Thackeray, asks to send
you his respects.

206 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII.
To Ms Mother. Nice,
December 13th, 1857.
My dearest Mother, — Mary and Susie were charmed with
your letters to them, and with your account of your Eiverdale
wedding festivities. I tell them I hope you will celebrate your
one hundredth jubilee in the same way and place, although I
suppose it is rather a longer prospect than any of us would care
to look forward to just at present. As I have never been in the
tropics, I cannot get used to this constant flood of warm sun
shine, cloudless and almost oppressive day after day, in what
certainly are not generally considered the genial last weeks of
the year. We have been here about six weeks, and there have
been but two or three cloudy days, and those were warm rainy
ones, all the rest as warm and as fine as our best days in early
October. Warmer than those, because there is always a lump
of ice stirred in at night into the American Indian summer.
Here we have had no signs of frost as yet ; green peas are
about as cheap as in July in Boston, and red roses are as
plenty out of doors at Christmas as red noses are in Winter
Street at the same season. The consequence of this satis
factory condition of the atmosphere is that Lily is almost
growing fat. She has improved during six weeks more than
we had dared to hope, though I am sorry to say her condition
is far from being completely satisfactory. She is still languid,
and unable to take much exercise, but she can breathe the
fresh air and sunshine all day long, by merely opening the
window and going out on the balcony.
Nice is in itself an insignificant little town, with about 40,000
inhabitants. The chief productions of the place, as the school
geography would say, are oil, perfumery, and beggars; the
latter article being rather too strong a combination of the two
first. It is placed along a crescent-shaped bay, formed by
beautifully and boldly outlined mountainous headlands, with a
little lighthouse at the tip of each horn, and with a background
of high, solid, warm rocks, with orange and olive groves
crammed into all the interstices. It unfolds itself to the sunny
Mediterranean on the south, and shelters itself under the

1857.] PROGRESS — 'THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.' 207
mountains from the north wind. For these reasons it has,
perhaps, the best and brightest climate in Italy. Our apart
ment fronts the sea, having as bold a marine view as the Nahant
hotel. The murmurs of the tideless ocean upon the shingly
beach are never silent under our balcony, the profiles of the
mountains Avhich encircle the place are always seen through a
golden and purple haze, which is peculiar to Italy, and the
windows on the opposite side look over whole acres of orange
orchards, just now golden with fruit, and fragrant with blossoms,
in addition to which three miles of shirts and chemises can be
seen drying any day upon the beach in front, gracefully flutter
ing and displaying their raggedness along the whole sinuosity
of the bay.
You must not suppose that I am idle. I certainly should
not have chosen Nice for a family residence, except on Lily's
account. Nevertheless, being here, I can occupy myself
for a long time with several hundredweight of books, which
I have brought with me, and which I must devour and turn
into chyle before I can do much in the way of writing. My
time in London was not lost for a single day, and I have
now two persons employed there in copying for me, according
to my mapping out when personally in the State Paper Office
and British Museum. I was also hard at work in the Archives
in Paris during the few weeks that we were there. I have,
however, much to do in the subterranean way in Brussels,
the Hague, London, and Paris. I do not write at all as yet,
but am diving deep and staying under very long, but hoping
not to come up too dry. My task is a very large and hard
one. My canvas is very broad, and the massing and the com
position of the picture will give me more trouble than the
more compact one which I have already painted. Then I have
not got a grand central heroic figure, like William the Silent,
to give unity and flesh and blood interest to the scenje. The
history will, I fear, be duller and less dramatic than the other.
Nevertheless, there are many grand events and striking cha
racters, if I can do justice to them. If I could write half a
dozen volumes, with a cheerful confidence that people would
read them as easily as I write them, my task would be a com-

208 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIL
paratively easy one. But I do not know where all the books
are to go that are written uow-a-days. And then my pub
lishers have failed, and Heaven knows what may be the
condition of the market when I take my next pigs there. In
short, I cannot write at all, except by entirely forgetting for
the time that there is such a thing as printing and publishing.
Nice, I am very much disappointed to say, is very dear,
being a kind of watering-place, where the six lean months of
w-inter are made to swallow the six fat ones of summer. If
you should stay a year, and get the fat and lean both, the
average would be respectably low.

To his Wife. Hotel du Rhin, Paris,
January 15th, 1858.
My dearest Mary, — I \\Tote you a brief note from Mar
seilles just before leaving that place for Paris. I made the
journey comfortably enough, getting about as much sleep out
of the coupe of the railroad as I usually do out of a bedstead,
arrived here about seven o'clock of a dismal sloppy morning,
and installed in a garret on the courtyard of the inside house.
When I got home I found that old  had been looking for
me, and wished much to see me before I departed. So I went
to the " Hotel du Louvre " and found him. Mrs.  was of
course on hand, mending her stockings, and the children were
bivouacking as usual upon the floor and skirmishing about the
room. She informed me that the atmosphere of Nice was very
cold and foggy ; which statement was so very like that
respecting the Coreggio in the Manchester Exhibition that I
could only bow meekly in deference to her superior wisdom.
Poor  seemed more oppressed by her than ever. We got
into, a corner, and I tried to make him forget his misery.
But Mrs.  was constantly hovering over us like a vulture,
and at last pounced upon him bodily, insisted on discussing
the point whether she might go and make her visits in a fiacre
with one horse, or whether she ought to have two. She then
screwed herself up to asking me to dinner, and looked radiant

1858.] WORK IN BRUSSELS. 209
when I told her I was engaged. I did not tell her I never
dined in the dark, and as there is a very brilliant row of
gas-lights in the street opposite their windows, I suppose
they never indulge in candles.
I think I have chronicled small beer enough for you for the
present. I leave to-morrow morning at eight for Brussels. I
have not yet heard from Van der Weyer, but I have written to
him to send his letters to Brussels. I can do nothing here.
Kiss my darlings a thousand times. Tell Susie I hope she has
begun to miss me a little bit, even in spite of my scoldings.
Tell Lily that when she has finished what she is reading,
I recommend her to get Sismondi's ' Precis de I'Histoire de
France,' which is very readable and in but three volumes. If
it is not in the Library, I think she will be able to buy it at
Visconti's ; I should like her also to read Lingard's ' History
of England.' He is a Eoman Catholic, but honest enough,
and at any rate more respectable than Hume. She had better
read also Bancroft's 'History of the United States,' and
Thierry's ' Conquete de I'Angleterre.' All these books are in
the Library. I wish she would find time, too, to study Italian
a little. If she wants a teacher no doubt plenty are to be
found at Nice.
As for my little Saint Mary, I only wish I had her always
with me to take advice and example from. I have none to
' give her.
You see I do not bore you with the Attentat, for I know
nothing that is not in the newspapers. I have made no call
either upon Guizot or Madame Mohl or anybody. As I am
only passing through, it would be nonsense.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

To his Father. Brussels,
January 24ft, 1858.
My dear Father, — Finding my family so well and com
fortably established at Nice for the winter, and Lily's health
so much improved as to be no longer a source of anxiety,
VOL. I. P

210 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII
I was unwilling to delay any longer making a move towards
the land of my labours. Although the books that I took with
me would have given me employment for several months at
Nice, yet I wanted to set about as soon as possible the work
which can only be accomplished here and at the Hague.
I came to this place intending to make an effort to see the
MS. copies made long ago by order of the Belgian Govern
ment of a very important correspondence of Philip the Second
and his Ministers with the governors and other important
personages in the Low Countries. This correspondence is in
course of publication by Mr. Gachard, Archivist of the King
dom, and an acquaintance of mine. At the rate at which the
publication proceeds, however, I shall be dead and buried
before it reaches the epoch at which I wish to use it.
M. Van der Weyer, with whom I spent a day and night at his
house at Windsor, ^vhen I was last in England, jiromised me
to use his best efforts to obtain the permission for me to read
the correspondence in MS. We agreed that when I was ready
to proceed to Brussels, he should write letters to Mr. Gachard,
to the Minister of the Interior, and others, urging my claims,
etc. Accordingly the other day before leaving Nice, I wrote
to M. Van der Weyer, asking for those friendly offices. I did not
reflect, however, that I had stumbled exactly upon the moment
of the marriage of the Princess Eoyal, when the whole Belgian
royal family were on Van der Weyer's hands, and when he
could hardly be expected to think of anything else.
In consequence of that, I hardly expect to hear from him at
all at present ; but as I shall be here again in the summer, I
shall have plenty of time to attend to the matter thfen. Mean
while, as I had come so far, I thought I had better make a
slight invasion of Holland, and so a week ago to-day I went
to the Hague. My reception there was very cordial. All the
newspapers announced my arrival with a good deal of flourish.
The two gentlemen whose opinion I most value (as they are
themselves leading authorities in all matters of Netherland
history), Mr. Groen van Prinsterer, who has the charge of the
private or family archives of the House of Orange-Nassau,
and who is well known as an author, besides being a promi-

1858.] RECEPTION OF 'DUTCH REPUBLIC IN HOLLAND. 211
nent member of the States-General, and Mr. Bakhuysen van
der Brink, the Archivist-general of the Kingdom, the most
learned man and the cleverest writer in the country, both
spoke of my work in the strongest terms of approbation. They
assured me that almost everybody in Holland had read it, and
that there was but one opinion about it, that it had made a
very deep and general sensation. A great many things were
said to me which it would not be becoming to repeat. The
book very soon after its appearance was reprinted at Amster
dam, and has had a large sale, not to the benefit of the author's
pocket, however, but I am very glad to have it circulated.
The edition is quite a pretty one, and sells for about three-
and-a-half dollars. I think that you are already aware that a
French translation is preparing under the auspices of the
distinguished Mr. Guizot. I had a kind invitation to visit
him in a few days when I return to Paris, and I suppose the
translation will appear before long, but have no recent news
on the subject. The whole work has also been translated into
German, and has been published at Leipzig and Dresden. I
have not yet seen the translation, but I mean to get a copy in
Paris. But the most satisfactory thing on the whole to me is that
a translation into Dutch is now appearing (published in
numbers), under the superintendence of Mr. Bakhuysen, of
whom I have already spoken. He has written a preface, and
adds a good many notes and comments. The book is very
handsomely printed, and I regard its publication as a very
satisfactory testimonial to the permanent value of the work. I
think it is something better than vanity which causes me to
take an honest pleasure in finding my labours appreciated and
commended by the persons most fit to sit in judgment upon
them. I own that I should have been deeply mortified on
arriving in Holland to find that nobody had heard of my
book. Yet previously to last week I had no reason to suppose
that it had obtained any currency. Nobody had ever told me
of the translations and republications, so that I was quite taken
by surprise at finding myself so well-known here. The best
results of these favourable views regarding my work is the

212 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII.
facility which it gives me for the one with which I am at
present occupied. Mr. Groen and Mr. Bakhuysen both take
the greatest pleasure in aiding my researches in every possible
way, and a great mass of unpublished documents will be laid
before me when I come back in June.
I shall doubtless find letters to-morrow at my banker's here.
Lily, thank God, is so much better that we are no longer
anxious about her. Mary and the other two children are very
well. There was never anything like the atmosphere of Nice.
We came to that place in the first, week in November, and till
the 12 th of January, when I left, there had been but three
days when there had not been cloudless sunshine and balmy
airs. The windows of our apartment were open all day long,
and sometimes it was even necessary to shut the green blinds
just as if it were mid-summer instead of mid-winter. Here in
the Netherlands we have generally lowering and rainy skies,
and great-coats and fires are indispensable. Still there is
neither frost nor snow, nothing like winter as we understand
the word in America. Give my love to my dear mother. I do
hope and trust that she will send me with her own hand a
better account of herself.
In order to gain time and to lighten my labours, I have
already engaged a very competent person to make certain pre
liminary researches and copies during all the time I am absent
from the Hague. I expect on my return thither in June to
find a considerable progress made. The same is doing for me
in the State Paper Office and the British Museum of London.
Alas ! I am not making much money by such operations ; but I
believe in the long run that even in a pecuniary point of view
I am doing right to make thorough work. It will be impos
sible for anybody to deny a permanent value to labours which
have been conscientiously carried out, and have obtained the
unqualified approbation of those most competent to pronounce
upon them. When my two works are both finished, I cannot
help thinking that they will have a considerable value even
in the money market. But at the same time it is impossible
for me to do anything at all unless I discard all such ideas
from my mind when I am writing. The moment a man begins

1858.] THE HAGUE. 213
to write for money, it is apt to be all over with his true repu
tation. Meantime, with my love to all both great and small at
home, I am Affectionately your son,
J. L. M. -

To his Wife. Brussels,
January 24.th, 1858.
I have been working pretty hard in the short time I was at
the Hague, and I feel that I have made a good deal of pro
gress. I should have stayed a little longer, but for a reason
which seems a ridiculous one enough to state, but you know
me well enough to acquit me of affectation — I could hardly
have remained longer without going to see the Queen. Our
old friend. Count Louis Bylandt, told me she was the first
person to speak to him of my book, telling him that he must
read it, and using very complimentary language on the
subject. He told me that I ought to send to Count Eandwyk (from
whom, by the way, you remember that I received a very civil
message through Sir Charles Lyell), and be presented to her
at once, — that she would be much pleased to see me, etc., etc.,
and that he should tell her that I was in the Hague as
soon as he saw her, — that her small tea-parties are extremely
agreeable. There is also a great ball at the English Am
bassador's, and Count Bylandt wanted to send word to him
that I was there, saying that he had had a great deal to say
to him about me, and would at once send me an invitation.
The Groen van Prinsterers were also very urgent that I
should go into society, telling me that I should find that
everybody was acquainted with me already. Under these
circumstances, finding that I should be obliged to abandon
my beloved solitude, you will think it very natural that I
should decamp. If I had been twenty-three instead of forty-
three I daresay it would have been very jolly to go to the
Queen's tea-parties and get a few sugar-plums, but my

214 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII.
appetite for such diet is gone. I enjoyed my twilight walks
under the leafless branches of the magnificent oaks and
beeches of the great wood, musing and moralising like the
melancholy Jacques in the forest of Arden, and once I took a
long stroll on the sands at Scheveningen. The winter sky
was wild and lowering, and for miles seaward the waves of the
stormy North Sea were rolling in vast sheets of foam over the
breakers. It was a grand and gloomy Euysdael, a good
counterpart to the golden Claudes which you have daily from
your windows at Nice.
I had not much time to enjoy the "rapture of the lonely
shore," but I remain of the opinion that the Hague is in
winter the prettiest town in Europe. It is so clean, and
orderly, and elegant, and so embowered in foliage. I could
not well have remained longer without making visits, etc.
The newspapers, both of the Hague and Eotterdam had
announced my arrival with a great flourish of trumpets (for
tunately not till the day before my departure), so upon
Saturday morning (day before yesterday) 1 returned to this
place. Count Bylandt has sold the Murillo to Mr. Aspinwall for
something less than the price he asked when we were at the
Hague ($16,000), Mr. Aspinwall had also bought the Claudes,
and I am glad that one rich American has bought some good
pictures as a set off to the Leonardos and Titians of the
 's gallery and other similar collections. I am quite
disgusted. I have been writing two sheets and a half about
myself. But how can I help it ? You will want to know about
my visit to the Hague, and it would be a silly affectation not
to say what I had to say, and w-hat I suppose will interest you
to hear. Nor is it as if I had been talking from the house
tops or in the newspapers. Still if I had any other topic to
entertain you with I would do it with pleasure, but I have been
completely alone ever since I left Paris, and I dread going
back there where there are such a lot of people. This is
Sunday, and I have therefore not been able to get my
letters, which I ordered Monroe to send to my bankers here.
To-morrow I shall of course have news of you, dear Mary, and

1858,] THE ARCHIVES IN BRUSSELS. 215
of my little darlings. Tell Lily I think she may find the
stories of Henri Conscience interesting. I bought two or three
to read while travelling, but as they are in Flemish, they
would be of little use to anybody else. They have all been
translated into French, however, and I suspect you will find
them at Visconti's. They are something like Auerbach's
stories, generally of the Flemish peasants and artisans, and
contain many pleasing quiet Gerard Dow-ish incidents and
quiet, gentle unfoldings of sentiments and affection very
different from the highly charged romances of the Satanic
schools. The moral tone is unexceptionable, but they are
perhaps a little flat, too little cayenne for your taste, but still
you might fancy them. Has Susie begun to miss me yet ?
How is her handwriting ? I am in daily expectation of seeing
some remarkable result of the method so much approved by
Tomkins of London. Has she curled the pere C.'s hair
as she proposed ? What is my little angel Mary doing ?
Taking care of everybody but herself, as usual, I suppose. It
seems to me as if I had been gone a year, and that nobody
would know me if I should walk into the Maison Donaudy.
I shall write soon again. Affectionately your own,
J. L.

To his Wife. Bruss.
March 2nd, 1858.
My dear Mary, — I hardly know whether I have written to
you within the last few days or not. My days and nights
succeed each other and certify each other so monotonously
that they seem to be all stuck together in one piece. It is
like one long sentence without punctuation, like the inter
minable Spanish despatches which I am reading every day,
and which run sometimes for fifty pages without a period or
even a comma. I am at the Archives every day before ten,
and generally till five, as Gachard, when he stops, invites me
into his cabinet after the regular hour of closing, which is

216 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIL
three. Then, la nuit tombanfe, I take a grim crepuscular walk
round the shabby little boulevards, after ^^hich I go to the
reading-room for an hour. At half-past seven I dine alone in
the large salle a manger, lighted by one candle, with two waiters
looking at me, so that I always feel like Warren in the fiirce
which we saw at the Museum. After this I work till twelve
or one o'clock, burning a good deal of midnight spermaceti,
which, at the rate charged for it, comes, according to my
calculation, to about one whale a month. Thus you see that
I have always a pickaxe in hand, and am working my way
pretty steadily into the bowels of the land. At the same time
I do not see that I have anything amusing to communicate to
you. I have a fine opportunity for cultivating my talent for
silence, but that does not enable me to be very agreeable in
conversation, even by letter. I am attacked by very frequent
tits of the d quoi bon disease, and am constantly asking myself
why I should condemn myself in this absurd way to travaux
forces d perpetuite. Here I go trainant ma boule, and it does
not do me any good, or anybody else. I am getting disgusted
with the word " history," and yet I go boring on merely
because it seems to be my destiny /awfe de mieux.
I went again to see Madame Metivie yesterday, and found
her at home, together with the other one. Miss le Strange ^
was there, too, with her father, and was delighted to hear of
Lily and Mary, whom she recollects very well, and begged
to be kindly remembered. She is quite a pretty, pleasing
girl- March 15th. — I have pretty nearly finished in Brussels for
the present. I have gone through nearly the whole of the
Simancas correspondence, twelve hundred letters, many of
them sixty pages in length, and after all they are rather a
seecatura. I suppose I shall go to Paris by the' end of the
week. Ever yours,
J. L. M.
' Now Mrs. V>''aller, who, with her phant, had been fellow-pupils and
sister, afterwards Mrs. Laurence Oli- friends of his daughter. — Ed.

1858.] THE ARCHIVES IN PARIS. 217
To Ms Daughter. Paris,
March 20th, 1858.
My dear LITTLE Mary, — Your sweet, beautifully-written
letter of February 26th gave me a great deal of pleasure, and
I did not intend to have left it so long unanswered. But I
am always very hard at work, and besides, I have usually at
least a dozen letters on hand, generally to persons I care very
little about, which is the most disagreeable labour of all to me.
It would be a great pleasure to me to write to you now if I
could say anything that would interest or amuse you. My
darling child, you have always • been a blessing and a conso
lation ever since you were born. I never can express the
tenderness and gratitude I feel towards you.
Your mamma gives me a much longer period for staying in
Paris than- 1 intend to spend here. I am rather tired of work,
and not very well. After I have got through a little job at
the Archives, which will not take me a great many days, I
wish to come and see you all once more. As for Paris, " c'est
la mer d boire " in respect of work, and I do not like to look
at the Archives or the Library, for they show me how much
labour there would be for me if I stayed longer. I have been
to see Mrs. Crowninshield, but did not find her, and shall go
again to-day. I went to see Mrs. Brooks last evening. She
made many kind inquiries after mamma and Lily. I have
seen Mrs. Amory and S  , who seem satisfied with their
winter's work. Mr. Frank Lowell goes to-day to Italy. Good
bye, my dear little Mary. Give my love to mamma, Lily,
•and Susie, and believe me. Your affectionate little
Papa.

218 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIL
To his Wife. Frankfort,
Monday night. May 3rd, 1858.
My dearest Mary, — According to my promise I write you
a single line before I go to bed that I may inform you of my
safe arrival in this place, notwithstanding the numerous
dangers of flood and field which beset the venturer on such
unfrequented paths. I slept the first night at Yverdun, an
unsophisticated place, where they have not yet learned how
much to charge for their indifferent accommodation, an igno
rance which will soon fade before the advancing railroad
system. The next day I left by the boat at eight, and crossing
the two lakes of Neufchatel and Brienne, took the rail at 6 a.m.
There is a tunnel eight minutes long on this road, which had
just been opened the day before yesterday. From Bale to
Frankfort I came to-day, and reached this place at half-past
four. After dinner I went to the Bismarcks, and received as
affectionate a welcome from them both as I knew I should,
and like them if possible better than ever. Keyserling and
Wanda were there, and are staying at this hotel. His wife
died in Venice in March, after much suffering. Behr, his
brother-in-law, is also here, but goes to Curland to-morrow.
I suppose I shall stay through the week. The Bismarcks,
however, are in great confusion, as they are exactly in all the
agonies of changing their residence. The house which they
have inhabited for the last six years they have been obliged
to give up to the owner thereof, who has just inherited seven
million guldens, and is disposed to go into his house on the
strength of it. They are therefore just now sitting on two
stools, and as comfortable as people generally are in such a
position. May ith. — I wrote you a short note the night of my arrival.
Since then the Bismarcks have got pretty well established in
their new house. I have dined there every day, and spent
most of my time with them. They are entirely unchanged,
frank, cordial, and affectionate as ever, both of them. Their
new house has a large garden, as large as Eichlers' in Dresden,

1858.] FRANKFORT. 219
with a magnificent view into the country, and the Taunus
Mountains. I shall leave to-morrow for Cologne, and the
next day go to Calais, and the third to London. I am urged
to stay, but I must get to work or I shall get rusted irre
vocably, and as so considerable a part of our revenue has to
come out of the inkstand, I have not much time to lose.
The weather is horrible — cold, windy, and dusty, with occa
sional snow squalls by way of variety. The genial month of
May is always atrocious anywhere on this side the AIjds. It
makes me shiver to think of the dismal voyage down the
Ehine, and across the Channel, where there is no keeping
tolerably comfortable, except by going down into those
diabolical cabins, where perpetual eating is being perpetrated
by the ever-hungry Germans. I am sorry that the weather is
still so disagreeable with you. I feel very anxious about you
all — but, as you say, I can always be with you very soon in
case of necessity. Do keep well yourself, dear Mary, and
keep my darlings well also. I am very glad to hear my sweet
little Mary is well again. Believe me always
Most affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

220 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VHI.

CHAPTEE Vin.
LONDON SOCIETV.
Madame de Bismarck — Journey down the Rhine — And to London — Letter to
O. W. Holmes — Literary despondency — The 'Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table' — Stale metaphors — Thackeray's praise of the 'Autocrat' — London
Society — The Cosmopolitan — WilUam Stirling — Jlonckton Milnes — A. II.
Layard — The State Paper OfBce — Dinner at the Mackintoshes — "W. M.
Thackeray — Lord Carlisle — The Athenaeum — The Derby — The Opera —
Alboni — Piccolomini — Lord and Lady Lyndhurst — Mr. Henry Reeve —
Chiswick House — Sir C. Lyell — Lady Byron — Dinner at Thackeray's — Lord
Macaulay — Clubs — The Guild of Authors — Dean 3Iilman — England's
" delicious women of sixty ' — Thackeray's lecture at Lady Stanley's — !llrs.
Norton — A dinner with Mr. Peabody — " The Leviathan " — Lady Stanley —
The Duchess of Somerset — Breakfast party at Wimbledon Park — Lord John
Russell — English politics — The " Derby-Dizzies " — Disraeli's speech at
Slough — The grandmothers of England — JIarquis of Lansdowne — Dinner at
Lady Airlie's — Henry Hallam — The Charity children in St. Paul's — The
Chapter Coffee House — The Temple Church — Dinner with Lord Palmerston
— Lord Clarendon — Baron Brunnow — Abraham Hayward — Sir R. Murchison
Lady William Russell — A Richmond dinner — Lord Brougham and Lord
Lyndhurst — Lord Stratford de Redcliffe — The House of Commons — Dinner
at Lansdowne House — Mrs. Norton's description of Disraeli — Lord Goderich
— Lord Brougham on the Slave Trade — Breakfast and dinner parties —
Madame Mohl — House of Lords — Debate on Cuba.
To his Wife. London,
May 13th, 1858.
I reached this place this morning, Tuesday. I was just
ready to start from the " Hotel d'Angleterre at Frankfort," at
about 9 A.M. My luggage was all packed into a fiacre, and I
was just getting into that vehicle myself, when Madame de
Bismarck made her appearance, and as I was bidding her
good-bye, she insisted upon it that I should not go — that my
room was quite ready at their house, and that I must proceed
there instead of to the railroad.
While I was expostulating, she gave a sudden nod to the

1858.] LONDON SOCIETY. 221
cocher of my fiacre, and before I could stop him he was on
his way to her house with my trunks. She then whisked me
off in her carriage to the embarcadere to see Keyserling and
Wanda, who were taking their departure in another direction.
After we had seen them safely started, we proceeded to her
house. ... I was, however, considerably indisposed, and did
not care about being invalided in their house. I remonstrated
so earnestly therefore, that she agreed to let me go to the
Bureau to make inquiries. I only mention this incident to
you to show the perfectly frank and cordial way in iA-hich
they treat me, and would treat you if you had accompanied
me. She is so kind-hearted, amiable, and jolly. She is
very desirous that you should spend a winter at Frankfort,
and wishes to bring Lily out. Bismarck is unchanged to me ;
his wife says he seems twenty years younger when I am
there, which is the real reason why she likes my society so
much. She is devotedly attached to him and he to her. It
seems ridiculous to me that any one should be enlivened by
my company, but this is a very good reason. His time is so
much occupied with that most tedious of all seccaturas the
politics of the German Confederation, that it is no wonder
when a middle-aged gentleman is transformed temporarily into
a stripling of eighteen, with deportment comformable, his
family are satisfied. I make these remarks exclusively that
you may not suppose that it is my important individuality
which makes my presence agreeable to them, but that I am
important only as her husband's friend. . . .
I came accordingly, as above remarked, to Cologne on
Tuesday. The day was a fine one — the only fine one for many
days, and the voyage down the river was not so tedious as I
had anticipated. I enjoyed not so much the ruins and the
river as I did looking at the spot where we were together
so long ago. The " Hotel du Lis " at St. Goar, where the
waiter threw down the dishes to look at the steamboat, the old
" chatee " at Braubach, and the house at Kouigswinter, from
whence dear little Mary's letter of " We are now at Ehine "
was composed — were all visible before the mists settled down
upon the landscape, and made it dimmer than the memory
of it, which is still so fresh. It was ten in the evening when

222 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
we got to Cologne, and on the following morning at eight
I was on my way in a pelting rain to Ostend. The weather,
however, very civilly cleared up at sunset. I decided to cross
from Ostend because it saved nine hours of rail, and only gave
three and a half hours more of boat. The sea also ^^-as not
very rough, and I had no sea sickness, but, as you may
suppose, was rather bored. I reached Dover at one in the
morning, slept there, and took the eight o'clock train for
London. I had the pleasure of getting y^our kind, affectionate
letter on my arrival.

To Dr. 0. W. Holmes.
London,
May 10th, 1858.
My dear Wendell, — Your most agreeable and affectionate
letter ought not to have remained so long unanswered. That
such has been the case is not the fault of my heart, but my
head. You, whose reservoir is always filled from the perennial
fountains thousands of feet above the heads of nous axitres, so
that you have only to turn the plug to get a perpendicular jet
straight into the clouds, must have compassion on those
condemned to the forcing-pump. I do not mean, God forbid,
that I have not written because I despaired of being witty or
amusing. Certainly I do not look upon a friendship such as
ours as requiring any demonstrations beyond those of sincerity
and steadfastness. At the same time, I have got of late to be
affected — " but why I know not," as Hamlet says — with such
a constant and chronic blue devilry, that I am ashamed to
-write to any one. Unfortunately, the disease with me takes
the form of pure and unmitigated stupidity, so that it is not
in the least interesting or romantic. You do not know what
it is to re-echo daily poor Sir Andrew Aguecheek's pathetic
complaint, " Sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian
or an ordinary man." All this is intended, not as an apology
for my silence, but an explanation thereof. I have been
doing my best. I bought six months ago a memorandum-
book, as big as a ledger, to take notes of my own conversation,
in the manner recommended by the original autocrat who

1858.] LONDON. 223
reigned over us, consule Blanco, and I have been patiently
hoping to catch myself saying or even thinking a good thing,
in which case down it would have gone in black and white
for your benefit. In vain I have placed myself in the attitude
of Sterne's portraits, with my forefinger on the bump of
ideality, in which attitude, he says, he verily believes he has
often intercepted ideas which were intended for somebody
else's brain. It is all no go.
By the way, your letter had various adventures before
reaching me. I was then in Brussels. My address was, and
always is. Baring Brothers and Co., London. You had the
original conception of addressing me to the care of Brown
Brothers and Co., London. Now it is rather a remarkable
fact, that although there are several persons rejoicing in that
name in London, the only Browns who have anything fraternal
about them in the whole town are some chairmakers in Picca
dilly. They declined receiving your letter, and then it some
how went back to Liverpool. Some weeks later I heard from
home that you had sent the letter, and I wrote to Eussell
Sturgis (of the Barings) to help me if possible to it. He very
kindly wrote to the General Post Office, and also to Brown,
Shipley and Co., Liverpool, and eventually the letter was ex
tricated and sent to me, covered all over with very funny hiero
glyphics illustrating its^various adventures. I might have used
this as an excuse for my delay in answering, had I not preferred
making a confession rather than an apology. Your letters,
fortunately, are not like eggs, telegrams, and things of that
nature, good for nothing except fresh, and therefore I enjoyed
it the more in consequence of the difficulty in getting it. I
was much obliged for your kindness in mentioning the favour
able opinion concerning me expressed by Mr. Dorsheimer,
and the fact gave me great pleasure. I regret to say that
I have seen of the Atlantic Magazine only the first two
numbers. The reason for this is that I have been for the last
six months, with hardly an interval, in very out-of-the-way
and obscure places, where light never comes that comes at all.
Nice at first, and Brussels afterwards. I took my family in
Nove nber to the former place on account of Lily, whose

224 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII.
health was very delicate, but I rejoice to say she has very
much improved, and after establishing them there, I departed
to spend the most solitary winter I ever sjjent in my life in
Brussels. I Avas all day in the Archives, and nearly all night
in my chamber. I hardly ever spoke except to exchange a
few brief signals Avith my felloAv worms, Avho were feeding like
myself on the carcase of the buried centuries, and the con
sequences of such a solitary and Ghoul-like existence, was to
subdue my nature to the condition of the carrion I had been
consuming. I find your ' .A.utocrat ' (the first two numbers of A\-hich, as
stated, are all I have yet seen) as fresh and poignant in flavour
as those of twenty years since, w-hich is sufficiently high praise
as to manner. As to matter, the substance is unquestionably
stronger, sterner stuff than in those days, and will endure long.
You must always have an eye to their subsequent ajjpearance
in volumes by themselves, when of course you can leave out
what you think of transitory interest, and give them the last
polish. I have but just arrived in London, but as this is
Sunday and I shall be immersed in hard Avork from to-morroAV
forward, in the State Paper Office and British Museum, I
thought I had better sit down and have a little talk with you
A^¦hen I was sure of perfect solitude. To-morroAv I shall get all
the numbers of the Atlantic and devour Avith immense greedi
ness first the ' Autocrats,' and then LoAvell and Emerson and
LongfelloAv and others, as doubtless I shall knoAv them all by
the " tAvinkling of their eyes." If I meet any literary men,
I shall not fail to call their attention to it, as unquestionably
the best magazine in the language. I hope Avhen I next Avrite
I may haA'o something amusing to tell you. As I said before,
I have but just arrived. A young friend of mine Avho is in
Parliament is going to take me to his club to-night, A\here I
hope to hear not logic chopped but politics discussed, as
they are at the very culminating point of a crisis ; the debate
of Friday having been adjourned ovei* till to-morroAv.
A ptropos of the Atlantic, not the magazine, but the ocean,
I happened to find this paragraph the other day in the
commencement of articles on some subject, I forget Avhat, in

1858,] STALE METAPHORS. 225
the Allgemeine Zeitung, and since j'ou have become a German
scholar, I hope you Avill laugh at it as heartily as I did.
" Seit der Entdeckung Amerika's ist die Geschichte nicht
mehr thalassisch sondern oceanisch." I could read no more
of the article. I Avas already Avashed out of existence by such
a Avorld of water. I suppose you sometimes are glad of a
suggestion or tAvo of topics for your ukases at the breakfast
table. I think you might handle the subject of stale meta
phors for a page or two Avith much effect. Take for example
the ship of state from the time of Horace's " navis referent in
mare," etc., doAvn to the last speech of the member for
Milwaukie, there has perhaps never been an oration delivered,
or a poem perpetrated, Avithout some reference to that unlucky
ship of state, which always will be getting on breakers, and to
the pilot Avho alvA'ays will be Aveathering the storm as freshly
as if no such allusion had ever been made. The best of it is
the satisfaction Avith which these metaphors are produced as
if perfectly fresh and choice, and the conscientious manner in
which they are polished up for exhibition. Then there is the
deadly upas tree, which has so long poisoned everybody's
young existence, the phoenix, the dying dolphin, and many
such fools and fishes, and do say something about that un
pleasant Spartan boy, Avho has been folloAving us about, with
the fox biting aAvay his nether integuments from time
immortal. Then you may Avrite an imaginary puff on some
body's hair dye, or still better get some living barber to pay
you handsomely for it by merely changing a few words in
Goldsmith's " when lovely Avoman stoops to folly," ending of
course Avith " is to dye."
There, I consider I have given you at least $20, for if
you cannot beat those golden thoughts into a platitude of
two magazine pages, you are not the gold-beater I took you
for. Pray take all the credit and all the money yourself.
I do not ask a commission. Do not say, " An eminent
historian, noAv running to seed in a foreign land, has sug
gested the foUoAving very brilliant, and at the same time
profound thoughts." If you should ever hint at my existence
again in the magazine, I will never forgive you. I prefer
VOL. I. Q

226 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Ch.ap. VIII.
to rest upon the verses in the first number, of Avhich both
for the affection, and the generous oA^er-appreciation re
vealed, I shall be proud all the days of my life, and my
children after me, and I do not wish anything to disturb that
impression. I have been running on with a most intolerable
skimble-skamble. I Avish I had anything better to say. Pray
forgive my dulness, and prove it by Avriting to me very soon.
Give my kindest regards to your wife and children. Also
remember me particularly to Lowell, LongfelloAv, Agassiz,
Felton, Whipple, and others who may remember me, and
believe me always. Most sincerely your friend,
J. L. M.
P.S.— This letter was written yesterday, but Avas not sent;
Meantime, last evening, I dined Avith a small party at the
Mackintoshes. Thackeray Avas there, and suddenly in the
middle of dinner he made the foUoAving observation, not to
me, but to his neighbour on the other side of the table : " Have
you read the ' Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,' by Holmes,
in the new Atlantic Magazine ? " He then Avent on to observe
that no man in England could now write Avith thai charming
mixture of wit, pathos, and imagination, that your papers Avere
better by far than anything in their magazines. I expressed
my delight at his warm language, and told him I knew you
Avould be pleased to hear that he had thus spoken of you. He
said that he had been so much interested, that he had been
about to Avrite to you, and I begged him urgently to do so.
The opening observation had been made by Thackeray, en
tirely a piropos des bottes. Not a Avord had been said by me, or
any one else at table, of the magazine, or of you. After dinner
I had a good deal of talk Avith him about you, and he spoke
Avith much Avarmth and appreciation of your poems ; he praised
particularly the ' Last Leaf ' and ' The Punch BoavL' I cannot
help thinking that it A\ill please you to hear this, so I have
gone to the expense of a new envelope (price one penny), in
order to mention it, my letter having been already sealed and
directed before I Avent to dinner. Always affectionately yours,
J. L. M

1858.] LONDON SOCIETY. 227

To Ats Wife. London,
May 28th, 1858.
My dearest Mary, — I wrote to you last Sunday, and
according to my promise I am noAv going to send you a few
lines to tell you Avhat I have been about, although it
is nothing very wonderful. The place is so large as to
be an intolerable nuisance to any one who puts the least
value on time, money, or shoe leather. You live in half a
dozen towns at once, and pass ever so many hours daily in
going from one of them to another. Last Sunday, after
Avriting to you, I went and dined with the Sturgis's, and found
them as cordial and agreeable as ever. There was no company
except I  and S  . Late in the evening I went Avith
Arthur Eussell to the Cosmopolitan. This is not a club house,
but only a club which meets late in the evenings twice a week,
Sundays and Wednesdays, in a large room Avhich is the studio
of the painter Phillips, in Charles Street, leading from
Berkeley Square. The object seems to be to collect noted
people and smoke very bad cigars. This evening I found
Mackintosh there, and among other men Avas Higgins, a gi
gantic individual who Avrites in the Times under the name of
".Jacob Omnium," Layard the Ninevite, Stirling, the author
of the ' Cloister Life of Charles V.,' Monckton Milnes, besides
various other personages connected Avith literature and
politics. I was introduced to a good many of them, and they
all said civil things to me, nothing worth repeating to you, or
in fact which I remember. It is not considered good taste
here, as you knOAv, to throw a man's Avritings very hard in his
face. The formula is, " We knoAv you very Avell in England,"
" Your name is very familiar to us," " Your fame has preceded
you," or words to that effect. It is hoAvever a convenience to
observe that one's name is more or less knoAAm, whether they
have read a Avord of you or not, because, as Tristram Shandy
observes, a man is ahvays puzzled if asked to say who he is.
I liked Stirling, with Avhom I had a long talk. He is mild,
amiable, bald-headed, scholarlike, a Member of Parliament

228 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII.
and a man of fortune. He is at present engaged, he told me,
in a work upon Don John of Austria. He is a great friend
of Prescott's, but we both agreed that his Philip Avas alto
gether too mild and flattered a portraiture of that odious
personage. Milnes is a good speaker in Parliament, a good Avriter of
poems, which have been praised by critics Avho have roosted on
his mahogany tree, a man of fashion, and altogether a swell of
the first class. Layard is short, square, hirsute and taurine of
aspect, as befits the Nineveh bull, but he is the bull without the
Avings. Not that he is slow in reality, for the world knows v,'ell
enough the indomitable energy and rapid intelligence of the
man. Moreover he has rushed all over India in an impromptu
manner and incredibly short time, for the sake of investigating
matters there and tossing the Ministers with his horns Avhen he
returns, and he is noAv delivering lectures upon the subject.
He told me that he came from Alexandria with a countryman of
mine, Mr. Sturgis. This is a brother of Eussell, Avho has just
arrived (yesterday) in Southampton. Monday I passed at the
State Paper Office, and I made my first dive this season into
the dead sea, in which I have so long laved my youthful limbs.
I find my secretary (I have three secretaries for foreign affairs,
you knoAv — one resident at Her Majesty's State Paper Office,
one established at the British Museum, and one in the King
dom of Holland ; and Avhen the salaries of all three are paid,
the balance for the Home Department will be somewhat
diminished) — I find, I say, my secretary quite satisfactory ; he
is intelligent and Avrites a good hand. The price paid is Ad.
for AA-hat is called a folio, Avhich is seventy-two words. This
makes exactly nine words for one cent, Avhich is the highest
price paid for copying anywhere. I have just consoled myself
by Avriting out a page of the Atlantic Magazine in folios, and I
find that to copy that amount would be Avorth about eighty cents.
Therefore, if I am forced to penny-a-lining, I can get about
thirteen times as much for Avriting a page as for copying one.
There is an enormous lot of documents both in the S. P. 0.
and the British Museum ; but I shall soon begin to see land.
However, I will not bore you with these details, which are

1858.] W. M. THACKERAY. 229
about as interesting to an outsider as it is to look at the
paddies digging the cellar, the cartloads of bricks and the
great puddles of mortar out of Avhich somebody or other is
going to build a house. When it is finished, and you can walk
in at the front door, and the hod-carriers and carpenters have
all vanished, it is time enough for your friends and the public.
In the evening I dined at Mackintosh's. The party con
sisted of the Sturgis's, a Mrs.  , of whom I know nothing,
except that Thackeray kept saying, as I learned afterAA'ards, all
dinner-time to Sturgis, " I hate that woman ! " — Avhy she Avas so
odious I have not yet been informed, as she seemed as harm
less as a dove if not as Avise as a serpent. The others Avere
Thackeray, Lord Carlisle, and myself. I believe you have
never seen Thackeray. He has the appearance of a colossal
infant, smooth, white, shiny ringlety hair, flaxen, alas, Avith
advancing years, a roundish face, with a little dab of a nose
upon Avhich it is a perpetual wonder hoAv he keeps his
spectacles, a sweet but rather piping voice, AA-ith something of
the childish treble about it, and a very tall, slightly stooping
figure — such are the characteristics of the great " snob " of
England. His manner is like that of everybody else in
England — nothing original, all planed doAvn into perfect
uniformity Avith that of his fellow-creatures. There was not
much more distinction in his talk than in his Avhite choker or
black coat and Avaistcoat. As you like detail, however, I shall
endeavour to BosAvellise him a little, but it is very hard Avork.
Something Avas said of Carlyle the author. Thackeray said,
" Carlyle hates everybody that has arrived — if they are on the
road, he may perhaps treat them civilly.'' Mackintosh praised
the description in the ' French Eevolution ' of the flight of the
King and Queen (which is certainly one of the most living
pictures ever painted Avith ink), and Thackeray agreed Avith
him, and spoke of the passages A-ery heartily. Of the Cosmo
politan Club, Thackeray said, " Everybody is or is supposed
to be a celebrity ; nobody ever says anything Avorth hearing
and every one goes there Avith his white choker at midnight,
to appear as if he had just been dining Avith the aristocracy.
I have no doubt," he added, " that half of us put on the AA'hite

230 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
cravat after a solitary dinner tit home or at our club, and so go
down among the Cosmopolitans."
I have strung these things together, not Avith the idea that
the observations are Avorth sending (except for peculiar
reasons, the last one), but because in your solitude I think thtit
both you and Lily may be as easily amused as the friends cf .
Mr. Peter Magnus Avere. This is Avhat mainly occupies me
Avhen I go out ; the thought that perhaps I may suck out
something out of the somewhat flat and gravelly soil of London
society, Avhich may flower into a letter for your gratification,
is about the only one Avhich gives me much satisfaction.
Therefore I beg you to find the bouquets very fragrant and
very brilliant, although they are in truth about as rare as
dandelions. Thackeray inA'ited me to dine next Sunday (that is to-day),
and he Avent off very soon, as he confessed, to Avork at the
' Virginians.' Lord Carlisle Avas excessively civil to me. I
think you have seen him, although I never did. He is tall,
aAvkAvardly heavy featured, but much better looking noAv than
as a young man. His hair is snow white, parted over a pro
digious bump of benevolence. He has been Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland for the last three years, having just gone out Avith
the advent of the Derby Administration. He begged me to
give him my address, saying that he Avas at present absent
from town, but hoped to have the pleasure of cultivating my
acquaintance on his return. On Tuesday I Avorked at the
State Paper Office. After my return. Sir Charles Lyell called
on me, and sat a good while. He is the eminent geologist,
you knoAv, and has been often in America. He Avas very agree
able, and as Mackintosh came in while he was there, who knoAvs
him very Avell, Ave got on comfortably. By the Avay, they have
had me admitted to the Athenaeum Club during my stay in
London. This is a fine building on the corner of Pall Mall
and lower Eegent Street, and you get all the papers and
journals, and have the run of a library of thirty thousand
volumes, and can breakfast or lunch and dine there, very well,
and at a cheaper rate than at any hotel. In the evening I
dined again at the Sturgis's. There was a large party of

1358.] THE DERBY. 231
Americans. AfterAvards I Avent very-late to a small party at
Mrs. Warre's. It Avas a kind of bridal party, and there Avas a
great lot of very pretty girls in bridesmaid costumes. I Avas
introduced to about tAventy-five of them. But I am unable
to inform you of the name of one of them.
The party Avas about breaking up Avheii I arrived. Fronde
(Avhose Avife, you knoAv, is Blrs. Warre's sister) is not in town,
and I am sorry to say has got an alarming affection of the
eyes. I am going to Avrite to him to beg him to come up
Avhile I am here.
Wednesday morning Mackintosh came to my quarters again.
I never seav such a fellow — it seems as if he could not do
enough for me. He is half the time apparently in a broAA'n
study and oblivjous of your existence, Avhen he suddenly
wakes up and you find he has been turning over in his mind
Avhat he can do to oblige you. I hardly kncAV him in America,
never met him but once or twice, and that a hundred years
ago, so I never kncAv Avhat a good fellow he is, full of humour
and a great deal of talent and character. Well, he came doAvn
to persuade me to go doAvn to the Derby that day. This, you
knoAv, is the most famous race in England or the Avorld. The
Derby stake is the prize for Avhich once a year the best
trained three-year-olds in the country contend, and the horse
who Avins it is for ever famous, is AA'orth no end of money, and
puts fabulous amounts of it into the pocket of his owner. The
races are on the Epsom doAvns, about fifteen miles from
London, and the Derby day is the one holiday Avhich is
religiously kept by every one great and small, from peers t-o
pickpockets, throughout London and its neighbourhood. No
better proof of its precedence over all other sublunary affairs
could be given than by the spectacle Avhich was presented by
the House of Commons adjourning over tAA-o days on account
of the Derby, in the very midst of a Ministerial crisis and of
an unfinished debate, the result of which AA-as to determine
AA'hether the Government should be overthrown, and if over-
throAvn, AA-hether it Avould dissolve Parliament. The funniest
thing was that the leading favourite for the race Avas Lord
Derby's horse, Toxophilite, and it was very generally believed

232 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
that the Premier was much more anxious to Avin the " Derby,"
which Dizzy long ago termed "the blue riband" of the turf,
than to keep his post at the head of the Empire.
I shall not bore you Avith a description of the race. We
had a very good position, and saAV it very Avell. The scene was
sufficiently amusing — the horses for the Derby Cup all ran so
close that you might have covered them with a handkerchief,
and it was only by the signal at the winning post that the
specttxtors could be sure that Beadsman had avou, and that
Toxophilite was done, coming in only second ; but I AA'as told
that the owner of Beadsman, Sir Joseph Hawley, pocketed
£30,000 as the result of that race.
We came up to town and Avent to the Opera together. I
did not care much to go particularly, as the price of a stall
is only one guinea, but I did not like to refuse, and Avas
Avilling enough to see the opera-house, which I had never
seen. The opera was the ' Barber,' and it was very mysterious
to know Avhere and hoAv Alboni as Eosina had been able to
bestoAv her mountainous masses of flesh Avithin the bodice and
the vest of the costume oblige of the young maiden of Seville.
She did not look exactly monstrous, and she sang mag
nificently. There was afterAvards an act of the 'Fille du
Eegiment,' Piccolomini as the heroine. She is pretty, petite,
piquante, and Avith most exquisite hands and arms, vindicates
her rights to the illustrious name she bears. She is rather
too fond of looking captivating and Avinning, and grinning in
front of the foot-lights, and her style is altogether, I should
say, petit genre. After the Opera Ave Avent to the Cosmo
politans, it being Wednesday night. There I had some talk
with Layard, Thackeray, Milnes, and also Avith Kingsley, Avho
seems to haA'c a stuttering Avay with him which one Avould
think would interfere with that eloquence of preaching for
which he is celebrated. He is tall, rather thin, Avith common
place features, neither handsome nor the reverse, but seems
a good fellow, and entirely unparsonical. He had not heard
of Fronde's attack of ophthalmia, or Avhatever it may be, as
he is only passing through town. Another young man of
some eminence was introduced to me — Lord Goderich, a rising

1858.] LORD AND LADY LYNDHURST. 233
member of the House of Commons, Avho made the night before
last a very neat and telling speech against the Government.
He was very civil to me, and paid me some very handsome
compliments on the D. E.
On Thursday, according to. express and very urgent invi
tation, I went Avith Mrs. Amory and S  to call at the
Lyndhursts'. As soon as I got into the room Lady L.
opened upon me such a torrent of civilities that I Avas nearly
Avashed aAvay. I certainly should not repeat, even to you, and
even if I remembered it, the particular phraseology. Once for
all, too, let me say that I only mention such things as these
in conformity to your urgent request. I would no more Avrite
such things to any one else, even to my mother, than I Avould
go and stand on my head in the middle of Pall Mall. I feel
like a donkey, and am even noAv blushing unseen, like a peony
or any other delicate floAver, at the very idea of Avriting such
trash, and I beg that you Avill thrust my letter into the fire at
once. Moreover, I assure you, Avith perfect honesty, that if
you had not been so very desirous that I should put my head a
little AA'hile out of my shell, I should certainly keep it in and
pass all my time at Avork, Avhich, by the Avay, is getting these
few days past somcAvhat behindhand. She then took me in
and presented me to Lord Lyndhurst. I liked him very much.
Although he is eighty-six years of age, his intellect is un-
dimmed. He has almost lost the use of his legs, and is Avheeled
about in a chair ; but he goes doAvn to the House every day, and
he occasionally makes a speech, Avhich is neater, more concise,
and more elegant than any that are delivered there. He must
have been very handsome, with a decided resemblance to his
sister, Mrs. Greene. He Avears a broAA-n Avig ; has regular
features ; is not very unlike Mr. Otis ^ in appearance. His
manner is very gentle and Avinning. He said some very kind
things to me about my book, and talked very agreeably on
other topics. They urged me to dine there that day, but I Avas
engaged at Mr. Eeeve's. Eeeve, you knoAv, is the editor of the
Edinburgh Review— a, good-humoured, tall, large Englishman ;
Mrs. Eeeve is intelligent and literary. There Avere one or tw-o
' Harrison Gray Otis.

234 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
3Iembers of Parliament present, but none known to fame,
unless Mr. Lowe ^ be an exception. Friday I made a call at
the Eussells'. Lady William Eussell, a high-bred dame,
among other things, informed me that she was very intimate
with the Queen of Holland, and that she wished to give me
a letter of introduction to her. I dined this day at the
3Iackintoshes, with the Amorys, two Englishmen — Mr. Dar-
Avin and Mr. Phillips — and Felton, Avho has suddenly turned
up here on his Avay to Greece.
Saturday I went doAA-n with Felton by rail to Chiswick
House to lunch, by invitation, with Lord Carlisle. He is
going, I believe, into Yorkshire for some days ; but as Felton
Avas only passing through London, he was desirous that we
should make a brief visit to ChisAvick. This is a very beautiful
Italian villa, with fine grounds, trees, gardens, and conserva
tories, which Avas lately bequeathed to Lord Carlisle's mother
by her brother, the Duke of Devonshire. There Avas no
company there ; but we passed a feAv hours very agreeably,
looking at the house and grounds, and talking wisdom.
Lord C. is excessively amiable and friendly, and says he
Avishes when he returns to London to cultivate my acquaint
ance, which he is at liberty to do if he chooses ; but as
I again repeat to you, if it were not for your particular
request, I would go nowhere, for my time is frittered aAvay
into nothing.
By the way, I dined by myself at the Athenseum Club, and
rather enjoyed my OA\-n company. Sunday, I lunched Avith
Sir Charles Lyell, Avho iuA-ited me and W. Greenough of
Boston, Avho brought him a letter, I believe, to the Zoological
Gardens. I have done my duty to that eminent institution,
and although Avhen one has plenty of leisure no better morning
lounge could be found, yet as I have, unhappily, no turn for
zoology, and more Avork to do than I could accomplish if
every day had forty-eight hours, I could have dispensed with
the beasts on this occasion. I Avas glad, hoAvever, to improve
my acquaintance with the Lyells. He is a most distinguished
man of science, and very companionable ; and she is an
' Lord Sherbrooke.

1858.] LADY BYRON, THACKERAY, ETC. 235
extremely pleasing and just ceasing to be a very pretty
woman. AftervA-ards, I Avent to call at Lady Byron's, Avho is
living at her house near Primrose Hill, in Eegent's Park. She
is still very delicate in health, but has got through the winter
tolerably Avell. She is as kind and earnest as ever, and seemed
very glad to see me. I was much pleased to hear that the
Noels Avere in toAvn for a foAv days, although they had at that
moment gone out. In the evening I dined at Thackeray's.
There Avere fifteen or sixteen people. I do not know any of
their names. I sat betAveen Thackeray's two daughters. They
are both intelligent and agreeable. The youngest told me
she liked ' Esmond ' better than any of her father's books.
Thackeray, by the way, evidently considers that kind of thing
his forte. He told me that he hated the ' Book of Snobs,'
and could not read a Avord of it. ' The Virginians,' he said,
Avas devilish stupid, but at the same time most admirable ; but
that he intended to write a novel of the time of Henry V.,
Avhich Avould be his capo d' opera, in which the ancestors of all
his present characters, Warringtons, Pendennis's, and the rest
should be introduced. It would be a most magnificent per
formance, he said, and nobody Avould read it. After the ladies
had left the hortse, Ave went doAvnstairs and smoked cigars till
into the small hours. One of the company I discovered to be
Blackwood, the present proprietor oi' Blackiuood's Magazine;
another was the Secretary of the English Legation at Frank
fort. He kncAv Bismarck, of course, and said there Avas no
doubt he Avas the cleverest man in Germany, and that every
body hated him in consequence, and A\as afraid of him.
The Thackerays are to have what they call a " drum " or a
tea-fight to-night (Monday). I accepted an invitation to it,
but I do not think I shall go, for I am to dine late to-day at
Mackintosh's, to meet Lord Carlisle and Milman.
This letter, begun yesterday (Sunday), has been concluded
to-day (Monday). I shall Avrite again next Sunday. I do not
think, dear Mary, you can complain of a scarcity of details in
this epistle. I only hope you may not be bored by them. 3Iy
next Avill be very different ; for although you may think from
this that I am a good deal in society, it is not at all the case.

236 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
and after a day or two, I shall be entirely alone again, which
T shall only regret on your account, and rejoice for on my OAvn.
God bless you, dearest Mary ; kiss my darling children, and
believe in the love of Your affectionate
J. L. M.

To his Wife. London,
May 30th, 1858.
My DEAREST Mary, — On Monday I dined with the Mackin
toshes. Macaulay, Dean Milman, and Mr. and Mrs. Farrar
composed the party. Of course you Avould like a photograph
of iMacaulay, as faithfully as I can give it. He impressed me
on the whole agreeably. To me, personally, he spoke cour
teously, respectfully, showed by allusion to the subject in
various Avays that he was quite aware of my book and its
subject, although I doubt Avhether he had read it. He may
have done so, but he manifested no special interest in me. I
believe that he is troubled about his health (having a kind of
bronchial or asthmatic cough), and that he rarely dines out
now-a-days, so that it is perhaps a good deal of a compliment
that he came on this occasion on purpose to meet me. His
general appearance is singularly commonplace. I cannot
describe him better than by saying he has exactly that kind
of face and figure which by no possibility Avould be selected,
out of even a very small number of persons, as those of a
remarkable personage. He is of the middle height, neither
above nor beloAv it. The outline of his face in profile is
rather good. The nose, very slightly aquiline, is well cut,
and the expression of the mouth and chin agreeable. His
hair is thin and silvery, and he looks a good deal older than
many men of his years— for, if I am not mistaken, he is just
as old as his century, like CromAvell, Balzac, Charles V., and
other notorious individuals. Now those two impostors, so far
as appearances go, Prescott and Mignet, Avho are sixty-two,
look young enough, in comparison, to be Macaulay's sons.

1858.] LORD MACAULAY. 237
The face, to resume my description, seen in front, is blank,
and as it were badly lighted. There is nothing luminous in
the eye, nothing impressive in the broAv. The forehead is
spacious, but it is scooped entirely away in the region Avhere
benevolence ought to be, Avhile beyond rise reverence, firm
ness and self-esteem, like Alps on Alps. The under eyelids
are so swollen as almost to close the eyes, and it would be
quite impossible to tell the colour of those orbs, and equally
so, from the neutral tint of his hair and face, to say of what
complexion he had originally been. His voice is agreeable,
and its intonations delightful, although that is so common a
gift Avith Englishmen as to be almost a national characteristic.
As usual, he took up the ribands of the conversation, and
kept them in his OAvn hand, driving Avherever it suited him.
I believe he is thought by many people a bore, and you re
member that Sydney Smith spoke of him as " our Tom, the
greatest engine of social oppression in England." I should
think he might be to those Avho wanted to talk also. I can
imagine no better fun than to have Carlyle and himself meet
accidentally at the same dinner-table with a small company.
It Avould be like tAvo locomotives, each Avith a long train,
coming against each other at express speed. Both, I have no
doubt, could be smashed' into silence at the first collision.
Macaulay, hoAvever, is not so dogmatic, or so outrageously
absurd as Carlyle often is, neither is he half so grotesque or
amusing. His Avhole manner has the smoothness and polished
surface of the man of the world, the politician, and the new
peer, spread over the man of letters A\ithin. I do not knoAv
that I can repeat any of his conversation, for there Avas nothing
to excite very particular attention in its even floAv. There
Avas not a touch of Holmes's ever bubbling wit, imagination,
enthusiasm, and arabesqueness. It is the perfection of the
commonplace, without sparkle or flash, but at the same time
always interesting and agreeable, I could listen to him Avith
pleasure for an hour or two every day, and I have no doubt
I should thence grow wiser every day, for his brain is full, as
htxrdly any man's ever was, and his Avay of delivering himself
is easy and fluent.

238 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
At first, in deference to me, there was a good deal of ttilk
about HoUtind, Maurice of Orange, Oldenbarneveld, the
Archives of the Hague, the State Paper Office, on all Avhich
subjects I spoke myself as little as I could, because I Avished
to hear Macaulay and Milman converse, to both of Avhom I
listened with great pleasure, although neither said anything
very new or striking, or Avhich would in the least interest
A'ou. Then Macaulay talked of an old acquaintance of his,
Basil Montagu, who Avas a commissioner of bankruptcy, before
whom he argued cases when very young, and also an editor
of Bacon's Avorks. " Bankruptcy and Bacon," said Macaulay,
" were the only things Avhich Montagu cared for in the
world." This was the nearest approach to an epigram which
he made. Then there AA'as a talk about the clubs, and he
said that Burke, when these Avere first instituted in London,
denounced them solemnly as pernicious in their tendency.
Having his head full of the Jacobin clubs of Paris, he fore
told the subversion of the English institutions as a conse
quence of such establishments. A club house still existing,
said Macaulay, inspired Burke Avith especial horror. It was
set up by some returned East Indians, Avas called the Oriental
Club, and may still be seen, " a gaunt, yellow, bilious, muUi-
gataAvny-looking building, noAv in the last stage of decrepi
tude," yet this concern has been considered, by so great a
stateman, as brimful of danger to English liberty.
Something was said of Bulwer Lytton's project for a guild
of authors. 3Iacaulay ridiculed it. Lytton, he said, has
constantly wished to interest him in it, but he had been
obstinate. Why, he asked, should there be a society, or guild,
to support and pension authors Avho were unsuccessful ? It
Avas offering a premium for dulness. If a man Avrote a book
which nobody Avould read, Avhy should he be rewarded, there
fore, Avith a maintenance for life? The most extraordinary
part of the scheme, too, Avas that Lytton had given lands in
his own grounds at Knebworth for these destitute literati,
so that he was always surrounded, when at home in the
country, with a transplanted Grub Street. Moreover, said
3Iacaulay, these people, if they have merit, are very apt to get

1858.] DEAN MILMAN. * 239
some place or pension. There is James, for instance ; he has
a consulship, has he not ? I do not know hoAv deserving he
may be ; I never read but one of his novels. " He never wrote
but one," said Mackintosh, in his dry Avay, Avhich Avas the best
thing said that day at table. Milman I liked very much. I
had always been told by Sir Charles Lyell that he had read
and approved my book very much, and desired to make my
acquaintance, so that I felt quite at ease Avith him. He is
the Dean of St. Paul's (Avhich is the next thing to being a
bishop), the author of the ' History of Latin Christianity,' but
better known to you as the author of the famous tragedy of
' Fazio,' with a good deal more poetry of merit. He is now
about sixty-five, or even seventy. He is singularly bent, but
not, I think, Avith age, so as to give, at the first glance, the
appearance of extreme decrepitude. This seems, however,
purely a local affection, for his manner is bright, and youthful,
and genial. He has a long, large, rather regular face, Avith
thick hair, and very black, bushy eyebroAvs, under Avhich his
eyes flash like living coals.
Blrs. Milman is a tall, handsome — and has been very hand
some — woman, very cordial and agreeable in her manner.
They invited me to go, Thursday of this week, to a famous
anniversary in St. Paul's — the singing of the charity children,
several thousands in number — a ceremony Avhich Thackeray
declares in one of his lectures to be the most interesting
spectacle which Christianity can furnish, far more impressive
than any of the sights and shows of Holy Week at Eome.
A ticket of admission into the Dean's pew Avill give me a very
good facility of Avitnessing the affair. Afterwards the invited
guests are to have luncheon at the Deanery.
After dinner Macaulay had a pretty severe attack of
coughing, and Avent home early. The Thackerays had a
" drum " in the evening, and as the Milmans Avere going, as
Avell as myself, they kindly gave me a lift in their carriage.
I found at the party, of my acquaintance, Mrs. Eeeve, the %
Synges, Mrs. Sturgis, Eussell and Colonel Hamley. I Avas
also introduced to Mrs. Procter (alias Barry Cornwall). I do
not knoAv Avhether the illustrious Barry Avas there himself or

240 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII,
not. 3Ir. and Mrs. Blackwood, whom I met the day before
at dinner, were also of the party, and there was a tremendous
screeching lady, Avho stunned the company with Italian music,
with a voice which want-ed elboAv room as much as it did
melody. Thackeray introduced me to Lady Stanley of Alderley,
at whose house he is to read the lecture to-morroAv of Avhich
I told you, I think, in my last letter. She is a tall, fair,
agreeable dame, with blonde hair and handsome features,
apparently thirty-five, yet one of those Avonderful grand
mothers of which England can boast so many, and who make
one almost a convert to the " delicious Avomen of sixty." '
Not that she is in any proximity to that famous epoch, but
she astonished me by suddenly saying that her daughter, the
Countess of Airlie, Avished very much to make my acquaint
ance, for I had taken the mother for quite a young woman.
The daughter. Lady Airlie, is a very pretty woman, with a
rosy face. Both of them overwhelmed me with compliments
about my book, Avhich, they said, every one of their family
had read with delight from beginning to end. Lady Stanley
begged me to be sure not to fail to come the next day to
the lecture. There Avere also the two  girls, who visit
at Walton, of Avhom you heard Tom Appleton and the
Sturgises speak. I was introduced to them, and they seem
lively young things enough. The Sturgises brought me
home. Next morning I went up to Lady Byron's, to lunch with
her and the Noels, and we had a long, quiet talk about
Dresden times. They all made very kind inquiries about
you and Lily. The Noels left London the same day, but
are to return after a Aveek. I belie\'e Lady Byron is rather
feeble, but no Avorse, I should say, than two years ago. By
the way, it aaIU amuse you to hear that Noel told me she
had talked a great deal more about that likeness,^ A\hich
' Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis said that Europe she had known " delicious
while comparatively young women women of sixty."
were socially neglected in America, in = Mr. Motley's resemblance to Lord
Byron.

1858.] THACKERAY'S LECTURE. 241
she speaks of as "most wonderful." At five o'clock I met
Thackeray by appointment at the Athenaeum Club, and we
Avent together to Lady Stanley's. The lecture was in the
back drawing-room of a very large and elegant house, and
the company — not more than fifty or sixty in number — were
all comfortably seated. It Avas on George III. — one of the
set of the four Georges, first delivered in America, and which
have often been read in England, but have never been
printed. I Avas much impressed Avith the quiet, graceful ease
Avith Avhich he read — ^just a fcAv notes above the conversational
level — but never rising into the declamatory. This light-in-
hand manner suits well the delicate, hovering rather than
superficial, style of the composition. He skims lightly over
the surface of the long epoch, throwing out a sketch here,
exhibiting a characteristic trait there, and sprinkling about
a few anecdotes, portraits, and historical allusions, running
along from grave to gay, from lively to severe, moving and
mocking the sensibilities in a breath, in a way Avhich I should
say was the perfection of lecturing to high-bred audiences.
I suppose his manner, and his stuff also, are somcAvhat
stronger for larger and more heterogeneous assemblies, for
I have no doubt he left out a good deal AA'hich might jar upon
the ears, polite of his audience on this occasion. Still, I was
somcAvhat surprised at the coolness with Avhich he shoAved up
the foibles and absurdities of kings, and court, and court
folks in a former but not remote reign, before a small
company, Avhich consisted of the cream of London cream.
They seemed to enjoy it, and to laugh heartily at all the
points without Avincing. If he had shoAvn up Democracy or
Southern chivalry thus before an assemblage of the free and
enlightened, he would have been tarred and feathered on the
spot. After the lecture was over, I expected to slip away un
noticed, but Lady Stanley came to me, and talked with great
kindness, and introduced me to several persons, all of Avhom
said I Avas no stranger, or Avords to that effect. One of the
persons Avas the Marchioness of Londonderry, a tall, fair,
very handsome Avoman, apparently young, but having a son,
VOL. I. R

242 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
just of age, by a previous husband. Lord PoAverscourt. Then
Lady Airlie said to me, Sirs. Norton wishes to make your
acquaintance. I turned and bowed, and there she was,
looking to-day almost as handsome as she has always been
described as being. I knoAV that you Avill like a sketch. She
is rather above middle height. In her shawl and crinoline,
of course I could not pronounce upon her figure. Her face is
certainly extremely beautiful. The hair is raven black —
violet black— Avithout a thread of silver. The eyes very
large, Avith dark lashes, and black as death ; the nose straight ;
the mouth flexible and changing ; with teeth which in them
selves would make the fortune of an ordinary face — such is
her physiognomy ; and when you add to this extraordinary
poetic genius, descent from that famous Sheridan Avho has
made talent hereditary in his family, a low, sweet voice and
a flattering manner, you can understand hoAv she twisted
men's heads off and hearts out, we will not be particular how
many years ago.
She said to me, as I made my bow on introduction, " Your
name is upon every lip." I blushed and looked as much like
a donkey ds usutil when such things are said. Then she
added, "It is agreeable, is it not?" I then had grace enough
to reply, " You ought to know if any one ; " and then Ave
talked of other things. • There was no time for much con
versation, however. Presently it appeared that a Miss  -,

a young lady belonging, I believe, to the fashionable Avorld,
but Avho rejoices in a talent for the stage, Avas to recite ;
so she recited. It AA-as a passage from ' Phedre ' (I believe).
Her accent was very good, and she certainly declaimed
very well. Afterwards she recited Tennyson's ' Charge of
Balaclava.' As I was going away. Lady Airlie invited me to a dinner
for the following Tuesday (Avhich is now the day after
to-morroAv). Mrs. Norton told me she should be happy to see
more of me. A day or two afterwards accordingly I went to
call on her. She received me with great kindness, and was
very agreeable. She has a ready, rapid way of talking —
alludes Avith perfect aplomb to her interminable quarrels with

1858.] MRS. NORTON — MR. PEABODY. 243
Mr. Norton. She spoke of her two sons, one of whom is heir
to a peerage, and the other to beggary. She showed me a
photograph of this second one, Avho is evidently her darling, and
who, by Avay of improving his jjrospects in life, married a year
ago a peasant girl of the island of Capri. Mrs. Norton does
not even think her very handsome, but says that he imagines
her perfection, particularly in her fancy costume. She knew
Webster when he Avas here, and admired him very much.
She is also very intimate Avith the Queen of Holland.
I do not know that I have much more to chronicle of her
conversation. She was ahvays animated and interesting. My
impressions of what she must have been Avere confirmed ;
certainly it AA'as a most dangerous, terrible, beautiful face in
its prime, and is very handsome still. Her two sisters, the
Duchess of Somerset and Lady Dufferin, were equally cele
brated for their beauty, and the latter for her talent also.
Mrs. Norton told me that she wished me to dine A\ith her,
and to ask some people to meet me, and is to appoint the
day very soon. She Avishes me particularly to know Lady
Dufferin. On Saturday, along Avith fifty of my compatriots, I Avas
Peabodied. The good old gentleman, according to his wont,
had made a razzia among all the Americans nov/ in London,
and swept them all off down the river in a small steamboat to
see the Leviathan, and afterwards to dine at BlackAvall. I
Avas glad of the opportunity, for I- am sure that I should never
have had energy enough A\-ithout assistance " to put a hook
in the nose of the Leviathan," and I rather wished to see it.
The company Avas of course as miscellaneous and ..as unin
teresting as might be expected. The Leviathan was visited,
and is certainly a most astonishing object. .. I suspect, however,
that the shareholders say with Christopher Sly, " A most ex
cellent piece of Avork, Avould it were done," for I believe they
are at a standstill for Avant of funds ; and if it cannot be
finished till the sale of tickets to visitors can float it on to
fortune, she is likely to remain a torso as many centuries as
the Cologne Cathedral, and the one just now looks as likely to
make a voyage to xiustralia as the other. I shall not describe

244 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII.
the ship. You have only to imagine a Cunarder doubled, or
trebled for aught I knoAA', in all its proportions, and you have
the vesesl.
Nothing is finished of the state rooms or cabins. It is all
in a clutter, the engines are not in, and in short you get not
a much better idea of it from a visit than from reading a
description in the newspapers. The dinner Avas at the hotel
at Blackwall. Mr. Peabody had organised his dinner very
well, having arranged the Avay in which his company should
pair off, and having sent the men into the dining-room
beforehand to find out where each name, together Avith that of
the partner of his toil, was inscribed. He assigned to me a
nice English girl, who knew the Sturgis's, Thackeray, Dickens,
and others, who Avas lively and disposed to make herself gene
rally agreeable, so it was much better than the rather dreary
festival Avhich I had anticipated. On my other flank was
Mrs. Charles Amory. She and S  came into the hotel
at the last moment from the country, where they had
been staying a foAv days at Lord Hatherton's Avith no end of
swells, and find everything as rose-coloured as usual. They
are very jolly, and desirous of pleasing everybody and being
pleased. S  promised me faithfully to write immediately
to Lily, and I think she will keep her promise. She
is a very good girl, frank and unaffected, and very good-
humoured. Joshua Fisher and his Avife and daughters were
also of this party.
Hurlbut has turned up here. He was at this dinner. He
is staying in the country Avith Hughes, the author of ' Tom
BroAvn's Schooldays,' a book Avhich has had a great run. He
informed me that Hughes wished to make my acquaintance
very much, that he Avas about, Avith other literati, to establish
a new revicAv, in the first number of which an article on my
book was to appear, etc. I go to a party at Lady Lyell's
to-morroAv. Tuesday I dine at the Airlies' ; Wednesday, at the
Warres'. Thursday I go to a luncheon Avith the Dean of
St. Paul's.
P.S. — Monday, 31st. — I broke off here yesterday, dear Mary,
not as my angelic little Mary used to say, because I wished

1858.] LONDON SOCIETY. 245
to add a postcript, but because I had promised to make a call at
Lady Stafiley's. I went, and had a very pleasant visit. She is
an agreeable person, with plenty of talk and fond of literary
people and literature. Her youngest daughter^ was there,
and was very glad to speak to me, because she had read every
word of the ' Dutch Eepublic,' not from compulsion, but from
choice. I said I considered it one of the highest compliments
I had received, because if so young a person could read it,
I felt that I was not a bore. She said. Oh ! no, it is just like
a novel ; and the others said the same. I feel that if old
Lord Lyndhurst, Avho Avas eighty-six day before yesterday, and
a very young girl, can both read three solid volumes Avithout
being bored, they cannot be so very heavy, for two such
individuals may be considered representative persons. I do
not say excuse this egotism, because I write it on purpose to
please you. To utter such things to any one else Avould be
the height of absurdity. Lady Stanley, as I went away, asked
me if I knew liady Palmerston. I said " no ;" and she told me
she would inform her that I was in town, and wou Id see that
I was invited to her next party.
Good-bye, dearest Mary. If I have bored you unmercifully,
at least you will admit that it is with the best intentions of
amusing you. I know you like details, so there are a lot for
you. Kiss my dear, dear, darling children a thousand times,
and accept the love of Yours most affectionately,
J. L. M.

To his Wife. London,
June 6th, 1858.
My DEAREST Mary, — It is a great pleasure to me to sit
down and try to amuse you every Sunday morning with a
record of what I see, for I most sincerely assure you that it is
almost the only real satisfaction which I derive from this
' Now Hon. Mrs. George Howard.

246 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
going up and down like Beelzebub in the Avorld of London.
I must retract what I said in my last letter of not being in
society. My only difficulty noAv is in keeping out of it a
little, so that I may not entirely neglect my business in the
Archives. On Monday evening I went to a small party at Lady Lyell's.
The Amorys were there, and IMackintosh, and the Mrs.  ,
hated of Thackeray, of whom I spoke to you in my last.
Beyond these and Dean Milman and Mrs. Milman, I do not
think that there Avas anybody that I knew by sight, and Ave
came off before 12 o'clock.
Just before going to this party I received a very kind note
from Lady W. Eussell, of which this is an extract — " Lord
and Lady Palmerston are anxious to make your acquaintance,
and I have taken upon myself the responsibility of venturing
a short notice of an invitation to dinner, as they have but
that day disengaged and do not like to delay the meeting."
The day then proposed by them was Wednesday, and Lady
William Eussell was to call for me to take me to Cambridge
House. Unluckily, I was engaged to dine at ten days' previous
notice Avith  , so of course I Avas obliged to decline, Avhich
was a disappointment to me, because I knew it would be one
to you. I had never mentioned the name of the Palmerstons
anywhere, nor have I in any case since I have been here gone
one inch forward to any one, so that Avhen civilities are offered
me, I can at least have the satisfaction of knoAving that they
are spontaneous, and that if I prove a bore, people have
nobody to blame but themselves.
Tuesday morning early I received a very nice note from
Mrs. Norton, enclosing a card from her sister the Duchess
of Somerset, inviting me to a breakfast party at her villa
at Wimbledon Park. The breakfast hour Avas from 1 till
7 P.M. The occasion of the party, as Mrs. Norton informed
me, Avas " the marriage of the second daughter of the Duchess
with the brother of the Marquis of Bath, Lord Henry Thynne."
As I know you are fond of "high life, Avith pictures, taste,
Shakespeare, and the musical glasses," I thought I would put
in this statement. I took the rail accordingly from the

1858.] PARTY AT WIMBLEDON PARK. 247
Waterloo Station at two, and after twenty minutes stopped
at Wimbledon, Avhere a fly conveyed me to the Villa. The
house is a modern, not very extensive building, placed in the
midst of a little garden of Eden, brimful of flowering plants,
with a spacious laAvn dotted with magnificent cedars of
Lebanon, ilexes, and other trees, Avhile a stately park encloses
the whole domain. Beyond and from every point there are
vicAvs of the lovely pastoral scenery of English wood and dale
and hill, like Avhich there is nothing in the Avorld, the very
perfection of the commonplace. The day Avas cloudless, and
would have been hot for August even in America. You may
judge if the English complained of the heat, and whether or
not I Avas satisfied Avith the temperature. I found Mrs. Norton
looking out for me to introduce me to the Duchess of Somerset.
This lady Avas, as you may recollect, the famous " Queen of
Beauty '' at the Eglinton tournament a good many years ago.
Her daughter. Lady Ulrica St. Maur, is a very beautiful
girl, closely resembling her mother, and obviously repro
ducing, perhaps in an inferior degree, Avhat the Queen of
Beauty of the tournament must have been in the blaze of her
beauty. Lady Dufferin I hardly saw, although I Avas prt--
sented to her, for at the same moment the tAvo sons of the house
came up to me and began to talk. One of them apparently
about tAventy, had just returned from India, where he had
been, not Avith the army exactly, but a kind of spectator or
volunteer. He seemed intelligent and A'ery handsome. The
other. Lord EdAvard St. Maur, was a very bright, good-
humoured lad of about fourteen. He said he had never tra
velled, but the very first tour he made he Avas determined
should be to America. I then went Avith Mrs. Norton into
the salle a manger, and while we were there, a plain, quiet,,
smallish individual in a green cutaway coat, large yellow
waistcoat, and plaid trousers, came in for some luncheon, and
Mrs. Norton instantly presented me to him. It was Lord
John Eussell. He Avas very civil to me, and we talked toge
ther for some time over the drum-stick of a chicken. His.
face is not the least like the pictures one sees of him. No one
would suppose him the man of large intellect and indomitable

248 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII.
ambition, which he unquestionably is, by looking at him or
hearing him talk in a breakfast room. I do not mean of
course that a statesman is always to emulate Burke, of whom
Dr. Johnson said a man could not accidentally stop under a
shed with him to escape a shoAver, Avithout discovering that he
was in the presence of a great man. There is also something
preferable in this easy nonchalant, commonplace manner to
the portentous aspect on the commonest occasions of many of
the " most remarkable men in our country, sir," which is apt
to characterise transatlanticism as much as the customary
suit of solemn black " in which they are pleased to array
themselves." I can hfirdly report to you much of Lord John's conver
sation. He talked a good deal of Dizzy's famous speech at
Slough. You ask me by the wixy to give you occasionally a
touch of politics. I Avould gladly do so ; but if I chronicle,
Avhat I knoAv you will like better, the little details of persons
and things that I purchase with my OAvn pennyAvorth of obser
vation, I knoAv you will be better satisfied. And I really
should not have time to go into what after all you can read a
thousand times better in the Times, AA'hich I should think
you might contrive to get in Vevay. Suffice it that the
Derby-Dizzies, after it was thought certain that they would be
upset on the CardAvell motion of censure regarding the Ellen-
borough despatch business, have got a little fresh rope. The
Avithdrawal of that motion Avas a denouement expected by
nobody the day before. Lord Lyndhurst, who at eighty-six is
not " passion's slave " nor party's, told me that the Govern
ment Avould be in a minority of eight or ten, and that then
they Avould dissolve Parliament, and have a general election.
The truth is that this threat of a dissolution is exactly what
saved the Ministry. Parliament has been but a year in
session, and there are so many members who Avere so exces
sively disgusted at the idea of the risk, trouble, and expense
of unseating themselves, and clambering back into their seat
again, or failing to do so, that they were glad to let the
31inisters off, knowing them to be reckless and desperate
enough to try the hazard of a general election.

1858.] LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 249
Accordingly doAvn goes Dizzy for the Easter holidays to
Slough, and after a constituency dinner, seems to have abso
lutely been made drunk with the unexpected chance of retain
ing poAver a few months longer. He then delivered to the
farmers and graziers and gentlemen there assembled, one of
the cleverest, A\ittiest, most mendacious, most audacious, most
besotted speeches that Avas ever made. He clapped his Avings
and " croAved like chanticleer an hour by the dial," without
apparently remembering that electric telegraphs and steno
graphy had been invented. In a day or tAvo afterAvards, Par
liament came together again, and Dizzy recoiled in secret horror
" e'en at the noise himself htxd made." Palmerston gave him
tAvo tremendous dressings in the House of Commons, and then
Lord Clarendon in the Lords administered a most serious
fustigation. In short, never was a Chancellor of Exchequer
so belaboured since such officials Avere instituted. The lie
Avas given to him as flatly as the Pickwickian rules permit by
Palmerston and by Clarendon, and although Dizzy defended
himself at first with adroitness and impudence, he was fairly
obliged to eat his OAvn words.
Well, Lord John touched lightly and slightly on these
matters in his still small voice. I said it Avas a severe strain
upon an English statesman to remember that every Avord he
uttered in public Avas instantly and for ever to be recorded
even as it fell from his lips. He said if a man did think of
that he would not be able to open them. He spoke a little
of the row about the Cuba slave trade and the American
skippers, said that the American and English naval officers
were the best people to settle that kind of embroglio, that
they always respected each other and fraternised if the thing
Avere possible, that the idea of AAar with America could never
enter an Englishman's head. The triangulation of England
may be considered complete as long as he and Palmerston are
both alive. Both mean to be First Minister of the Whigs.
Meantime the Tories, without any real principle of action,
keep the provisional government by the equilibrium esta
blished between the large body of independents and the
respective forces of Palmerston and Lord John.

250 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
I was introduced to a good many ladies, some of them pretty
and young. There is no doubt that the English aristocracy
has much beauty. When I say how handsome the Avomen are,
the reply is invariable — that is a great compliment from an
x\.merican, for everybody knows that the American Avomen are
the handsomest in the world. On the whole I think that the
grandmothers of England are the most miraculous race. There
are the Duchess of Somerset, Lady Dufferin, and Mrs. Norton,
then Lady Stanley, of Avhom I have spoken several times, the
Marchioness of Londonderry, and various others, all exceed
ingly handsome women still. I can hardly remember the
names of the many persons I was presented to. I remember
one, a lively, agreeable person, whose name Avas Lady EdAvard
Thynne, a daughter of Mrs. Gore the novelist. She was
apparently a young woman, and I dare say she is capable of
having at this moment ten grandchildren for aught I know
to the contrary.
Nothing can be kinder than Mrs. Norton. She takes me
under her especial convoy, and seems to think she can never
do enough for me. I feel as if I had known her for years, and
I am satisfied she does not dislike me, or she would not be
presenting me to everybody worth knoAving. While I was
talking with her at another time she said, " Oh, there is my
lover, I must go and speak to him." She then went up to a
plain-looking benignant little old gentleman in a white hat
and a kind of old-world look about him that seemed to require
a pig-tail and white top boots. She whispered to him a
moment, and he came forAvard, beamingly saying, " Delighted,
I am sure, to make Mr. Motley's acquaintance," and shook me
Avarmly by the hand. This was the old Marquis of LansdoAvne,
late President of the Council. He told me he Avas deeply
interested in my book, and that he had been much instructed
by me, and was much obliged to me. He said he Avas obliged
to go away immediately as the debate on the Slough business
Avas to come up in the Lords that afternoon, but he hoped
soon to see me again. My friend Lady Stanley and her
daughter, Maude Stanley (a pretty name, is it not?) were
there, also the Baroness Eothschild, who seems a very good-

1858.] HENRY HALLAM. 251
humoured personage, and a great friend of the Amorys,
through the Lyndhursts, and a lot of other people were
there. I returned by the rail at six, and was tremendously
tired, to dress for dinner at eight at Lady Airlie's. She is
a very pretty, fresh, rosy Avoman, daughter of Lady Stanley,
and married to a handsome, good-humoui'ed and unaffected
young Scotchman, the Earl of Airlie. The dinner Avas not
very large. There Avere half a dozen Members of Parliament
there and their wives. The lady next me was rather pretty ;
opposite Avas a bright, lively young Avoman, with an intelli
gent, sj)arkling, piquante face, and a merry laugh, Avho was
Lady Goderich. I Avas introduced to her before dinner, and
she Avent away after the coffee and ballad singing were
finished. I am hoAvever invited to dine at her house next
week. She Avas prettily dressed, Avith a head-dress of gold
coins, and a great string of pearls round a very white neck.
Lord Goderich, Avhom I have met once or tAvice, and Avho is
a rising man in politics, did not come on account of business
in Parliament.
In the evening came Lady Stanley and Miss Stanley (her
sister-in-law), vA-ho knew Washington Irving and other veterans.
Wednesday morning, before I Avas out of bed, I received a note
requiring an answer. It Avas again from Lady W. Eussell.
It began : " I hope, my dear sir, that you are at liberty on
Saturday next? For if I fail in this second negotiation I
shall never be employed diplomatically again." She then
said Lord and Lady Palmerston begged me to dine on the
following Saturday, and she concluded : " Pray do not tell me
that you are again indissolubly pre-engaged."
The same forenoon Mackintosh came to me by appointment
to go Avith me to Mr. Hallam's, Avho had previously expressed a
Avish that I should call. The great historian is long past the
" middle ages " noAv. He is paralysed in the right leg, the right
arm, and slightly in the tongue. His face is large, regularly
handsome, ruddy, fresh, and very good-humoured. He re
ceived me Avith great cordiality, and we had haK an hour's
talk. He begged me to leave my address, and I suppose he
means to invite me to something or other, for I believe he

252 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
occasionally entertains his friends. His mind does not seem
essentially dimmed, and there is nothing senile in his aspect,
crippled as he is. He is a wreck, but he has not sunk head
doAvnwards, as you sometimes see, which is the most melan
choly termination to the voyage. His mind seems bright and
his spirits seem light. I dined this day at the Warres'.
You knoAv about them. I like them both very much. To my
great delight Fronde was there. He had just come up from
Bideford. He looks delicate, has a slight cough, but is mainly
troubled about his eyes. (The result, however, of his consulta
tion with an oculist the following day, Avas that the disease
was not an alarming one, but would probably be chronic.)
The party was a pleasant one ; the house is a large, elegant
mansion in Belgravia. I do not knoAv Avho the company all
were. On the other side of me Avas Mrs. Mildmay, Avho
seemed an agreeable person. She told me she would see that
a ticket for the next " Almack's " was sent me, Avhich balls it
seems are revived this season after an immemorial desuetude,
as  might express himself.
After dinner I was introduced to Lady Mary Fielding, Avho
knew the Sturgis's very well. The next day I received a
message from her that her father (Earl of Denbigh) Avas too
gouty to call on me, but that if I Avould waive ceremony and
call there, it would be very kind of me. So I suppose I shall
go this week. In the evening late I Avent to the Cosmopolitan
Avith Fronde. I had some talk with Laj^ard and one or two
others, and met Lord Goderich, Avho asked me to dine Saturday
of this week. On Thursday I went to St. Paul's Cathedral, to
witness the ceremony of the singing of the charity children.
This takes place once a year. I had received a card from the
Dean of St. Paul's for a seat in his pew. The spectacle is
certainly very touching and impressive. There are about 4000
children, mostly under the age of ten or eleven. Arranged
in long rows, rising tier upon tier above each other, and all
dressed in dark stuff gowns with white kerchiefs and aprons
and mittens, with quaint old-Avorld starched caps about their
young fresh faces, they have a very unique aspect. Particu
larly Avhen they all rose and seated themselves as by a single

1858.] THE CHAPTER COFFEE HOUSE. 253
impulse, the flutter of these thousands of white wings all
through the church, with the devout innocent look of the
thousands of child faces, and the piping of their baby voices,
suggested the choir of the angels in Paradise. I do not know
much to say of the charity. It is merely a collection of all
the children, some of whom are fed, clothed, and educated
by various schools, which are variously endowed. But as an
artistic exhibition it is certainly most effective. Thackeray,
who Avaa Avith me in the pew, said : " It is the finest thing in
the Avorld — finer than the Declaration of Independence." After
the ceremony the luncheon for twenty or thirty invited guests
was in the deanery, which is a large comfortable house near
the church. I like Milman. He is very quick, shrewd, active
of mind, almost a man of genius, a good historian, and appa
rently a good-hearted, sympathising person altogether. The
sermon by a full-blown bishop was remarkably slow. I dined
with Thackeray afterwards. The only people I liked and
knew were Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood.
Friday morning I Avent down to the City with the Amorys.
I acted as cicerone to show them the Chapter Coffee-house in
Paternoster Eow, which you and my darling Lily will recol
lect is the place of all others in the world in London which
Charlotte Bronte selected when she came suddenly from
Yorkshire to London to make a two days' visit. The place is
as gloomy and forbidding as it is described to be by Mrs.
Gaskell, and certainly no house in all the toAvn could be
imagined more forlorn for any woman to select as even a
temporary residence. The alley is so narrow that one can
almost touch the houses on both sides, and the whole expres
sion of the locality is disconsolate in the last degree. The
inscription is " Chapter Coffee House — Faithful " ; and I asked
a man who is there to superintend the premises, Avhich are to
be let, whether he had ever heard of Miss Bronte. " Can't
say I ever heard the name, sir. Was she here in Mr. Faithful's
time ? " was the only reply. The slender furrow made by
little Jane Eyre in the ocean of London had long been effaced.
We went also to the beautiful Temple church and gardens ;
and I thought of you, dear Mary, and the pleasure it gave you

254 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
to see these places when we were together in London. I went
afterwards to the Deanery of St. Paul's, to call on the Milmans,
found them at home, and they brought me back to the West
End, along with Mr. Senior, an ancient Avriter on political
econom)^ and a contributor to the Edinburgh Review. This
day I dined by myself at the Athenaeum. The next day,
Saturday, after a day spent in the British Museum, I went with
Lady ^V. Eussell and Arthur to the Palmerstons. Cambridge
House is one of the finest mansions in London, not far from
Hyde Park Corner. I Avas received very cordially by Lord
and Lady Palmerston. She is agreeable and Avell bred in her
manner, but at present without anything striking in her
appearance. Lord Palmerston is not the least like any picture
I ever saw of him. I thought him a tall, slender man. He is,
on the contrary, rather short, and looks older than I expected,
although I knoAv him to be seventy-four. His face is, however,
handsome, and his address very gentle, soft, and Avinning.
The features are regular, the teeth, if indigenous, good, but
the eyes are small and rather lack-lustre. He had the broad
blue ribbon of the garter over his Avhite Avaistcoat, and he
Avore, Avhat one rarely sees noAv-a-days, a blue coat A\ith gilt
buttons. He talked Avith me a few moments on miscellaneous
topics, and dinner Avas soon afterwards announced.
I went to the salle a manger Avith Mrs. William Cowper. The
company consisted, besides the hosts, of Lord and Lady Claren
don, their daughter. Lady Constance Villiers, the Countess of
TankerA'ille, Lady Olivia Ossulston, her daughter-in-law, a very
handsome AA'oman, Lady Victoria Ashley, Monckton Milnes,
Mr. Labouchere, Monsieur Duvergier d'Hauranne (an ex-
minister of Louis Philippe), Lady William Eussell and
Arthur Eussell, and one or tAvo others Avhom I have for
gotten. The dining-room is large and elegant. The service
was plate, and the dinner and Avines very good, but much
like all dinners. I found my neighbour, Mrs. CoAvper, a very
pretty and agreeable person, disposed to please and be pleased,
and the dinner Avent on Avith the hush and calm characteristic
of these stately occasions. When the ladies retired I found
myself next to Lord Palmerston, and he talked Avith me a

1858.] LORD PALMERSTON — LORD CLARENDON. 255
long time about English politics and American matters, saying
nothing Avorth repeating, but conversing always with an easy,
winning, quiet manner, Avhich accounts for his great popu
larity among his friends. At the same time it seemed difficult
to realise that he was the man Avho made almost every night,
and a very late hour in the night, those rattling, vigorous,
juvenile, slashing speeches which ring through the civilised
Avorld as soon as uttered. I told him that it seemed to me
very difficult to comprehend how any man could make those
ready impromptu harangues in answer ahvays to things said
in the course of the debate, taking up all the adversary's
points in his target, and dealing bloAvs in return, without
hesitation or embarrassment. He said very quietly that it
was all a matter of habit ; and I suppose that he really does it
Avith as much ease as he eats his breakfast.
After Ave rose from table. Lord Clarendon came forward to
me, and was introduced, and spoke very kindly to me, saying
that my name Avas very familiar to everybody in England,
and that it was a great pleasure to him to make my acquaint
ance. He asked me how I liked the arrangements of the
State Paper Office, and expressed himself Avith much interest
concerning my proceedings. He talked Avith me a quarter of
an hour or so very agreeably. Soon after Ave reached the
saloons, of which there were four or five en suite, the company
began to pour in, and they Avere soon overflowing.
Baron Brunnow, the Eussian ambassador, a tall man, Avith
an intensely ugly but very shrcAvd face, the Duke of IMalakoff,
a short square figure with a broad Avhite Avaistcoat and a sin
gularly coarse and brutal physiognomy, and vtirious other
diplomats less knoAvn to fame, Avere there. There were a good
many ladies whom I had met at the Duchess of Somerset's and
other places. Lady Airlie and her mother Lady Stanley, the
Baroness Eothschild and her daughter, recently married to
another Eothschild, Lady Lyndhurst and her daughter, and
various others, a\ ith all of whom I had the usual vapid conver
sation common in the crush of crowded saloons. I vas also
introduced to one or two literary and scientific celebrities,
such as Hayward, a celebrated writer in the Quarterly, and

256 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
Sir Henry Eawlinson, the famous Eastern traveller, and Sir
Eoderick Murchison, the great geologist. Lady W. Eussell,
on introducing- me to the last-named personage, said that she
was as Boswell said of himself with regard to General Paoli
and Dr. Johnson, " like an isthmus connecting tAvo great con
tinents." But I did not think the grim geologist seemed to
relish having his ancient stratum of reputation placed on a level
with so recent and tertiary a formation as he probably considers
mine to be. I do not know that I have anything further to
record of this evening's entertainment. I forgot to say that
upon the forenoon of this day Lord Lansdowne left his card
for me, together Avith an invitation to dinner for next Friday.
The difficulty now with me is to reduce my invitations to
order, for as I often have Iavo a day, and cannot eat more than
one dinner per diem, there is often embarrassment of choice.
On Sunday I went to call on Mrs. Norton, and found her as
agreeable as ever. I think she talks about as well as Holmes,
and at the same time has that attractive manner, low, sweet
voice and expressive style of beauty AA'hich has made her so
celebrated. While I was there several people came in, among
others, Stirling, the Charles V. man ; and presently the old
Jlarquis of LansdoAvne toddled in, and sat drinking every word
she said with great delight. On going aAvay he hoped I should
not decline his invitation, adding that Mrs. Norton's presence
would probably not make me less Avilling to be of the party.
I dined with the Sturgis's. The company Avas Frank
Cunningham and his wife, Avho have just turned up out of
Egypt, and look very fresh and pleased with their perambu
lations, and Colonel Hamley. Afterwards I went for an hour
to the Cosmopolitan, Avhere I found A. Eussell (who begged
me to send his particular regards to you), Eeeve, Layard,
Mackintosh, Milnes, and others ; and I am noAv, at 2 a.m., just
finishing this long-winded epistle. So good-night and God
bless you and my darling children, dearest Mary.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

1858.] LONDON SOCIETY. 257

To Ms Wife. London,
June 13th, 1858.
My DEAREST Mary, — As usual upon Sunday morning I am
going to give myself the pleasure of sending you a brief
account of my seeings and doings. I do not think that I
have a great deal that Avill prove interesting. I say also
sincerely that the principal, nay the only, source of gratifica
tion to me in being the " favoured guest of many a gay and
brilliant throng," as E. Swiveller might express himself, is
that I can amuse you and Lily Avith a few sketches of people
and things you may have heard of. Let me, however, thank
you both for your letters of June 6th last Sunday.
The EusscUs are kindness itself to me. I like Lady
William extremely, and I feel sure she likes me, and is very
fond of introducing me to people she thinks worth knoAving.
I visit her occasionally, and she comes and takes me to parties,
etc. I got a note from her last Monday morning, Avhich I
would send you if it Avere not on such thick paper. I think,
however, an extract from it will amuse you. It begins thus —
" My dear sir, I hope you will break every tie, should you be
entangled, on the 15th, and accept the enclosed invitation from
my friend, who tried Avith me to find you at Lady Palmerston's.
The dinner Avill be pleasant, and Lord Brougham, Avho Avill be
there, pants to make your acquaintance. I saAv him no less
than three times in one day, et chaque fois il etait question
de vous," etc., with a good deal more in the same vein. The
card is from Lady Williams (Avife or widoAv, I do not knoAv
which, of one of the judges), and takes place day after to-
morroAv. To resume my Aveek's small beer. On Monday I Avorked
pretty hard all day (which is very apt not to lie the case, my
time is so cut up with breakfasts, luncheons, etc.) at the State
Paper Office. In the afternoon I went doAvn with the Sturgises,
Hamley, and the Blackwoods to a dinner at Eichmond. I
did not care much for it, as I Avas not much disposed to be
merry, and I feel very unhappy and depressed, more than
VOL. I. S

258 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII.
tongue can tell, about my dear mother. If I were amusing
myself here in London, and if going to dinners were what it
is to so many, what it might have been to me at twenty-five,
an excitement and a pastime, I should reproach myself. But
I do it with deliberation, and at a great sacrifice to my own
feelings, because I believe it to be as it were my duty, being
here in London, and with every door opened to me even
Avithout knocking, to see something and only once for all of
English society.
There is nothing to say of this Eichmond dinner. The
Sturgises and Hamley were as gay and amusing as ever, and
the Blackwoods are quiet, simple, infelligent people Avhom I
like very much. I think I told you that he is both proprietor
and editor of the famous magazine established by his father.
On Tuesday there was a dinner at Lady Stanley's of Alderley.
I think it Avas rather made for me than otherwise. The com
pany Avas, besides the Stanleys, their married daughter and
her husband, Lord Airlie, Lord Strangford, a young man who
has been much in the East, and who is a very good Oriental
scholar, and son of Lord Strangford, who tra'aslated the ' Lusiad'
of Camoens, Lady Palmerston, her daughter Lady Shaftesbury,
Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Brougham, Lord and Lady Stratford
de Eedcliffe.
Lord Lyndhurst, who has very much lost the use of his legs,
but not of his brains, did not come up in the drawing-room.
I was introduced to Lord Brougham before dinner. He shook
hands cordially, and expressed himself as glad to make my
acquaintance, but he did not seem to " pant" so much as might
have been expected. We soon went to dinner, and his pla<;e
Avas at the opposite end of the table from mine, so that our ac
quaintance for the present is limited. I have no doubt I shall
see more of him, but to tell you the truth I fear he is a mere
Avreck. Let me give you a photograph, while his grotesque
image still lingers in the camera-obscura of my brain. He is
exactly like the pictures in Punch, only Punch flatters him.
The common pictures of Palmerston and Lord John are not
like at all to my mind, but Brougham is always hit exactly.
Bis face, like his tongue and his mind, is shrewd, sharp.

1858.] LYNDHURST AND BROUGHAM. 259
humorous. His hair is thick and snow-white and shiny ; his
head is large and knobby and bumpy, with all kinds of
phrenological developments, Avhich I did not have a chance
fairly to study. The rugged outlines or headlands of his face
are Avild and bleak, but not forbidding. Deep furrows of age
and thought and toil, perhaps of sorroAV, run all over it, while
his vast moutb, with a ripple of humour ever playing around
it, expands like a placid bay under the huge promontory of
his fantastic and incredible nose. His eye is dim and could
never have been brilliant, but his voice, is rather shrill, with an
unmistakeable northern intonation ; his manner of speech is
fluent, not garrulous, but obviously touched by time ; his figure
is tall, slender, shambling, aAvkward, but of course perfectly
self-possessed. Such is Avhat remains at eighty of the famous
Henry Brougham.
My place at table Avas between Lady Stanley and the pretty
Countess of Airlie, her daughter; on her right sat Lord
Stratford de Eedcliffe, and at the other end of the table on
each side of Lord Stanley Avere Brougham and Lyndhurst. I
have already described Lyndhurst. When sitting do^A¦n he
appears younger than Brougham, although really six years
older (he was eighty-six last week) ; his voice is silvery and
his manner very suave and gentle. The company AAas too
large for general conversation, but every now and then Ave at
our end paused to listen to Brougham and Lyndhurst chaffing
each other across the table. Lyndhurst said, "Brougham,
you disgraced the Avoolsack by appearing there with those
plaid trousers, and with your peer's robe on one occasion
put on over your chancellor's gOAvn." " The devil ! " said
Brougham, " you knoAv that to be a calumny ; I never wore the
plaid trousers." " Well," said Lyndhurst, " he confesses the
tAVO gowns. Now the present Lord Chancellor never appears
except in small clothes and silk stockings." Upon Avhich
Lady Stanley observed that the ladies in the gallery all
admired Lord Chelmsford for his handsome leg. " A virtue
that was never seen in you. Brougham," said Lyndhurst, and
so on. I do not repeat these things because they are worth
recording, but because I always try to Boswellize a little for

260 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL
your entertainment. All dinner-time. Lord Lyndhurst's
servant, Avho came Avith him, stood behind him, allowing him to
eat only the dishes which he selected for him, and seeming
very much like the Doctor who stood behind Sancho Panza,
when governor of Barataria, and perpetually AA'aved aAvay the
dishes Avhich that functionary AA'as inclined to devour.
Lord Lyndhurst is always very kind and attentive to me.
He called out to me in the old-fashioned way to drink Avine with
him at table, and after dinner both he and Brougham addressed
a good deal of the conversation, which turned on American
matters, slave trade, etc., to me, and you may be sure that I
was glad to speak my mind on those subjects. I told them,
however, that the English were doing a great deal of damage
and no good, by the utterly indefensible and insolent conduct
of the petty officers in the West Indian seas. There is no
doubt that all this Avill be speedily put an end to, for the
English are very anxious to avoid any quarrel with America
as well as not to furnish us Avith any additional pretext for
taking Cuba. I liked Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe very much.
He is the man, you knoAv, Avho has been so long ambassador in
Constantinople, and doubtless stands at the head of English
diplomacy. He is a tall, thin man, with a handsome, distin
guished face, bald and grey, advanced in the soixantaine, Avith
perfectly simple, unpretending manners. I had imagined,
from the accounts of him, a tremendous SAvell, Avith much
pomp and circumstance. He talked with me a good deal
during dinner, and when Ave went to the draAving-room, he
requested a formal introduction, and conversed half an hour
with me. He had been in former times minister in America,
and among other people he remembered very Avell John
Quincy Adams and Mr. Otis. He told me he should like to
cultivate my acquaintance while I was in England, and I
suppose I ought to call on him, as he is an ex-ambassador and
as he cannot knoAv Avhere I live. I have not yet done so,
hoAvever, as I cannot meet people even half-Avay. Mrs. Norton
took me severely to task for making old Lord Lansdowne call
first on me, saying that I had no business to give him the
trouble to send word to inquire my address, which he had been

1858.] THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 261
obliged to do. Lord Lyndhurst, on account of his leg-less
condition, did not come upstairs, and Lord Brougham stayed
down Avith him to talk of some bill, soon to be brought into
the Lords, so that neither came above the horizon that night.
Wednesday. — As I had resolved, according to your Avish, to
refuse no invitations to sit at " good men's feasts," I had
accepted an invitation to a dejeuner at Lord Carlisle's at
ChisAvick House. There Avas a great flower show at the Horti
cultural Gardens, which are near Lord Carlisle's house, and
he had taken the opportunity to make a small party. About
thirty people sat down at 2.30 o'clock. I had hoped that the
Duchess of Sutherland would be there ; she Avas not, and unless
Lord Carlisle comes to toAvn I am afraid I shall not see her.
Her daughter Lady Blantyre Avas there. I Avent to table Avith
Lord Carlisle's sister. Lady Dover. There Avas also the family
of Hamilton Fish of New York. I have a curiosity to see the
Duchess of Sutherland on account of her high reputation, but
I do not like to ask for an introduction, and prefer to Avait till
I am bumped in her direction in the general maelstrom of
London society. Mackintosh was there, but not his Avife, and
Avith that exception I cannot tell you the names of the people.
They were doubtless all SAvells, but I doubt if there Avere any
celebrities. •On Thursday I Avorked all day at the State Paper Office,
and dined en famille Avith Thackeray, Avhom I happened to
meet the evening before at the Athenasum. He has been very
friendly to me'; I believe him to be very kindhearted and
benevolent. His eldest daughter I like very much. When I
came home in the evening I found an invitation from Lady
Palmerston for the same night. It had been overlooked or
mislaid or something, and Avas marked " immediate," but it
Avas too late for me, fatigued as I Avas, to go. I suppose there
Avill be another next Saturday.
On Friday afternoon I Avent into the Athenaeum for a
sandwich, and there I met Milnes, who asked me to breakfast
next Wednesday. He also asked me to go doAvn to the House
Avith him, Avhich I was Avilling to do for an hour or two,
although I was to dine at eight. When you are introduced

262 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII.
by a member you are seated in the House itself in some very
good seats reserved for members of the other House and " illus
trious foreigners," so that you hear the debates quite as Avell
as the M.P.'s themselves. For such a brief visit I made rather
a good hit. The testy old Admiral Napier had just been
asking some questions about the defences of England, and
Dizzy then got up to reply. In the course of his speech,
Avhich Avas about tAventy minutes, he made the announcement,
new to most people, that the Cagliari question had been settled
so satisfactorily. This is another piece of good fortune in the
run of luck which the Ministers have been having. It was not
noAv to me, for we had happened, as we walked down, to meet
Delane, editor of the Times, who had mentioned the circum
stance. Dizzy's manner was calm on this occasion, statesman
like and very different from the boisterous and declamatory
style adopted by him the other day in his speech at Slough.
He expresses himself with considerable fluency for an English
man, the most eloquent of Avhom are so apt to " stick on con
versation's burrs."
Afterwards Bright made a feAv remarks. He is one of the
favourites of the House, belonging to the branch of that
extreme Liberal party which has taken the present Ministers
under its protection, to annoy Palmerston on the one side and
Lord John on the other. It was quite amusing to see him
patting Disraeli on the head from the Opposition benches.
His manner is easy, conversational, slightly humorous, rather
fluent. The whole style of thing is very different in Parlia
ment from the American way of proceeding in Congress or
State Legislatures. Everything here is toned down to a gentle
business-like mediocrity. The invisible but most omnipotent
demon of good taste which presides over the English world,
social, political, and moral, hangs over the heads of the legis
lators and suppresses their noble rage. The consequence is
that eloquence is almost impossible. Nobody drinks up Esel
or eats crocodiles, but at the same time a good deal of passion
and rhetoric, which might occasionally explode to advantage,
is for ever sealed up. I doubt whether Sheridan or Burke in
this age would not find the genial current of their soul to be

1858.] DINNER AT LANSDOWNE HOUSE. 263
frozen by this clear cold atmosphere of good taste Avhich
coagulates the common talk of Englishmen, hoAvever wise or
Avitty. I Avas obliged to come away very early to dress for dinner
at Lansdowne House. You remember the place which is on
the opposite side of Berkeley Square to Thomas's hotel and
inside a brick Avail. (By the way, the Airlies live next door to
Thomas's.) The house for London is spacious and splendid,
the reception-rooms and dining-room being on the ground
floor. I should think the dining-room Avas about 50 feet
Ijy 25, and well proportioned as to height. There are many
statues about it. The hostess at LansdoAvne House is his
daughter-in-law. Lady Shelburne, Avho is pretty and pleasing.
The company consisted of Mrs. Norton, Dean Milman and
his Avife, Lord Macaulay, Lady Dufferin and her son Lord
Dufferin, Hayward, Miss Thellusson, and a gentleman whose
name I did not hear. Eather a small party for so large
a room. I had on my left the young lady Avho declaimed
so vigorously at Lady Stanley's, and Avho is intelligent
and agreeable. On my right I had the good luck to have
Lady Dufferin, whom before I had hardly seen. She is
extremely agreeable, full of conversation, with a charming
manner, and has or had almost as much beauty and almost
as much genius as her sister Mrs. Norton, with a far better
fate. At table by Avax-light she looked very handsome, Avith
a Avreath of Avhite roses on her black hair ; while her son, a
very handsome youth of near thirty, sat near her looking like
her brother. Hallam's ' Middle Ages ' ought to be a classic work
ill England certainly, for there is no country in the world in
which that epoch is so triumphant. The grandmothers of Eng
land seem almost as young as the mothers. Lady Dufferin has,
I believe, never published, but she is perpetually Avriting, vers
de sooiete, prologues for private theatricals, songs and impromp
tus. Mrs. Norton's ' 31iss Myrtle is going to marry ' and ' So
so. Sir, you have come at last,' are as familiar, as you- knOAv
very Avell, as Percys ' Ballads.' Her son told me that Lord
Palmerston once quoted a verse of " the charming Avoman,"
saying, " as the old song says," Avhich was not particularly com-

264 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Cuap. VIII.
plimentary to the woman, however agreeable it might have
been to the poetess.
She made herself very agreeable all dinner-time. I told
her I had just heard Disraeli speak. She said she had always
known him and liked him in spite of his tergiversations and
absurdities. When he Avas very young and had made his
first appearance in London society as the author of ' Vivian
Grey,' there was something almost incredible in his aspect.
She assured me that she did not exaggerate in the slightest
degree in describing to me his dress when she first met him
at a dinner party. He Avore a black velvet coat lined Avith
satin, purple trousers with a gold band running down the
outside seam, a scarlet waistcoat, long lace ruffles falling down
to the tips of his fingers, Avhite gloves with several brilliant
rings outside them, and long black ringlets rippling doAvn upon
his shoulders. It seemed impossible that such a Guy FaAvkes
could have been tolerated in any society. His audacity.
AA'hich has proved more perennial than brass, was always the
solid foundation of his character. She told him, hoAvever, that
he made a fool of himself by appearing in such fantastic shape,
and he afterwards modified his costume, but he was never
to be put down. She gave me another anecdote of him. " He
¦>ras once dining," said Lady Dufferin, " with my insufferable
brother-in-law, Mr. Norton (of course long before the separa
tion), when the host begged him to drink a particular kind of
wine, saying he had never tasted anything so good before.
Disraeli agreed that the wine was very good. ' Well,' said
Norton, ' I have got wine twenty times as good in my cellar.'
'No doubt, no doubt,' said Dizzy, looking round the table,
'but, my dear felloAv, this is quite good enough for such
canaille as you have got to-day.' Everybody saAv that the
remark was intended as a slap for Mr. Norton, except that
individual himself, who was too obtuse to feel it."
I do not know that I have anything more to record of
this dinner. Macaulay was too far off for me to hear much
of his talk till the ladies retired, although I observed very
few of those brilliant "flashes of silence in his conversation"
to which Sydney Smith once alluded. After dinner, the con-

1858.] LANSDOWNE HOUSE. 265
versation was miscellaneous, but Hayward, Avho is a Quarterly
Eeviewer of some reputation and a diner-out, got into an
argument Avith Macaulay about sculpture and painting, and
the Avhole apple-cart of conversation Avas upset. Jlilman
Avas agreeable, as he always is, and so Avas Macaulay. Old
Lord Lansdowne sat beaming and genial in the centre of
his system, and had evidently acquired a good deal of fresh
Avarmth and radiance from Mrs. Norton, who sat next nim, and
had been looking handsomer than I ever saw her before. She
Avas dressed in Avhite, and from the end of the table AAhere I
sat it would have required a very powerful telescope to dis
cover that she had passed thirty. Before we went away,
Milman invited me next week to breakfast with jMacaulay.
He had again a violent fit of coughing just before he went to
the draAving-room, but it seemed to me of an asthmatic cha
racter. He Avent away early, and I departed about eleven.
Next afternoon I drove out Avith the Amorys to a breakfast (at
Lady Dufferin's, at her villa in Highgate, about five miles
from London). The grounds are charming ; the villa a
beautiful English house, with laAvn and shrubbery, and oaks,
and Avide vioAvs over the hill and dale, such as are in perfection
in England. The weather was, as it has been for the last ten
days, very summery and sultry. Tea tables and ices were
spread on the laAvn under the trees, and there Avere many
persons of my acquaintance present. The Stanleys, the
Airlies, Mrs. Norton, the Duchess of Wellington, and various
other persons Avere there. The tone of the party was very much
sans gene, and JMrs. Norton triumphed over her age and the
sunlight. Both the Amorys looked very Avell.
I do not know that I have anything special to record of this
afternoon's entertainment. The Countess of Clarendon Avas
there, and requested Lady Dufferin to introduce me to her,
and Avas very civil and agreeable. We returned in time for
me to dress, and go to dine at Lord Goderich's at eight.
I think I mentioned in my last that Lord Goderich is a rising-
young politician, Avith a good deal of talent, and very liberal
principles. Of my acquaintance Avas Hurlbert, Avho, as I have
before mentioned, has recently turned up here, and A. Eussell.

266 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII.
Besides, there was the " young couple " whom we met two or
three years ago at Lucerne. As I rarely forget faces, I
recognised theirs. They are a Mr. and JMrs.  . He is a
Member of Parliament and a Eadical. She sat on my left,
and I asked in the course of dinner whether she remembered
where we had last met. She said she had been puzzling over
it (which I do not believe at all) ; I said, in Lucerne. Then
she remembered, or affected to remember, and added, " Why
is it that we English, when we meet abroad, are so very
friendly, and when we reappear in London are so very
hedgehoggy ? " I told her that the reason why there was no
hedgehogginess on this occasion was because I was not an
Englishman. " From which of the sister islands, then ? " she
asked. "From none," I answered. "Then from one of the
colonies ? " " Yes," said I, " from Australia." Eussell and
Lady Goderich laughed, and I left her to burst in ignorance.
After the dinner, Eussell and I retired to the Athenaeum at
eleven, to drink soda and Avater and smoke cigars, Avhich evil
habit I have occasionally resumed late at night, but very
rarely at the Cosmopolitan.
To-day, Sunday — for the last sheet of this letter I have taken >
up late this evening — I have done nothing but take a short
drive in the park Avith the Amorys, and dine with the Sturgises,
and noAv I am tired, and so I shall say God bless you,
dearest Mary ; kiss my darling children, and believe me ever.
Most affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

To his Mother. London,
June llth, 1858.
My DEAREST Mother, — I was rejoiced to find by the letters
which arrived yesterday that your health had improved.
It makes me very sad to hear of you as suffering so much
pain, and I trust most sincerely that the change of air and the
quiet of Eiverdale Avill re-invigorate you, and that we may
have the happiness to hear of a still further improvement. I

1858.] LORD BROUGHAM AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 267
am leading rather a solitary life here, for although I go a
good deal into society, this is rather as a matter of duty than
anything else. My oavu family are all far away from me in
Sw-itzerland ; although thank God they have hitherto been
pretty Avell, I cannot feel perfectly comfortable when the
separation is such a decided one. Moreover, I do not get so
much time to work as I hoped to do. London is such a large
place that an enormous deal of time is spent in getting from
one place to another. If you go out to breakfast or to
luncheon your day is broken in tAvo, and is no longer good for
anything. Lord Brougham interests me as much as any man. He is
now eighty years of age, but I do not see that he is much
broken. His figure is erect, not very graceful, certainly, but
active. His face is so familiar to every one, principally through
the pictures in Punch, as hardly to require a description.
The Avhole visage is Avild and bizarre, and slightly comical, but
not stern or forbidding. Like his tongue and his mind, it is
eminently Scotch, sharp, caustic, rugged, thistle-ish. The top
of the head is as flat as if it had been finished Avith a plane.
The brain-chamber is as spacious as is often allotted to any
one mortal, and, as the Avorld knoAvs, the owner has furnished
it very thoroughly. The face is large, massive, seamed all
over with the deep furroAvs of age and thought and toil ; the
nose is fantastic and incredible in shape. There is much
humour and benevolence about the lines of the mouth. His
manner is Avarm, eager, earnest, cordial. I A\as Avith him half
an hour yesterday, and he talked a good deal of the question
of Cuba and the slave trade. He was of opinion that the claim
to visit must be given up ; that there Avas no logical defence
for it, but he spoke Avith a sigh and almost Avith tears at the
apparent impossibility of suppressing the slave trade, or of
preventing in America the indefinite extension and expansion
of slavery.
I told him that Americans belonging to the Free States
were placed in a position such as no great body of men
had ever before found themselves in. They Avere forced to
choose between an act of political suicide or connivance at the

268 3I0TLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII.
steady expansion of the slavery system, which Avas repugnant
both to their principles and to their interests. A man in
Ohio or Massachusetts must either be a rebel and bend his
energy to the dissolution of the Union, or he must go heart
and hand with Alabama and Carolina in acquiring Cuba and
Central America, and carving out an endless succession of
slave states for the future. He said this Avas quite true, and
that all lovers of progress and liberal institutions could not
help being afflicted at the terrible position in Avhich the Free
States were placed. Whichever way one looked, dissolution
seemed to stare us in the face, for the annexation of the worn-
out, effete, mongrel Spanish- American population into our con
federation was after all a vitiation, corruption and death to our
original and powerful organization. I do not give you exactly
his words, but as I agreed in everything he said, and as he
seemed to sympathise Avith all I ventured to express, I thought
it Avould interest you to hear it. No man Avishes more good,
more glory, more prosperity to the American people than
Lord Brougham, but he cannot believe (nor can I) that those
objects are to be attained by extending slavery and re-esta
blishing the slave trade. I have got to the end of my sheet,
my dearest mother, and so I shall bid you good-bye for the
present, meaning to write again very soon. I shall remain
about a fortnight longer in London, and then leave for
Holland, where I have some tAvo or three months' Avork. My
best love to father, to my dear A  , of whom I am glad to
hear so much better accounts, and to all the rest of the family
And believe me, my dear mother. Most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

To his Wife. London,
June 20th, 1858.
My dearest Mary, — Although I go out a good deal, and
dine Avith somebody or other every day, I see no new cele
brities, and, indeed, there are very few to see. I doubt if I
shall see Disraeli or Buhver. Both are now Ministers, and

1858.] LORD BROUGHAM. 269
rarely go into society, I believe. Carlyle Avas to have come
to breakfast at Milnes's, but he was ill, and sent an apology.
Monday I dined Avith JMr. DarAvin, cousin to Mackintosh, and
son or grandson of the man aa ho wrote the ' Botanical Garden.'
Sfackintosh was there, and his sister and brother-in-laAV
the Wedgwoods, descendants of the famous WedgAvood the
potter, and sundry other people, Avhose names I do not know.
The day Avas insufferably hot. The Aveather, the three or four
days of the past Aveek, has been hotter than any one ever
believed it possible to be in England. The glass was near 90°
in the shade, and there Avas a sense of suffocation in the air,
which Avas intensified by dining in the inevitable white choker
in close rooms. For once in my life I have known the Aveather
too A\-arm for my taste, but it has furnished a topic of con
versation inexhaustible and providential.
On Tuesday 1 dined with Lady Williams, the Avidow of
a judge of some note. The company consisted of 3Ir Har-
court,* a bland old gentleman, to Avhom I was introduced
on arriving. When I came in Avith A. Eussell (Lady W.
Eussell, being taken suddenly ill, Avas unable to come to the
dinner). Lady Williams addressed me in French. I replied
in that language, thinking perhaps she had mistaken me for
JMalakoff, and being uuAvilling to disturb the illusion. She,
however, soon after presented me to the said Mr. Harcourt,
and after I had turned aAvay, I heard her ask him confiden
tially if he had read the D. E. As she is very hard of
hearing, he was obliged to whisper in a tremendous under
tone audible a mile off, " Not yet, but Lady Waldegrave (his
wife) is reading it at this moment Avith great pleasure ; " all of
Avhich I Avas cense not to hear. Then came Lord Brougham,
looking as droll as ever. There certainly never Avas a great
statesman and author who so irresistibly suggested the man
who does the comic business at a small theatre as Brougham.
You are compelled to laugh when you see him as much as at
Keeley or Warren. Yet there is absolutely nothing comic
in his mind. On the contrary, he is always earnest, vigorous,
impressive, but there is no resisting his nose. It is not merely
' George Harcourt, Esq.

270 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VOL
the configuration of that wonderful feature Avhich surprises
you, but its mobility. It has the litheness and almost the
length of the elephant's proboscis, and I have no doubt he
can pick up pins or scratch his back with it as easily as he
could take a pinch of snuff. He is ahvays tAvisting it about
in quite a fabulous manner.
Then there were Lord and Lady Stratford de Eedcliffe, the
Earl of PoAVis, who told me that he knew the Fays Avhen
they lived in Shropshire, some young men whose names I haA^e
forgotten, and a very pretty girl who sat next me, whose name
was Campbell. I can absolutely tell you nothing of this
entertainment. I am not much of a judge of cookery ; I really
cannot say whether the cuisine of the various places where I
dine is commendable or the reverse, and I can only say that it
is stereotyped. The same soups, fishes, and dishes succeed each
other in one uuA'arying procession, just as in a Boston dinner
party or a German table d'hote.
No doubt, too, the society is too large. The Avide orbits in
Avhich the higher constellations move, admit but slight possi
bilities of conjunction, and so in solemn silence, or nearly so,
all move round the vast terrestrial ball. There is not much
chance for anything beyond a slight and formal acquaintance,
however disposed the natives may be to be civil to strangers,
and in my own case I have received a good deal of civility.
Still, the width of society makes it dreary for a foreigner. On
Wednesday morning I breakfasted with, Slilnes. He is a
particularly good fellow, hearty, jolly, intelligent, rich, and
hospitable, a man of letters, and a Member of Parliament.
His wife is at present in the country, so that he does not give
dinners, although they say his house is one of the best to dine
at in London. A breakfast is in itself an absurdity. At least
I for one hate to talk at breakfast to people with Avhom I am
not intimate.
It takes at least a few glasses of champagne to thaw the
surface of any general intercourse, but to pour tea upon the
ice is indeed a weakness. To be jolly over muffins is the
most wretched of delusions. There was a Professor from Bal
timore, whose specialty seems to be an international currency.

1858.] MADAME MOHL. 271
who asked if I happened to be acquainted with my namesake,
the author of the ' Dutch Eepublic,' two or three foreigners.
Lord Ashburton, and a Crimean hero or tAvo, et voild. I am
sure I cannot tell you anything of the conversation, as there
was no celebrity present AAhose head I can take off for your
amusement. ... I dined with John Forster, formerly editor
of the Examiner, author of several very clever Avorks. The
company consisted of Dilke, editor of the Athenmtm, Egg the
painter. Sir C. Eastlake, President of the Eoyal Academy, and
his wife. The thermometer had been at 90° all day, and you
may imagine what the effect of wax candles, steaming dishes;
and a parboiled dozen or two of human creatures must have
been. For my own feelings I can only say that St. Lawrence on
his gridiron was an emblem of cool comfort in comparison. The
conversation was not exciting or instructive. Lady Eastlake
had been a good deal in Germany and in Courland, and I have
an idea that she is the author of a very clever book I once read
called ' Letters from the Baltic' Her husband is a sensible
man in his profession of cognoscente. On Thursday morning,
Avhile I was making a call on Julia Sturgis, in Avalked Madame
Mohl. We fell into each other's arm of course. I do not
knoAv hoAV long she is to stay here. It appears that the Queen
of Holland has been lately making a visit to the Emperor in
Paris. She told Mr. Mohl she Avahted to see Mignet, Cousin,
and other celebrities. He told her she could not, for nothing
Avould induce such men to go to the Tuileries. The only Avay
it could be managed was for her to come to his house, and he
Avould invite them to meet her. With this she Avas delighted,
so the Mohls gave a luncheon or dinner, I forget A\-hich, and
had all these celebrities, and her Majesty came and was
delighted. Mme. Mohl said that Count Eandwyk told her it was indis
pensable that I should report myself to him on my arrival at
the Hague. He is her Master of Ceremonies. I do not think
I shall, hoAvever ; certainly not if I can possibly help it.
That day I Avent, according to appointment, to the House of
Lords, sent in my card to Lord Brougham, Avho came out and
brought me into the House, and gave me a place on Avhat is

272 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII.
called the steps of the throne, where you are separated by a
slight rail from the body of the House.
The speaking on the Cuba business was opened by the
Bishop of Oxford, in a fervid and impassioned speech. He is
the son of the celebrated Wilberforce, and one of the best
speakers in England. There is no need of my talking about
the matter of this debate. The manner is all which is im
portant, as you have perhaps seen what was said ; and if not, it
is of little consequence, for the whole matter, so far as England
and America are concerned, is settled. The men who spoke
'were, besides the Bishop of Oxford, Brougham, who was
earnest, eager, and eloquent as a young man ; Earl Grey, Avho
Avas very peppery and pugnacious ; Clarendon, who Avas gentle
manlike ; Carlisle, Avho was brief but earnest and almost
eloquent. Just before the end of the debate he came over to
me to tell me that he had just sent me a note inviting me to
dinner on the 3rd July. On the whole the style of thing was
very creditable, the elocution Avas above mediocrity, and the
tone Avas in mortifying contrast to that of the recent debate in
our Senate, Avhere each speaker vied with the rest in using
violent and abusive language toAvards England, — I say morti
fying contrast, because whatever be the right or the Avrong,
and I believe that Ave are right, yet it is detestable to see
people without any feeling of the responsibility of statesmen
and bragging away about going into a naval Avar Avith a poAvei
which has got some four hundred ships of Avar while we have
got twenty-five or thirty.
On Saturday I Avent to a large morning party at the
Marchioness of Westminster's. Their residence is Grosvenor
House, one of the most splendid palaces in London. There
Avere a dozen or two of people that I knew there. The prin
cipal reception room was the great picture gallery, but there
Avas no opportunity of seeing the pictures, and the crowd was
so great that there was no chance for anything but to suffer
and be strong for a little Avhile, and then to came away.
I was obliged to leave by five o'clock, as I Avas engaged three
weeks long, with fifty or sixty of my compatriots, to be starred
and gartered by Mr. Peabody at Eichmond. I went with the

1858.] LONDON SOCIETY. 273
Sturgis's in their carriage. The day was fine and the drive
pleasant, and the dinner less oppressive than I had antici
pated. The Amorys were there, both looking handsome and
beautifully dressed, the Dallases, Fishers, and a comprehensive
catalogue of starred and striped individuals from Connecticut
to California, the latter State being represented by a volumi
nous nuggety lady. I conducted to dinner Mrs. Morell, the
married daughter of Mrs. Dallas.
We reached town at about 11.30, at which hour I was
deposited at Cambridge House, Avhere there was a party.
There is nothing particular to be said of this festival, nobody
there whom I have not described. Lord Palmerston came up
to me, and talked a quarter of an hour very pleasantly ; and
there were others Avhom I like to meet, as Baron Bentinck,
the Netherlands Minister; an especially agreeable person,
Baroness Eothschild, Avho invited me to dinner next Thursday.
Affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

VOL. I.

274 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.

CHAPTEE IX.
LONDON SOCIETY (CONTINUED).
London dinner parties — Pembroke Lodge — Lady J. Russell — Sir H. Seymour —
Lord Gifford — Dufferin Lodge — Cliveden — The Duchess of Sutherland —
Breakfast with Monckton Milnes — Thackeray at work — Danby Seymour —
Harrow speeches — The RothscLilds — Stafford House — "An honest diner-
out " — Concert at Lansdowne House — Lord Stanhope — " Owen Meredith " —
" Tom Brown " — Hatfield — Samuel Wilberforce — Lord Shaftesbury — Lord
Denbigh — Dinner at Chiswick House — Holland House — Stoke Park — Gray's
' Elegy ' — Dinner at Holland House — Lord Macaulay— Lord Clarendon—
Cassiobury Park — A series of dinner parties — Bath House — Ball at Apsley
House — India debate in House of Lords — Lord Wensleydale — Mount Felix
— East Horsley Towers — Hay ward— Prince Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein
— Kinglake — Journey to (he Hague.
To his Wife. London,
June 21th, 1858.
My DEAREST Mary,— My last letter, rather a jejune speci
men, I am afraid, was duly posted on the Sunday. I believe
that the wondrous tale of my adventures on that occasion was
brought up to Saturday inclusive. There are so many indi
viduals in London society, that it is a long time before one
meets, except at a grand evening party, many persons on any
one occasion that one has seen before, and at the same time
those you met yesterday, that it comes to the same thing.
About 8 P.M. I drive daily in a hansom along Piccadilly,
in a AA'hite choker, and the colossal and comical statue of the
Duke of Wellington always seems to tower above Belgravia, as
the presiding genius of dinner parties, marshalling his baton
the Avay that so many thousands are to go to table. Then you
go into a grave-looking mansion of nankeen-coloured brick,
are received by a squad of respectable flunkeys, confide your
name in a modest Avhisper to one of them, so that he may roar
it up the staircase to his colleagues on the landing. Then you
go into a large salon with a score or so of gentlemen and

1858.] LONDON DLNNER PARTIES. 275
ladies. Then, after the usual remarks concerning the heat of
the Aveather and the odoriferousness of the Thames, the solemn
procession goes doAvn to the salle a manger. " Slowly and
sadly we sat us doAvn," and precisely the same dishes in exactly
tho same order are placed under our noses, exactly at the same
moment. Then, after the normal lapse of an hour and a half,
the usual struggle of crinolines takes place, and the ladies soar
to the supernal regions. The male survivors pretend to be
relieved, and to draw nearer and affect to talk jDolitics, although
nothing is ever said, and pretend to drink Avine, although not
a pint is consumed. Then after the normal tAventy minutes
are past, the solemn question, " A little more Avine ? " is pro
pounded, and the procession Avith funeral gravity moves
upstairs — as if they had all met to pay the last homage to a
deceased friend, and were glad to have accomplished the rite
in a becoming manner. After coffee, the party is sometimes
strengthened by a fresh infusion of ncAv company from AA-ithout,
and the languid circulation is thus improved, and then you
eclipse yourself when you like, or remain till twelve o'clock,
draining the cup to the dregs.
To descend to particulars. On Sunday I drove out with
A. Eussell, by invitation, to Pembroke Lodge, Eichmond, to
make a visit to Lord and Lady John Eussell. I have already
described him to you, and I have nothing to add to that
picture. His manner, especially in his own house, is more
pleasing than I had expected. His voice is gentle, and his
address is not restrained or even indifferent. We sat in the
drawing-room till a shower Avas over, and then Ave Avalked about
the grounds Avith Lord John. This place is one given, or
rather lent, to him by the Queen for his life, and is built in the
royal park, and has a magnificent vicAv of the Thames scenery,
with all the rich combinations of bosky brown and sunny
glade, and cottage chimneys, that smoke beneath the ancient
oak Milton so loved to paint. I think the ' Allegro ' and
' Penseroso ' must have been Avritten on the top of Eichmond
Hill. Lady John Eussell looks like her brother, Henry
Elliot, from whom she said she had often heard of me. They
have several children, the youngest a pretty little girl. The

276 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
cottage is simply and plainly furnished. It Avas pleasant
enough to see the ex-Premier under his OAvn vine and
fig-tree. He is a very good politician and statesman, and
a model fere de famille. They Avished me to appoint another
day to come out to luncheon. I dined afterwards Avith
Mrs. Norton. She made the dinner for me, but she was
somewhat disappointed in her company, several of the persons
that she wanted, among "others Delane, having been engaged.
The company consisted of the Marquis of Lansdowne ; Lord
Dufferin, and his mother. Lady Dufferin ; the "young couple"
of Avhose name I think I have already informed you ; Mr. Har
court ; HayAvard, the Quarterly EevicAver and universal diner
out ; the Earl of Gifford, and Sir Hamilton Seymour, the man
who AAas Minister in Petersburg at the time when the " sick
man " gave the Czar Nicholas so much anxiety.
I believe I have already described the indiA'iduals composing
the troop thus enumerated, except the two last-named indi
viduals. Sir H. Seymour is not especially describable. He is
obviously intelligent, caustic, and apparently good-humoured,
and Avith a good deal of the usage du monde to be expected in
a veteran diplomatist. He is still comparatively young, but
has laid himself up on a pension. Lord Gifford is the eldest
son of the Marquis of Tweeddale, is an M.P. till he succeeds
to his father's peerage, is about thirty-five years old, plain-
looking, intelligent, spectacled, and a sculptor of remarkable
talent. There is at Dufferin Lodge a marble bust of Lady
Dufferin executed by him, Avhich is singularly like and very
beautiful, and another one in plaster of her brother, Brinsley
Sheridan, Avhich is almost as good. I do not remember any
thing especially worth reporting of this dinner. The conversa
tion rolled on the accustomed wheels. But where two such
persons as Mrs. Norton and Lady Dufferin Avere present, you
may imagine that it was not sIoav. Mrs. Norton, however, was
a good deal indisposed, so much so as to be obliged to leave
the table. She recovered, hoAvever, and remained till 12.30 in
her salon, at which hour Hayward and myself retired. The de
scriptions of Mrs. Norton have not been exaggerated. In the
noon of her beauty she must have been something wondrous.

1858.] CLIVEDEN. 277
On Monday I got a pretty good day's Avork in the State
Paper Office, and at seven I drove out to Highgate to dine
with Lady Dufferin. There Avas no party, except one young
man AA'hose name I forget, and Brinsley Sheridan, with his
Avife and two daughters.
Mr. Sheridan has a good deal of the family fascination,
being still very handsome, Avith a very Avinning address. One
of his daughters is very pretty, and is just engaged to be
married to the eldest son of Lord Poltimore.
This dinner, although merely a family one, was one of the
pleasantest I have been at. When there is one such person at
table as Lady Dufferin, of course it makes all the difference.
She has knoAvn everybody, and tells peppery little anecdotes,
strikes out little portraits, and talks on grave and gay subjects
with the same animation and brilliancy. Then she paints
beautifully, having adorned the panels of her own boudoir Avith
her own pencil, and is perpetually Avriting clever verses.
When Avell dressed, she is very pretty, but she never could
have had the beauty of Mrs. Norton, who has the head of a
classic muse, and the eyes of a sibyl.
I brought Sheridan into toAvn, Avho asked me for a lift, that
some one else might be accommodated in his carriage, and he
made himself very agreeable during the drive.
On Thursday I Avent Avith Mrs. Norton and Stirling by rail
to Cliveden. This is a villa belonging to the Duke of Suther
land, and famous in Pope's verses as " Cliveden's proud
alcove," — " The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love,"
and now in possession of a purer celebrity. I had received an
invitation from the Duchess through Mrs. Norton, entirely
unawares, as I had never been presented to her ; but, as I have
already observed, it Avas probable that I should be drifted in
her direction before I left London. 1 suppose you aaiII like a
description of her. There is something A-ery plenteous and
bountiful and sunny in her aspect. She is tall, and very
large, and carries herself A\ith a very good-natured stateliness.
Her hair is blonde-silvered, her features are large and well
chiselled, her smile is very beaming, and there i^s benevo-

278 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
lence and sunshine in every look and Avord. With her ripe,
autumnal, exuberant person, and radiating expression, she
looks a personified Ceres, and ought always to be holding a
cornucopia in her right hand. She Avelcomed me like an old
friend, shaking hands as if 1 had knowi* her from the tenderest
infancy; and then we went, being late, to the table, where
about tAventy-five people Avere already seated. The company
consisted mainly of ladies. There Avas next me Lady C.
Denison, Avife of the Speaker of the House of Commons ;
opposite was Mrs. Van der Weyer, who was affectionate in her
greetings, and there were various members of the Carlisle
family; Lady Stafford, the daughter-in-laAV of the Duchess,
Lady Blantyre, and a Count and Countess Potofski, Austrian
Poles, for Avhom the party was made; Grenfell, a brother of
Mrs. Fronde, whom I very often meet in society, and Avhose
father's place adjoins Cliveden ; Miss Weston, cousin of Mrs.
Van der Weyer, Avho has been several years in Europe, and
seems ladylike and intelligent, and various others whose names
I have forgotten. There was not much done at the party.
The vicAv from the house is AvonderfuUy fine, commanding a
view of the silver Thames, Avinding through plains of almost
ever green freshness, and masses of ancient foliage, such as
England only has to show.
The house is modern, and a small palace built by Barry,
the painting of the ceiling and panels is by Landseer and
other artists, the service of the table of quite regal magnifi
cence, and the straAvberries very portentous in size. After the
" trifling foolish banquet " Ave loafed about the grounds, but
the whole thing Avas brought to a rapid termination because
the Duchess, Avho is not living here at the moment, was to go
to town by the 4.30 train. This house is only one of a dozen
or tAVO palaces, villas, and castles Avhich they possess. Of
course they only reside here a few weeks in each year. She
charged me to make her a visit very soon at Stafford House,
saying that she was always at home about two.
On Wednesday morning I breakfasted again with Milnes.
The company consisted of two or three English Consuls from
foreign parts, Parker the publisher, Mr. Arthur Stanley, cousin

1858.] BREAKFAST WITH MILNES. 279
of Lady Stanley of Alderley, a canon of Christchurch and an
eminent divine, whom I had met before at Milman's, Lord Car
lisle, Earl Grey and Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe. I sat next
to the two last-named individuals. I had never met Lord Grey
before, although I ha4 heard him speak. He told me he knew
me very Avell through the D.E. and I found him rather an
entertaining person. He has more talents than many of his
brother peers. I see no reason to modify my sentiments on
the breakfast system. If the autocrat of the breakfast table
had been present, the scene would have been changed indeed.
If he could only establish his SAvay in London, a social revolu
tion would be produced ; and I am quite persuaded that if by
accident, Avithout changing any of his other qualities, he could
have a palingenesis, and appear as a Howard or Stanley of
England, people Avould gather up his conversation, five baskets
full every time he honoured any mahogany. As he was not
there I took no notes of anybody's conversation, not even my
own, which I flatter myself Avould exceed in dulness that of
any of my competitors. Kingsley gave me a very pressing
invitation to visit him at Eversley. Milnes, by the Avay, is
bright, jolly, and amusing, one of the best felloAvs in London.
If he would only shove his entertainments to the other edge
of the daylight, and give us cups that inebriate instead of
cheering, I should have no fault to find Avith him.
After breakfast I Avent down to the British Museum. I had
been immersed half-an-hour in my MSS., Avhen happening to
turn my head round I found seated next to me Thackeray with
a file of old newspapers before him Avriting the ninth number of
the ' Virginians.' He tpok off his spectacles to see Avho I was,
then immediately invited me to dinner the next day (as he
seems always to do everybody he meets), Avhich invitation I
could not accept, and he then showed me the page he had been
Avriting, a small delicate legible manuscript. After this we
continued our studies. I can conceive nothing more haras
sing in the literary way than his Avay of living from hand to
mouth. I mean in regard to the way in which he furnishes
food for the printer's devil. Here he is just finishing the
number which must appear in a few days. Of course, whether

280 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. BX.
ill or well, stupid or fertile, he must produce the same amount
of fun, pathos, or sentiment. His gun must be regularly
loaded and discharged at command. I should think it would
wear his life out. This day I dined at Mr. Danby Seymour's.
He is a very good fellow, an Bl.P., and of the elder branch
of the Seymour family. He descends from the famous pro
tector Duke of Somerset, and a less remote Sir Edward
Seymour ancestor is the one who made the famous reply to
William IIL, when he landed from Holland. " You are one of
the family of the Duke of Somerset ? " asked this king. " No,
your majesty," answered Sir EdAvard, "he is of mine," which
was true, the ducal branch being the younger one. They have
some fine portraits in the house, one of this same Sir Edward,
another of the protector Duke, and a full length, large as life,
of Harry VIIL, by Holbein.
I made the acquaintance of Mr. Seymour the first time I
was at Cambridge House. On being introduced to him he
said, " I knoAV you well, I read your Ijook eight years ago."
To whom I replied that he was my earliest reader, for he had
read it six years before it was published, and we have been
great friends ever since. There were not many notables
present, and the usual sprinkling of lords and ladies, colonels
and M.P.'s. The lady with whom I Avent to dinner was very
lively and sociable — Mrs. Vernon Smith, wife of the man of
whom you have heard as having been President of the India
Board in Lord Palmerston's ministry. They sent me an in
vitation to dinner next day for a few days afterwards, but I was
engaged. I eclipsed myself rather early from the evening
party which followed the dinner, and went to the Cosmopolitan.
Among the usual members who were there, there was one Mr.
Venables, one of the Saturday EevicAvers, who told me of a per
sonal compliment which Avill please you and Lily to hear.
He said that he Avas an intimate acquaintance of Tennyson,
and that Tennyson had recently told him that he admired my
history more than any he had ever read, and that he had rarely
been so much excited by any book. He did not know that
I was in town till the day he went aAvay, or would have liked
to see me, etc. As this is somcAvhat different from the banalites

1858.] HARROW SPEECHES. 281
of every day, I thought I would sink my blushes and let you
hear it.
On Thursday morning Dean and Mrs. Milman called in
their carriage to take me to Harrow to hear what are called the
" HarroAV Speeches," to Avhich I had received an invitation
from Dr. Vaughan, the head master. This affair is very much
like our college commencement. The prize boys speak Latin,
Greek, and English orations and poems, and there are also a
few scenes from French, German, and English plays acted.
The declamation Avas of a very inferior description. When they
acted, hoAvever, and so got out of themselves into somebody
else, it was quite different, and although their pronunciation
of French and German Avas stunning to unprepared ears, their
performance in other respects was rather light and airy. After
the exercises were over, the invited guests went to a collation
in the head master's house. Lord Palmerston, Avho rode down,
a distance of ten miles, and back, was called on first after the
banquet in the usual form. It is not fair to criticize such
performances, for certainly there never Avas a more senseless
ceremony than this, of calling men out to make speeches when
they have nothing in the Avorld to say.
I went up afterwards to the churchyard of Harrow-on-the-
Hill to see the tomb on which Byron used to be fond of sitting
when he was at school there. The view is a very extensive
panorama and very English and beautiful. We got back to
toAvn just in time to dress for dinner. I dined with the
Eothschilds. This is the Baron Lionel, about whom the row
as to his seat in Parliament has been so long reproducing
itself. It seems probable that next Aveek the Bill Avill pass,
and that he Avill take his seat as member for London, to which
office he has been so often elected. His Avife is very nice,
with much esprit, intelligence and cultivation. There was the
married daughter of the house, the Avife of course of another
Eothschild ' (for the Eothschilds all marry Eothschilds), who
is very beautiful and perfectly HebrcAv and Oriental. A
pale face, arched broAvs, eyes and hair of the blackest, with
a gentle, pretty manner and a petite figure, are her character-
' Baroness Alphonse de Rothschild.

282 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
istics. Then there is a younger daughter of their father's
house, unmarried, and a son too. Besides these Avere Hayward,
Villiers, brother of Lord Clarendon, the Honourable Geo. Byng,
rejoicing in the appellation of " Poodle Byng," and nobody
else. I sat next to Mme. Eothschild and so did very Avell. On
Friday I called at Stafford House. The Duchess Avas at home,
and after I had been there a little Avhile invited me to go to
luncheon. This is, in fact, a 2.30 dinner as you knoAv, consisting
of soup, boiled and roast, pastry and fruit, like any other dinner,
is an institution at first devised to keep the strong in awe, for
who has the strength to eat two dinners in one day ? Of course
there was no company, and I only came to make a morning
call. There were the Duke, Lady Stafford, and Lady Blantyre.
After the refection the Duchess shoAved me all over the
house. Descriptions of houses are not much. Suffice it to
say, that this is the best private palace in London. The
double staircase especially is very broad and stately, and the
Avide entrance hall is ornamented with fine groups of statuary
by modern sculptors — nothing very remarkable, but very good
as furniture. I think there are few of the palaces in Genoa
Avith so fine an entrance and staircase. The rooms are all very
grand and gilded, the " enervating saloons," to get an invita
tion to which Eoebuck complains of the baseness perpetrated
by members of Parliament, and the gallery is very handsome.
I Avas disappointed in the pictures. With the exception of tAvo
Murillos from the Soult collection, ' Abraham Entertaining the
Angels,' and ' The Eeturn of the Prodigal Son,' both of Avhich
are treated Avith a dramatic energy unusual Avith Murillo, and
with his richest and strongest colour — with these two signal
exceptions there are hardly any first-rate pictures. After
passing a very agreeable hour or tAVO in this way I took my
leave. I dined that day Avith the Sturgis's. By the way,
Milnes, the other day, being invited by Lady Palmerston to
dinner, declined on the ground of a previous engagement.
She begged him to decline the previous engagement. " No,"
says Milnes, " whatever else I may be, I am an honest diner
out." The party at the Sturgis's had few persons that I
knew. I went to dinner Avith Mrs. Mansfield, mother of

1858.] LORD STANHOPE. 283
General Mansfield, who at the age of forty has already acquired
great reputation and rank in India. She is originally from
Baltimore, she told me, but has been in England ever since her
marriage. Then there were a Mr. and Mrs. Ponsonby ; she a
very pretty woman and sister to Lady Stanley of Alderley.
I do not remember anything Avorthy of note at the dinner,
which, like all those at the Sturgis's, Avas very good, they have
almost the best cuisine in London.
At eleven o'clock we adjourned to LansdoAvne House, where
there Avas a private concert, to which the Sturgis's as well as
myself were invited. The concert room is very spacious and
elegantly decorated. The musicians were Viardot, Garcia,
Grisi, Mario, Graziani, and others. The room was, however,
very hot, and it was difficult to get a good place, so that as
a concert I cannot say that I enjoyed it much. It was not a
very general j)arty, only several large spoonfuls of the cream
of the cream. I do not remember any people of whom I
have not spoken, except some members of the Eoyal Family,
the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and the Princess
Augusta. But to tell you the truth I forgot to look at them,
and so cannot describe them to you, saving the Duke of Cam
bridge, who stood near me about five minutes. I had a good
deal of talk as usual with Mrs. Norton, Lady Dufferin, Mme.
Eothschild, and other old acquaintances. The Duchess of
Manchester was there also, a very pretty blonde, with a wreath
of gold scallop shells in her hair. The Marchioness of Stafford
was there also, and these two are considered the prettiest
women in London.
Next day I Avorked pretty Avell at the S.P.O. for a few hours,
but there is no doubt that my time is a good deal cut up, and
although I shall get through my work pretty soon, yet I could
have accomplished it all by this time, and sooner, had I been
entirely unknoAvn. Breakfasts, luncheons, and visits, consume
valuable hours in this wide wilderness. I went in the after
noon to return a visit to Lord Stanhope, who had called on me
the day before. He is better known to the world at large
under the name of Lord Mahon, which he bore when he wrote
the ' History of England from the Peace of Utrecht,' a work

284 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. LX.
which has a high reputation, and was favourably reviewed on
its first appearance by Macaulay. He is a distinguished per
sonage in the way of letters, science and art, and I found him
particularly agreeable. He is a slender, thin man, with hand
some features, curly hair, and spectacles. He showed me the
MS. of Byron's ' Curse of Minerva,' in which almost every word
had been altered, so numerous were the corrections ; also a very
pretty valentine of some thirty lines, written by Macaulay to
his (Lord Stanhope's) little daughter.
Afterwards I drove down to Chiswick, to dine with Lord
Carlisle. The company consisted of William Prescott and his
Avife, who are on their way to America, sailing next Saturday;
a Mr. Calvert, a very entertaining and intelligent Englishman,
Avho is Consul in the East, and has a farm on the ruins of
Troy ; Lord Granville ; the Speaker of the House of Commons,
and his wife. Lady Charlotte Denison ; Lord and Lady Chiches
ter, Lady Shannon, and Colonel and Lady Louisa Pyne. I
give you the names just as they would be given by Jenkins,
the reporter of fashionable intelligence for the Morning
Post. The only notabilities of this party Avere the Speaker,
who is tall, with a good Eoman face, which must look uncom
monly well in the Avig. He seemed good-humoured, and
sufficiently reasonable, and I daresay looks very stately in his
costume. Lord Granville was Minister of Foreign Affairs in
Palmerston's Government, is small, bright, boyish-looking,
young, and very agreeable. He has a decided resemblance
to Longfellow in manner and visage. Lady Charlotte, the
Speaker's wife, is a good-natured, cultivated person, whom
I have met several times. The rest of the company were
commonplace folks, not worth describing, except that you Avill
like to hear a word of the Prescotts. They came over Avith
the Whartons from Calais, Avho have gone for the summer to
the Isle of Wight, so that you will not see them, I am sorry to
say. They speak of Prescott, the father, as very Avell, and
wishing to write, but restrained by the physicians and friends.
He is more popular here than ever. After returning to town
at eleven, I went to a rather small party at the Palmerstons.

1858.] "OWEN MEREDITH" AND "TOM BROWN." 285
To his Wife. London,
July ith, 1858.
My dearest Mary, — This Avill be but a short and dull
letter. I Avrote you an unconscionably long one last Sunday.
To-day, and for several days past, I have been very much
indisposed. You need not be in the least degree alarmed. It
is only my old enemy, difficulty of breathing, but it is so
obstinate and unrelenting that it makes me incapable of Avork
or amusement, and depresses me very much. There is not the
least need of your AA-orrying yourself, for it is only what I have
been suffering from for half my life, and I daresay, after a fcAv
days or weeks longer, it will pass away. I should not mention
it at all, except by way of excuse for my inability to write
anything to amuse you much this week. It does not prevent
my daily occupations, but it rather neutralises them. I go to
the S.P.O. every day, but it is difficult for me to Avork, and I
dipe out every evening, but it is a supplice to talk or to eat.
Last Sunday I passed an hour at Mrs. Norton's. Among other
persons there was Lytton,^ the son of Sir E. B. Lytton. I met
him afterwards the same evening, and he made me a formal
speech about the D.E., saying it was a great privilege to
knoAV the author, etc. He is a handsome young man, and very
clever, having published some poems, which are good, under
the nom de plume of " Oavcu Meredith."
Sunday evening, I drove out to Wimbledon, and dined Avith
Hughes, the author of ' Tom BroAvn's School-days,' a book
which has had a great run, and is generally admired. He had
invited me once before, but I was engaged. Hughes is an
excellent fellow, very plain, unsophisticated and jolly, of course
full of talent. He is not a professional author, but a Avorking
barrister. His wife is a pretty and pleasing person, and they
live in a pretty cottage near Wimbledon Common. Kingsley
was expected, but did not come, which was also the case with
Lord and Lady Goderich, Avho were prevented by illness. The
only persons present besides ourselves were Mrs. Phillips, wife
' The present Earl of Lytton.

286 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
of the artist ; a gentleman whose name I have forgotten, and a
Lady somebody. The dinner was plain, but it AA-as san gene,
the conversation less guindee and conventional than is cus
tomary in London.
Monday I went out with A. Eussell by appointment to
Hatfield, a celebrated country-house of the Elizabethan period,
originally presented to Eobert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury,
and now inhabited by his descendant the present Marquis of
Salisbury. A part of the house remains as it Avas originally
built, the other portion was burned some years ago, together
with the mother of the present proprietor, but has been re
stored in the same style. It is a rambling, zigzag structure
of brick, with gables, turrets, and oriels, a superb dining-room,
oak-ceilinged and wainscoted and floored, a fine library, superb
views of park scenery and distant hills from the windoAvs, and
stately avenues of lime-trees and horse-chestnuts. Then there
are various portraits of the great Lord Burleigh and his greater
son, Queei; Elizabeth, and other historical personages, Avhich
have a peculiar interest for me, as I happen to be Avriting
about them. And there are also formal old-fashioned gardens,
Avith clipped ycAv hedges, and alleys, and fish-ponds, and con
servatories. Descriptions of palaces are a bore, and I Avill not
describe. We had luncheon in the antique banqueting-room.
There are also in the library some priA'ate papers of the famous
Lord Burleigh, Avhich I should like very much to have the ran
sacking of, although I have hundreds of them in the archives ;
but Lord Salisbury, I have always understood, does not Avish
any one to see them, so that I did not allude to the subject.
I dined this day Avith Sir Charles Lyell. The Prescotts, Avhom
it is always a pleasure to meet, both on their own account and
their father's, Avere there, and Mr. and Mrs. Lyell. James
Lawrence came in the evening. He is just come out alone for
rheumatism, and is going straight to the Continent. I regret
very much to say that he gives an unsatisfactory account of
Prescott. He is kept on a very low diet, and I fear such great
precaution is rather alarming.
Next day I had a quiet dinner at Mackintosh's, almost the
first time I have dined in London except at a dinner party, and

1858.] S. WILBERFORCE— LORD SHAFTESBURY. 287
I Avas very glad of the repose. I like them both very much,
and they have been very friendly to me. She ahvays tells me
to send her kindest regards to you. I am very Aveary of sitting
at good men's feasts or bad ones. I have dined out about
forty days in succession, and I am noAv inclined to go into
the Avilderness and fast forty days, but I have about a dozen
invitations ahead.
On Wednesday I breakfasted with Lord Stanhope. I think
I spoke of him in my last letter. Lady Stanhope is very
agreeable, with a very sweet face, one of the persons I like
best in London. I have nothing special to say of this
entertainment except merely to mention the names of the
guests, and I suppose that you Avill like to hear them.
Macaulay did not come, Avhich is the third time I have been
disappointed of meeting him at breakfast. Each time he
has been obliged to excuse himself on account of illness, and
I am afraid that he is in a very bad way. His cough is
certainly very alarming, and each time when I have met him
at dinner he has had a very alarming fit of it. The persons
Avho did come Avere Milnes, A\-honi it is always pleasant to
meet ; the Bishop of Oxford, whom I have met once or twice
before at breakfast, and who is a solid, thickset man, agreeable
in conversation, and a splendid orator .... Lord and Lady
Shaftesbury, Lord Powis, and one or Iavo more. Lady Shaftes
bury is daughter to Lady Palmerston, and is a fresh, handsome
Avoman, although one of her younger sons has just set forth to
make a tour in America. England is certainly the paradise
of grandmothers. Lord Shaftesbury has made himself distin
guished by promoting all sorts of charities, is strong about
Sabbath-breaking, and is in general one of the leaders of the
Exeter Hall political pietists. He is very lugubrious about
the present aspect of affairs in England, and assured me that
he considered the country fast rolling doAvn the hill into the
abyss of democracy.
This day I dined Avith Mr. Nassau Senior, a noted Avriter on
political economy, an Edinburgh revicAver, and an ex-professor.
Latterly he has travelled much in Greece, and his MS. journals
are lent about London and Paris. He is friendly and hospitable

288 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
and very repandu. His son is a big, burly barrister in spectacles.
His son's Avife, Mrs. Nassau Senior, junior, is pretty, very fair,
with a Avonderful profusion of gilt flaxen crinkle-crankled hair,
and a remarkably fine voice, Avith which she discoursed after
dinner much eloquent music. She is sister to Tom Hughes,
alias Tom BroAvn. Phillips the artist and his Avife, both sensible,
agreeable people, Avere the only ones of the company I knew.
On Thursday I went A^ith the Sturgises and Incheses, after an
early dinner, to the Princess Theatre to see the ' Merchant
of Venice.' It Avas croAvded, hot, and uncomfortable. I had
afterwards for the same evening an invitation, which of course
I could not accept, from Lady W. Eussell to go with her to
Covent Garden Opera. This house I have not yet seen, and
it is very large and handsome. HoAvever, I did not care much
more about going to the one or the other. The Queen was
there, and of course rather a brilliant croAvd.
Friday I dined Avith Lady Mary Fielding and her father
the Earl of Denbigh.. They sent me an invitation to dinner
for either Friday or Saturday, so I took Friday. The family
is distinguished for two things — for claiming to be the elder
branch of the imperial house of Austria, calling themselves
Counts of Hapsburg, and having the double-headed eagle on
their spoons ; and for numbering the immortal Henry Fielding
among the scions of their house. The party Avas almost a
family one, there being about five ladies. Fielding, and two or
three colonels of the same name. Besides these were Max
IMiiller, the famous Oxford philosopher, a very learned though
comparatively a young man, and Arthur Stanley, of whom I
have spoken to you before. He has asked me- to dinner three
times, but I have ahvays been engaged. I chronicle these
names and very important facts, because I have nothing else
in the Avorld to say. Of course you do not care to hear how
many " dead letters " I read in the State Paper Office, or any
of the details regarding my diggings generally.
Saturday, having a foAv days before found Noel's card on my
table, I Avent up to Lady Byron's, but found that they Avere
again flown. It is in vain to attempt to see anybody in
London except by positive appointment. Lady Byron was at

1858.] CHISWICK HOUSE. 289
home by a sea-coal fire (for the Aveather has become as
imblushingly cold as it was hot a Aveek ago) ; she is pretty well
for her, and was pleased to see me. This day I dined again
with Lord Carlisle. The Milmans were going also, and took
me in their carriage to Chiswick House, about five or six
miles from Hyde Park Corner. It is always pleasant to go to
Lord Carlisle's, he is so unaffectedly cordial and even affec
tionate, that it would be impossible not to be fond of him.
He has been more attentive to me than anybody in London,
except .the Eussells and Mrs. Norton, and I like him ex
tremely (I mean, of course, of my new acquaintances). The
company, besides the Milmans, consisted of Mr. Ball, a M.P.,
who has been an under secretary, and his Avife, Avho is a
Venetian, speaking hardly any English, who sat next me, and
was quite delighted AA-hen she found I could speak French ;
Macaulay, Avho came contrary to expectation, but has a very
bad cough and looks very feeble ; Mr. Labouchere, once
Minister for the Colonies, and his Avife, Lady Mary, sister of
Lord Carlisle ; Mr. C. Hov/ard, his brother ; Lord and Lady
Wensleydale, Sir David Dundas, who is just going to America,
and two Members of Parliament.
Nothing very memorable occurred. Macaulay did not
talk so much as usual, although he seemed in good spirits
enough. He was speaking Avith me after we went upstairs
upon American matters, Avhen he was seized with two or three
violent fits of coughing. Soon after he Avent aAvay, and
everybody seemed to feel anxious about him. Lady 31ary
Labouchere is as kind-hearted and agreeable as the rest of
the family. I had never met her before, but she treated me
like an old acquaintance, invited me to go out to their country
place to-morrow to lunch, and see the churchyard where
Gray's ' Elegy ' was written, and to dine with her in town
next Wednesday. Lord Wensleydale is the Baron Parke
about whose life peerage there Avas such a row a year or two
ago. It was finally settled by making him a peer tout bonnement,
Avith remainder to his lawful issue, but as he and his Avife are
about seventy-five years old each, and have no sons as yet,
it seems likely enough that it will remain a life peerage. I
VOL. I. U

290 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
stopped at Cambridge House coming up, Avhere, as usual, on
Saturdays, there Avas an assembly. Lady Palmerston is always
kind enough to invite me ; passed an hour or tAvo there, and I
returned at one o'clock. To-day I dine at Holland House,
which historical mansion I Avill describe in my next. God
bless you, dearest Mary ; take care of my darling children,
kiss them all three a thousand times, and believe me.
Most aflectionately yours,
J. L. M.

To his Wife. London,
July llth, 1858.
My DEAREST Mary, — I am not able to give you any new-
sketches of celebrities. Having seen nearly all the prominent
people in London, chalked them out tatd bien que mal for
your entertainment, I can now do little more than send you,
like Jenkins, a list of the nobility and gentry that I meet
daily at dinner and other parties. Sunday, I paid my
weekly visit to Mrs. Norton, and found her as agreeable and
interesting as she ahvays is. Her talent for conversation is
almost as remarkable as her beauty, and even superior to her
poetic genius. I dined afterwards at Holland House. This
is a quaint, antique old manor house belonging to the early
period of James I., but having the general characteristics of
the Elizabethan mansion. Built of brown brick, with turrets
and gables, mullioned oriel windoAvs, terraces, stately stair
cases, tapestried rooms, and painted ceilings, it is, on not a
very large scale, one of the most beautiful country houses that
it is possible to conceive. It is approached by a noble avenue
of lime trees, is surrounded by an ample lawn, dotted with
oaks, pastures, " where the nibbling sheep doth stray," and by
a vast park of splendid forest trees, Avhile close to the house
are trim gardens, with dipt hedges, sundials, fountains, and
statues, and "a lush of flowers" sufficient to gladden the
soul of John Keats, and all this in what might be called the
heart of London, certainly in its pericardium.

1858.] HOLLAND HOUSE. 291
Kensington, near which country village Holland House once
stood, is already swallowed into the all-devouring stomach of
London, assimilated into the brick and mortar chyle out of
which the life of that gigantic organisation is perpetually
reproduced and enlarged. " Kensington Gore " is a recognised
street of London, and the avenue gates of Holland House open
really upon a continuation of Piccadilly. There was a dis
cussion yesterday Avhere I was dining about the value of the
place for building purposes. Lord Clarendon said it would
bring in an income of £6,000 a year ; and Eothschild, Avho sat
next me, said it was worth £150,000 at least. Yet the present
Lord Holland only lives here about six weeks in the year,
residing the rest of the time in Naples, where he has a fine
house, as in Paris. He is a singularly agreeable person in
his manners. I went out there this day, having received an
invitation on very brief acquaintance, and expecting to find
myself rather awkwardly placed among strangers. I got
there about eight (having been invited for 7.30, and this is
punctuality itself), and there were but two persons in the
room. In the twilight I did not recognise them, but presently
I observed the familiar proboscis of Lord Brougham Avagging
in a friendly manner towards me. He and another gentleman,
commonly called Bear Ellice, Avere the only persons there.
Brougham Avas very cross at waiting for his dinner, having been
there half an hour, and Lord Holland had not shown himself.
Presently he came in and apologised by saying that Lady
Holland was taken ill and could not appear. Brougham's
Avrath was mollified, and he became very agreeable.
Lord and Lady Lyndhurst soon arrived, and with a few
others, including the Due de Eichelieu and some persons
whose names I did not hear, the party was complete. Lord
Holland made me sit next to him, and Lady Lyndhurst was
on the other side, so that I felt perfectly at home. Lords
Lyndhurst and Brougham were chaffing each other as usual.
Nothing can be more genial, genuine, and delightful than
Lyndhurst's manner. He is particularly kind and friendly to
me on all occasions, made me come and sit with him after
dinner, and we talked together for half an hour. He always

292 JIOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
exjDresses much interest in my studies and writings, but it is
not for that that I like his society, but because of the magni
ficent spectacle he affords of a large bright intellect setting
in " one unclouded blaze of living light," Avithout any of the
dubious haze Avhich so often accompanies the termination of a
long and brilliant career. Everybody looks up to him with
reverence and delight. He is full of fun, ahvays joking, always
genial, and alive to what is going on around him from day to
day. He has made Iavo or three very good speeches this
session, and is going to make another, and there is not a sign
of senility in anything that he says.
The next day I went by invitation to Stoke Park to luncheon.
This is the beautiful country seat of Mr. and Lady Mary
Labouchere. He is a man eminent in politics, of great Avealth
and formerly a Cabinet Minister, as Secretary for the Colonies.
She is the youngest sister of Lord Carlisle and the Duchess of
Sutherland, and the most amiable creature living. Indeed
the Avhole family seems somehow or other to have absorbed
more gallons apiece of the milk of human kindness than
would serve for the average alloAvance of several hundred
individuals. It is certainly agreeable to see people in high
station and Avith vast Avealth so overfloAving Avith benevolent
virtues. Chill penury could certainly not suppress their
noble rage, but in my experience I have found that luxury
sometimes has as refrigerating an effect upon the " genial
currents of the soul " as poverty itself. These delicious ex
pressions, Avhich you recognise, are bits from that immortal,
monumental poem, the ' Elegy in the Country Churchyard,'
are very a propos at this moment, for the 'Elegy' Avas
composed on this very spot. It Avas to see the church and
churchyard that they asked me out to dine. There Avas no
company except Lord Carlisle (Avhom I may call noAV my inti
mate friend, for he is untiring in his demonstrations of regard
for me), his brother Charles Howard and his mother-in-laAv
Lady Wensleydale. We walked over the grounds, went to a
bit of the old manor house once the residence of Sir Chris
topher Hatton, and then round about the churchyard.
It is exactly Avhat it ought to be ; and as almost every line

1858.] STOKE PARK— GRAY'S 'ELEGY.' 293
of that poem has lingered in my memory ever since I used to
recite it Avhen a small boy to my dear mother, I enjoyed the
exquisite fidelity of the description to the actual scenery,
Avhich is as remarkable as, on the other hand, its broad lofty
and stately moralisation, Avhich would be almost as true in a
graveyard in Wisconsin or Connecticut as in Buckinghani-
shire. " The rugged elm and yew trees' shade " are still there,
emboAvering the little church, Avhich stands on the edge of
Stoke Park ; and the little enclosures, " Avhere heaves the turf
in many a mouldering heap," have been literally ploughed into
furrows by the long succession of soAvers and reapers in God's
acre. The " ivy mantled tower," where the " moping oavI doth
to the moon complain" is still covered Avith its luxuriant
festoons, but I regret to say that the ivy looks sickly and as if
decaying. The church itself is one of the most exquisite of
English country churches, and this is saying enough. The
only thing I missed Avas the village. There is none in sight ;
and (at present at least) there is not much in the stately and
sequestered aristocratic park to suggest all those rural pic
tures Avhich the musing, melancholy poet painted, and the
"rude forefathers of the hamlet " driving their team? afield,
the busy housewives' evening care, and children climbing the
paternal knee. All is very still and silent, and nothing like
profane vulgar intrudes upon the calm and exclusive scene.
This is Avhat I missed most in the locality. For the rest it is
perfect. Gray lies buried in the same grave Avith his mother,
and a plain monument, inscribed Avith some of the best lines of
the elegy, has been erected in the park.
I had to hurry to town because I had to dine out. This
day it was at Lady Williams, Avith whom I dined once before.
She is a very clever person, original and rather funny, and
receives the best company in London. There is nothing very
remarkable to say of the entertainment. Noav that I have
described to you many dinners, the rest hardly require to be
sung. There are the same dishes, the same Avines, the same
solemn stillness, the same gorgeous flunkeys, and a score of
personages of quality, the same even if different, for one lord
differeth less from another in glory than do the stars in their

294 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
courses. To-day Avere again Lord Brougham and Lord
Lyndhurst at dinner, whom I meet so often that I am gradu
ally getting to mistake myself for an Ex-Chancellor, and shall
probably be soon caught propounding legal opinions Avith
oracular gravity and expecting my words io be accepted as
otacles. On Tuesday I dined again at Holland House. (I have
been invited to dine there four times in a Aveek, so that if they
retain their original maternal principle of the Holland House
organisation, I have a right to conclude that they do not con
sider me a bore.) The company to-day consisted of the Due
d'Aumale (one of the sons of King Louis Philippe) and the
Duchesse, Lord and Lady Clarendon, Macaulay, Duvergier
d'Hauranne, Lady J. Eussell, and HayAvard. It is ahvays de
lightful to meet Macaulay, and to see the reverence Avith Avhich
he is regarded by everybody ; painful to observe the friendly
anxiety which every one feels about his health. Sir H
Holland told me his complaints were bronchial and asthmatic,
but I should have thought them more like dropsy. He was
obliged to leave the table for a foAV minutes on account of a
spasm of coughing, which has been the case ever since I have
met him. I think, unless he is much changed, that Sydney
Smith's descriptions or rather flings at him are somewhat
unjust. He is not in the least the " colloquial oppressor " he
has been represented. On the contrary, every one Avishes to
hear him talk, and very often people are disappointed because
he does not talk enough. To be sure, a mind so brimful as his
must spout forth uncontrollably, if you once pull out the plug ;
nevertheless he is always -willing to shut himself up again, if
anybody else wishes to pour himself out. Usually nobody
does where he is present. His conversation is, hoAvever, rather
learned and didactic than spirituelle. His " brilliant flashes "
are only those of silence, according to Sydney's memorable
sarcasm. This is strange, for in his writings he is brilliant
and flashing almost to painfulness, but I observe nothing
pointed or epigrammatic or humorous in his talk. It is very
Avise and very instructive, but n^t the kind to set the table in
a roar.

1858.] CASSIOBURY PARK. 295
Lord and Laay Clarendon I meet very often ; they are very
civil to me, and are both among the most agreeable people in
London. You are aware that he is one of the most eminent
political characters in England, having been a long time a
Foreign Minister, and subsequently Minister of Foreign
Affairs. He is a tall, thin, handsome, aristocratic-looking
person. His wife is a blonde, very young for her age,
Avhatever it may be, Avith an amiable manner. On Wednes
day morning I Avent out by rail to Cassiobury Park, seat
of the Earl of Essex, to Avhich place I had received an
invitation to a fete champetre or luncheon party. In the com
partment in which I Avent were Sirs. Norton, Lady Stanley,
Lord and Lady Airlie, and Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe. The
party was brilliant, the park magnificent, the house stately.
There is nothing very exhilarating to be said of the party.
They are generally somcAvhat sIoav these same country
festivities. If it Avere not for Mrs. Norton I should be often
bored on such occasions. But she can create an oasis in the
most arid place, Avhere one can listen to the constant and
musical gurgle of her Avitty or thoughtful conversation and be
refreshed. The luncheon was a kind of brief and someAvhat
scrambling dinner. The Duke of Cambridge, at the board's
end, stolid and manful, flanked by Malakoff, looking like a
military Silenus; and at the right of Lord Essex was the
Princess EdAvard of Saxe-Weimar. I cannot give you a list
of the other savcUs who were present, for I forget the names
almost as soon as I hear them.
The grounds and the gardens, the park and the lawn, looked
very brilliant with the rainbow-coloured petals of the female
flowers blooming out so suddenly in all directions, but not to
blush unseen, nor to Avaste their SAveetness, and the " whole
dream of fair women " Avas as successful as such things usually
are. If I Avere Boccaccio or Tennyson, instead of a somcAvhat
slow and cynical Dryasdust, I dare say I could paint Avondrous
pictures of romance and poetry upon such a canvas as was here
unrolled ; but in my commonplace frame of mind, the scene
was commonplace. As usual I had to fidget into town before
I was ready, in order to be in time to dress.

296 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
To-day Lord Lyndhurst gave me a dinner, the company
being invited to meet me. This is a compliment of Avhich I
am very proud. The party was a small one. There Avas Lord
Carlisle, Lord Granville, Lord Wensleydale, Mr. Greville, Sir
E. Landseer, Lord Ashburton, and Lord Sefton, a youth who
reminded me somewhat of W  0  , being very lively,
boyish, and rattling ; and it was too funny to hear him speak
incidentally of doing something or other in the House of
Lords, with the rest of the hereditary legislators. The party
was particularly cosy and agreeable, more so than almost any
I have assisted at. I consider it a privilege to have known
so well and seen so much of Lord Lyndhurst. This day he
was even more genial and sunny than usual. Lady Lynd
hurst is always kind and obliging. On Friday I dined with
Lord Granville. I hardly think it worth my while to rack
my memory to give you a list of the twenty persons present.
The lady next me Avas agreeable and handsome, and opposite
me was a remarkably pretty woman. I knew their names
once, but have now forgotten. On my right was rather an
amusing personage who had just arrived from the Cape of
Good Hope, and had been in Cuba and the United States.
Then there was a gigantic and agreeable Eussian named
Count Pahlen, and a famous homoeopathic doctor, Quin, and a
mass of others whom I do not remember even indistinctly.
Next day I dined with Vernon Smith. He was once of
the Palmerston Cabinet, as Secretary of the Board of Con
trol for India He is a handsome man and popular in
society. His wife is a very pretty young woman of fifty, a
not very rare genus in England, and an agreeable, lively,
sociable person. The company Avere the Eothschilds, Baron,
Baroness, and daughter, Avhom I have already described to
you ; the Marchioness of Clanricarde and her daughter ; Lord
and Lady Clarendon, Lord St. Germans, and Mrs. Dyce
Sombre. The latter personage was the one Avhom I escorted
to dinner. I had received an invitation to dine the same day
with Lady, Palmerston, but could not accept it, but I Avent
there in the evening. There Avere but fcAv persons, not a party
— Lady William Eussell, Lord Shaftesbury, Avho invited me to

1858.] LONDON DINNERS. 297
make a visit to him at his country place, as has also Lord
Stanhope, Lord Carlisle, and many others, Avhich invitations
of course I cannot accept. Kennedy of Baltimore was there
also. I called this morning on them. I have got to the
end of my fourth sheet, dearest Mary. I dine to-day with
Monckton Milnes ; to-morroAV with Lord Ashburton, and so on ;
and there is a ball to-morrow night at the Duchess of
Wellington's, to Avhich I shall probably go. God bless you
and my dear children. Kiss them a million times, and
believe me always. Affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

To Ms Wife. July 18th, 1858.
My DEAREST Mary, — I came up this morning from Walton,
Avhere I Avent yesterday, and found my dear Lily's letter on
my table, and was much gratified by it, as also by funny
little Susie's delightful epistle. Thank them both, and kiss
them, as Avell as my darling Mary, a hundred times. 1
also enclose a letter from my mother just received, and you
will be glad to hear that she is decidedly better. I wrote to
her by the last mail, and shall very soon Avrite again. I Avill
noAV huddle up very rapidly Avhat I have been doing so far as
society is concerned, premising that I have noAv finished Avith
London, and that I have declined all invitations for this
Aveek. On Sunday I dined with Monckton Milnes. His Avife I had
seen for the first time the evening before at Lady Palmerston's.
The dinner was small, consisting of tAvo Frenchmen, one, the
editor of the Steele, Avho never could hear himself talk enough,
and a Marquis de Eibere, a Legitimist, married to an English
woman, an agreeable and intelligent person. I have nothing
more to say of this festivity. Next day I dined at Bath House,
the splendid mansion in Piccadilly of Lord Ashburton. He is
the son of the first Lord Ashburton, and the head of the second
branch of the Barings. He is an exceedingly shy, almost

298 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
timid, personage, but cultivated and friendly. He has a very
fine collection of paintings in his town house, and still more at
his country residence, the Grange, to which he has given me a
very pressing invitation. The dinner consisted of Lord and
Lady Euston (the niece of Lord Ashburton), Lord and Lady
Dufferin, Sir David Dundas, Mr. Drummond, BI.P., and Henry
Taylor, author of 'Philip van Artevelde.' The latter per
sonage, I think, I have not before described to you. He is
tall, apparently forty-five or fifty years of age, Avith a handsome,
striking face, Avith regular features, and long grizzled hair, and
a quiet, perfectly English manner. We sat next each other
at table, but his conversation was quite as commonplace as
mine, or any other Christian; it is impossible to chronicle
anything concerning it. I liked him, on the Avhole, as well as
any literary man Avhom I have met, always excepting Froude.
I had a good deal of talk with Lady Dufferin after dinner,
Avhom it is always delightful to meet.
In the evening I went, with the rest of the world and wife,
to the Duchess of Wellington's ball. Apsley House is, on the
Avhole, the finest private palace in London, except Stafford
House. The staircase, corridors, entrance-hall, are all spacious
and imposing ; a heroic, colossal, and very detestable statue of
Napoleon salutes you in the vestibule, and there are several
portraits of him, as Avell as of great English generals and com
panions in arms of the Iron Duke, upon the walls of the various
saloons. The great dancing hall is very large and lofty, hung
in cherry colour, but, being well gilded and gas-lighted, is, not
withstanding, very brilliant, and the other rooms en suite are
elegant and palatial. As I know a great many people now, I
amused myself well enough for a couple of hours, although, as
a general rule, I enjoy nothing in London but dinner parties,
not because I Avant to eat, which you know is not my faiblesse,
but because it is impossible to talk Avith any comfort except
in a demi-couchant attitude, and as my toes have ceased to
be fantastic, the dancing hall has no attractions for me, and
makes me rather dismal. "They have dancing shoes with
nimble soles — I have sole of lead," etc. I cannot say, however,
in my capacity of spectator, that the actors in such scenes

1858.] LORD WENSLEYDALE. 299
seem inspired by any very Avild excitement. Their lameness
is shocking to me, as vA-as that of the " beasts that roared over
the plain " to the late Alexander Selkirk.
On Tuesday I dined A\ith the Sturgis's, a small party of
English, among Avhom were Lord Dufferin and Arthur Eussell,
and Lady Selina Vernon, a great friend of Mrs. Sturgis, next
Avhom I sat at dinner. On Wednesday I dined by myself at
the Athenaeum. Thursday afternoon Lord Lyndhurst took me
doAvn to the House of Lords, to hear the commencement of
the India debate. It is always a great pleasure to me to see
Lord Lyndhurst. He is very kind to me, ahvays makes much
of me when Ave meet at dinner (and it has been my privilege
to dine very often in company with him), and makes me help
him up from his chair, and takes my arm to go upstairs, a dis
tinction I am very proud of. He is a most charming old man,
full of fun and wit, interested in everything going on, and, as
I am, much occupied Avith the present as the past, notAvith-
standing his eighty-six years. His face is very smooth, less
wrinkled than mine, so that his bro^vn Avig is almost illusory.
The debate Avas rather poor. I heard the Earl of Derby, who
Avas fluent enough and graceful, but tedious as a king. After
him came Lord Granville, Avhom I like so much personally
that I was very glad to find him a very good orator, Avith an
admirable sonorous voice, and with some humour in his style
of speaking. I was obliged to go off in the middle of his
speech, because I had promised to go down to Walton to dine
(they moved there yesterday), it being Mrs. Sturgis's birth
day. I came up the foUoAving morning, being engaged to dine
Avith Lord and Lady Wensleydale. The party Avas rather
made for me, I believe, as I had the honour of going Avith
Madame to dinner. He is the famous Judge, Baron Parke,
a shroAvd, keen, quick, lively, jolly personage. She is, not
unjustly, vain of getting into the peerage in her old days, and
of having her stock mingled with the blood of all the HoAvards,
her daughter, now dead, having been the Avife of Charles
HoAvard, brother of Lord Carlisle. He is a very kind-hearted,
unaffected person, like all the family that I know. The rest

300 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX
of the company, so far as I remember them, were the dear old
Lord Lyndhurst, Dr. Lushington, Mr. Pemberton Leigh, a
distinguished barrister (who I believe once refused the Lord
Chancellorship), Mr. Fitzgerald, Under-Secretary of State,
Lady CranvA-orth, Lady W. Eussell, Lady Eobert Cecil, and
one or tAvo more. After dinner came in a reinforcement from
without, among others a person Avhom I always like to meet —
Lady Mary Labouchere.
The next day I had accepted an invitation to lunch with
Lady John Eussell, having declined once or tAvice before. I
went out by rail to Eichmond. The Aveather was magnificent,
and I Avalked up the hill from the station, and enjoyed the
spacious and far-famed view. There Avas nobody at Pembroke
Lodge except George Elliot, Lady John's brother, and Sir
George and Lady Theresa LcAvis. He Avas Chancellor of the
Exchequer in the last Administration. Lady Theresa is sister
to Lord Clarendon, remarkably clever and spirituelle, full of
talk and cultivation. Lord John Avas very amusing, told lots
of anecdotes about the Duke of Wellington, George IV., and
other personages Avith much sly humour and enjoyment. The
popular idea of " Johnny " is that of a cold, cynical, reserved
personage, but in his oavu house I never saAv a more agreeable
manner. I proceeded afterAvards overland to Kingston, whence the
rail brought me to Walton, and the quiet scenery and friendly
Avelcome Avhich is the lot of those who are intimate in that
beautiful house, is most refreshing.
God bless you, my dearest Mary, kiss my dear children,
and believe me. Most affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

1858.] JOURNEY TO THE HAGUE. 301

To his Wife. Oudo Doelcn, Tho Hague, July 26th, 1853.
My dearest Mary, — Yesterday, Sunday morning, at 10 a.m.,
I took the boat for Eotterdam, arrived at that place at 8.30
this morning, and by rail at 9.30 reached this hotel by ten. So
that twenty-four hours of discomfort and boredom, mingled
Avith a gale of wind, have saved me a long, tiresome and
expensive railroad journey, had I gone any other AAay. It
blcAV very hard indeed in the morning, so that if I had had
you all with me I should not have gone, but luckily the wind
Avas very favourable, and as Ave steamed aAvay directly before it,
Ave Avere not incommoded. It faded out by nightfall. To go
back and very rapidly account for myself since I last Avrote.
On Monday I Avent to Walton, to rest a little and breathe the
delicious country air, but after two pleasant days, during
Avhich Mount Felix and its occupants were as delightful and
friendly as ever, Avent over to Lord Lovelace's. Previously, on
the Tuesday, Julia Sturgis and I drove over to Twickenham,
where her boys are at a private school, attended and Avere somc
Avhat amused by the distribution of prizes, tAvo of Avhich fell to
little Julian and one to Harry, and then brought them home
in a very jolly frame of mind for the holidays. By appoint
ment I Avent to East Horsley ToAvers on Wednesday, and
stayed till Friday morning. I like Lady Annabella King, the
daughter of Ada Byron, very much. She has much talent,
very agreeable manners, and a good deal of fun, plays and
paints admirably, and has evidently a v-ery sweet disposition.
I returned to town on Friday, found there a very kind note
from Lady Palmerston inviting me to Brocket Hall for the
three days A\-hich had just expired (I having been absent all
the Aveek, had not received the noteV I Avas sorry to miss
this, as HayAvard told me that the party Avas very pleasant and
"Pam" in excellent spirits.
Friday, I dined at the Athenaeum, along with HayAA'ard, Avho
amuses me with his malicious little anecdotes about everybody
who ever is or Avas in London ; Sir Henry EaAvlinson, the cele-

302 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX.
brated Orientalist ; the Prince Frederick of SchlesAvig-Holstein,
one of the deposed family of claimants to the buried Majesty
of Denmark, and a very accomplished and agreeable young
man of much character and talent Avhom I met very often, and,
fourthly, Kinglake, author of ' Eothen.' I forget whether you
read or liked that remarkable book, but I have read it more
than once, and like it exceedingly. It is full to the brim of
talent and caustic observation, and I was glad to meet him.
There is nothing marquant in his appearance or conversation.
He is blond of beard and visage, fortyish in years, with a good
eye and a pleasant voice, like most Englishmen. He has thus
far made no great figure in Parliament. Good-bye, God bless
you, dearest Mary ; excuse the meagreness of this letter, but I
thought it better to scribble off a dozen lines rather than delay
another day, lest you should be anxious. I am very tired and
stupid, not having slept in that confounded boat. Kiss my
darlings a thousand times. Ever affectionately,
J. L. M.

CHAPTEE X.
THE HAGUE.
Work at the Hague — The National Archives — Presentation to the Queen of
Holland — " The House in the Wood " — A royal dinner party — Prince
Frederick — The American Revivalists — Lord Dunfermline — Family anni
versaries — A Dutch literary celebrity — The King of Holland — Court Fi}tes —
Court Ball in Amsterdam — Prince Henry — The Prince of Orange.
To Ms Wife. The Hague,
August 1st, 1858.
My DEAREST Mary, — I wrote you on Monday last, the
morning of my arrival in this place. To-day I resume my
Sunday letters, although I fear they will be rather meagre in
future. This is not so large a town as London. I saw M.
Groen van Prinsterer the morning of my arrival. He is going
away immediately, to my regret, on a journey of some weeks,
and will hardly be back till after my departure. However he
has already published a second volume of his documents from
the private Archives of the Orange-Nassau family, so that I
have no special need of his presence, as everything which I
require in that collection is uoav printed in a most convenient
and readable form. With regard to the great collection of
national Archives, I have of course immediately jjlunged over
head and ears in them. My old friend, Backhuyzen van der
Brink is on the spot. It is of great service to have his intro
duction to the Holland public. Madame Groen, on taking
leave of the Queen the day of my arrival, told her that I was
here, and the same day I saw Count Bylandt. He told me
that the Queen expressed disappointment to him in January
that she did not see me in my visit at that time, so that he
said he was glad to find that I had kept my promise of return
ing. Count Eandwyk called on me, Avith Bylandt, the evening of
the day of my arrival, and accordingly the next day I addressed

304 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. X.
a note to him requesting the honour of a presentation, etc. I
received an ansAver the same morning appointing the interview
for 3.30 P.M. Accordingly I drove out at that time tq the
" House in the Wood " (Huis ten Bosch), in which beautiful
little villa in the very heart of the forest she is at present
residing, the King being at Wiesbaden.
I was received in the large saloon by an elderly maid of
honour, who entertained me Avith discourse on various subjects,
social, literary, and political, for a few minutes, and then I was
sent for, and she piloted me to her Majesty. The Queen
received me at the door, quite without ceremony, Avith " I am
so glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Motley, pray sit doAvn ;"
so she seated herself on her sofa and made me take a fauteuil
near it, and then she conversed with me for about half an hour
in the most unaffected, simple, and agreeable manner possible.
She is tall, very fair, and must have had a great deal of blonde
German beauty. She Avas very simply dressed, but I am sorry
for Susie's sake that I have entirely forgotten her costume.
Her teeth are beautiful, and her hands small, white, and
exquisitely shaped. Her voice is agreeable and she speaks
English, not only Avith great elegance and fluency, but almost
entirely Avithout a foreign accent. This by the way was one of
the compliments which she paid me, observing " how beauti
fully you speak English," adding, " for to tell you the truth Ave
think we can ahvays tell the difference, and we do not like
American English generally so well, but you seem to me to
speak like an Englishman," etc. She said a great many
things in a very graceful Avay about the 'Dutch Eepublic,'
asked me how I came originally to take up the subject, and
alluded to various portions of the Avork, etc.
She spoke of Lady W. Eussell as an old friend for whom she
had much affection, and expressed disappointment that she had
never been at the Hague. We talked a good deal too about
Mrs. Norton, of whom she expressed the most unbounded ad
miration for her genius and the charm of her conversation. I
hardly remember much more of her conversation. She is cer
tainly very clever, remarkably intelligent, and with a great deal
of information on all subjects, a person Avho has read much and

1858.] THE QUEEN OF HOLLAND. 305
acquired much and Avith much capacity for thought on high
and important matters.
Altogether I have rarely made a morning visit on any lady
where the conversation Avas more fluent, lively, and interesting.
The best compliment I can pay her is, that one quite forgets
that she is a queen, and only feels the presence of an intelli
gent and very attractive Avoman.
The intervicAV lasted so long as to make me think, contrary
to the rule of courts, that I Avas to take my leave, and I said,
" Your Majesty must send me away if I am tiresome," but she
said, " No, no, do not go, Avhat have you got to do, do you dine
out ? " I said yes, but that Avas nothing, and it was a long
time to the dinner hour. I desired nothing better than to stay,,
etc. So we talked on some time longer, and then she rose,,
saying, " Will you have the kindness to dine Avith me the day
after to-morrow at 5.30." Of course I accepted, made my boAr
and departed. I dined that day Avith a gentleman, a friend of
Groen van Prinsterer's, M. Elout de Soeterwonde, a man of
much distinction, literary, cultivated, a member of the States
General and a judge. He called on me the day of my arrival,
saying, that every Hollander had a right to my acquaintance,
etc., and I found his family very pleasant. His Avife is a very
pretty, pleasing woman, and to my profound astonishment she
informed me that she had seven children. They live in a very
pretty, old-fashioned house on the edge of the Avood called the
Huister Noot, not far from the Hotel Bellevue.
It was a kind of family party, brothers and sisters-in-law,
and so on, but they were all friendly and kind-hearted and
intelligent, and I was glad to see something of the interior of
the best Holland families. On Friday I dined by appointment
with the Queen. The company — about sixteen or eighteen in all,
male and female — Avere received by a tall chamberlain (nobody
was in uniform) and ushered into one of the large saloons.
Here, as usual on such occasions, we were all stuck up in a cir
cular row, like the jars in the " Forty Thieves," and presently
entered the Queen like Morgiana, and went round dropping a
few words into the ears of each.
After this process was got through with (and she talked
VOL. L X

306 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. X.
to me a good while), we went to dinner. Queen first alone,
then the ladies were all driven in by the master of the cere
monies by themselves, and then the gentlemen followed belter
skelter, each having been previously informed where he Avas
to place himself at table, something according to the Peabody
system. I hardly kneAV the names of the company. The Belgian
minister and his wife, the Danish minister. Count Eandwyck,
a professor of botany, and various ladies of honour, etc. The
Queen sat in the middle of the table, the two ministers one on
each side of her, I sat opposite her with Count Eandwyck on
my right, and a very chatty agreeable maid of honour on my
left, Avho had accompanied the Queen last year to England, and
knoAV a great many people that I knew.
The dinner was very good, better on the whole than most of
the London dinners, and the only fault was the march of the
dishes, which Avas rapid enough to suit Mr. Cabot. There was
no pausing, and as I cannot talk Avith my mouth full, I was
obliged either to hold my tongue half the time, or lose half my
dinner. Now strange to say, or very naturally, I have recently
a great appetite produced by going into the North Sea every
morning before breakfast, a system which I shall keep up as
long as I am here, although it costs me two hours and two
francs per diem, all of Avhich I begrudge. After dinner (Avhich
by the way was in the great circular hall built by Amalia de
Solms, Avife of Frederic Henry, youngest son of William the
Silent, and adorned by magnificent frescoes by the scholars of
Eubens), we returned and made another circle in the saloon,
had our coffee, and the Morgianic process was repeated. The
Queen stopped and talked with me a long time about English
society, the Palmerstons, Clarendons, Hollands. She also
spoke of Madame Mohl and her husband (of which last couple
she spoke with much kindness). By the way, she observed to
me the day before that she had never been able to make out
AA'hether Madame Mohl wore her own hair or a wig, but I told
her she might set her mind entirely at rest on that subject.
No human intellect could ever conceive, or the hand of man
execute such a Avonderful Medusa crop, nor would it be within

1858.] THE ROYAL FAMILY OF HOLLAND. 307
the resources of science to manufacture any artificial covering
Avhich would stand all the tugging and tossing to which those
serpent locks were daily subjected. The Queen agreed with
me that there never was a kinder-hearted or more amusing or
original little old woman in the world.
The next day I had an audience of Prince Frederic, uncle of
the King. He had mentioned me as having been presented to
the Queen, and of course it was necessary for me to call like
wise upon him. He is a man of sixty, very mild and amiable
in character and manners, married to a sister of the King
of Prussia, and of the Empress of Eussia, and I believe a very
noble and unexceptionable character. The intervioAv lasted
about three quarters of an hour. He was very frank and
cordial, of course made the ' Dutch Eepublic ' the principal topic
for a long time, and then discoursed on other matters. I do
not think I can recollect anything of the conversation, but he
seemed very amiable and simple, and was certainly very friendly.
He said at parting, he hoped he did not see me for the last time,
and I dare say I shall be invited to dine at his country place,
Avhere he is staying, a few miles out of town. These matters
are a little interruption, but the place is so quiet and small
that I have plenty of working hours, Avhereas in London the
enormousness of all dimensions makes one's time shrivel into
nothingness, and each day shrinks into an hour so far as any
real work is concerned. Ever most affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

To his Wife. The Hague,
August 15th, 1858.
My dearest Mary, — I work every morning at home two
hours before breakfast, then go to the Archives till three,
after which, in the course of the day and evening, I get a few
hours more. I am more than ever desponding about my task.
It is very extensive, laborious, and expensive. I am obliged
to travel over thousands of square miles of documents followed

308 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. X.
by a couple of copyists, who will, of course, require treble the
time to Avrite which it takes me to read, and, without reckoning
the confounded expense of the whole business, there is such an
endless amount of time to be consumed in waiting.
I have dined out four times this week, but I do not think I
could find much entertainment for you in a description of these
festivities. On Monday I dined Avith Mr.  . They
are friendly people, intensely religious, and I dare say they
think me a violent uncompromising Calvinist like themselves.
On this occasion there were some raw Scotchmen, just de
scended from their native heath and mad with orthodoxy.
One of them observed, on some reference to the late revival in
America, that the hand of the Lord Avas most manifest in
that great and wonderful development. He then gave an
instance of a mercantile friend, Avho had gone out to Nbav
York in the midst of the commercial crisis to collect some
money oAving to him, but who had naturally, like every other
creditor, been referred to the toAvn pump for liquidation. He
had brought back, hoAvever, something far better than silver or
gold, for he had himself experienced religion in New York,
and had returned a regenerated sinner, a brand snatched from
the burning. These Avere almost his exact expressions — saving
the irreverent allusions to the pump — and I thought the idea
of the New Yorkers paying off their Scotch creditors by
unlimited draughts upon the treasures of the next world one
of the best dodges I have yet heard of. I could hardly sit
still in my chair — however, I kept my countenance and looked
edified. The next day I dined with a young couple, de Jonghe. He
is a very nice felloAv, Avho is employed in the Archives, but
seems to have property of his own, and is of good family. His
father was a distinguished man of letters here. His wife is
a pretty, pleasing person, talking English — as many of the
Avomen here do — perfectly.
The next day I dined with Lord Dunfermline. The party
was the same as the last time I dined there, with the addition
of Bylandt, and the subtraction of Spanish Minister and his
daughter. They (the D.'s) are very friendly, una-ffected people,

1858.] THE HAGUE. 309
and I like them very much. Day after to-morrow I am to dine
Avith Baron Golstein, the Minister of .Foreign Affairs.
Ever yours,
J. L. M.

To his Wife. The Hague,
August 29th, 1858.
My DEAREST Mary, — Since I last Avrote I have had the
pleasure of receiving your letters from Geneva, and tAvo
from Vevay, also Susie's and Mary's, and a long and very
charmingly written letter from my dear Lily, taking great
pains, and very successfully, to impart to me a portion of the
pleasure which she has derived from the excursion to
Chamouni. I am so glad you and she were not disappointed,
that you found the Amory party so friendly, and that the
weather Avas so auspicious. I am sure I wish you could have
more such amusements.
Before I go any further, let me, after thanking my SAveet
little Mary for her letter expressing sorrow that I should
have written upon August 1st, and not have remembered at
the moment that it Avas her fifteenth birthday. She knoAvs
hoAV much I love her, and if I did not say anything about her
fete, it was from no want of interest in such a day. My
darling child ! It seems impossible that she can have lived
fifteen years in this weary Avorld, for she seems as young and as
innocent noAV as if she had just descended from heaven. I
never feel as if I had any right to her, and I can never express
half the tenderness and the affection I feel for her. Since she
has been in the world she has been a blessing and a consola
tion, and she can never cause you or me any unhappiness,
except she should die, Avhich God in his mercy forbid ! My
little impudent, nonsensical, good-hearted Susie, too, is getting
to be a very good child, and in time, when she can be induced
to talk a little and get up an appetite for her dinner, she v. ill
be all that can be Avished for. Affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

310 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. X.
To his Wife. The Hague,
September 3rd, 1858.
My DEAREST Mary, — The other day I received a visit, while
I was seated at my solitary breakfast in the salle a manger, from
a benignant old gentleman, who came forAvard smiling, and said,
« Mr. Motley, I believe." " Yes." " Well, I am  ."
I looked as conscious as I could, at a moment's warning, of
being in the presence of a celebrity ; but as I had rarely or
never heard of the great  , I was a little embarrassed, not
knowing exactly what his particular line of eminence might be.
He relieved me, however, by seating himself at once at my
table as spectator, not participator, and informing me that he
was the author of many poems, histories, dramas, and political
pamphlets. He made a slight but handsome allusion to the
D. E., but to my great relief he evidently preferred talking of
his own performances, Avhich he was good enough to do for
about half an hour without cessation. As his English, which
he insisted upon talking, was imperfect, and his teeth, I regret
to say, still more so, I Avas not able to enter into the full
current of his conversation. Moreover, as he took snuff to such
an extent as to make him decidedly unpleasant, I should have
preferred to receive his visit after breakfast. He observed,
quoting Lord Byron, that " the myrtles and roses of sweet two-
and-tw-enty w-ere worth all your laurels however so plenty."
From which I inferred that his head Avas crowned Avith laurels,
for there could certainly be nothing in common AA'ith him and
the other two shrubs. I am sure I do not know why I am
boring you with the portraiture of this individual, except that
the week is sterile in topics for your entertainment. Moreover,
it is too bad in me to ridicule a personage who, I have since
been informed, is really a deserving and eminent man of
letters, and who came to see me as a mark of politeness, and
begged me, if I came to  , to make his house my home.
The King returned last Friday, and on the following
Monday I had an interview Avith him at the palace at the
Northend, the one opposite which is the equestrian statue of

1858.] THE KING OF HOLLAND. 311
William the Silent. I drove thither by appointment at 12.30,
and was ushered into a very small room, Avhere I Avas left for
a little while in the company of an inkstand and a sheet
of paper, in case, I suppose, that if any reflections suggested
themselves, I might instantly reduce them to Avriting. Soon
afterwards tAvo young aides-de-camp came in, one a Avhis-
kered light-infantry man, the other a fierce Hussar, and
after bowing profoundly, they both began conversing with
me on the subject of the D. E., of Avhich I am, without affec
tation, getting as tired as ever Avas a Avandering dog of a
tin canister tied to its tail. Exactly as the clock struck the
half-hour, the door opened, and a stoutish, youngish, tallish
man, in a blue cut-aAvay coat, checked shirt with a turn-
doAvii collar and grey trousers, walked up to me and said in
English with a loud voice, " Sir. Motley, you have written a most
magnificent work, and I am proud to make your acquaintance."
Whereupon I shrcAvdly suspected the individual to be his
Majesty, although I had expected to be ushered through six
more rooms at least ; but the King is one of those royal person
ages who has the good sense to leave a gap in the hedge of his
divinity for special occasions. I must say that he made a very
agreeable impression upon me ; and you will say, of course, that
this is on account of my susceptibility to flattery. I knoAv it
to be a weakness, but if people are very polite and complimen
tary and kind to me, whether they are kings and queens, or
only knaves or persons of lesser rank, I am but too apt to
respond — I cannot help it.
The King is forty-one, but looks younger, having thick,
broAvn, ungrizzled hair and beard, a fresh, smooth, uuAvrinkled
face, regular features, a clear blue eye, and a tall, erect,
muscular, and graceful figure. He speaks English with a
good accent and in rather a violent manner, as if he was
disposed to tear through all idiomatic difficulties by main
force. He Avas very cordial and agreeable, and kept me about
three-quarters of an hour, and at departing hoped he should
have the pleasure of seeing me again. Tavo days afterAvards
I received a package containing the twelve volumes of Groen
vail Prinsterer's 'xVrchives et Correspondance de la Maison

312 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. X.
d'Orange,' splendidly bound and gilt, with a note from the
King's librarian informing me that it was a present from his
Slajesty. On the first page of the first volume, moreover, the
King had written this inscription, which, as I shall be obliged
to pack up the books, you vyill like me to copy, so excuse the
vanity of the proceeding : —
" A Mr. J. L. Motley, historien conscientieux et eloquent, an
digne appreciateur du 1" Guillaume d'Orange, le plus grand
homme de son epoque, est offert de souvenir, comme temoignage
d'estime et d'admiration. " Guillaume III d'Orange,
" Eoi des Pays-Bas.
"La Haye, 31 Aoiit 1858."
Perhaps the chief pleasure that I derive from this present
is the proof Avhich it affords that the King thoroughly
appreciates the grandeur of his immortal ancestor and
namesake, and religiously cherishes his glory and his memory.
I am invited to a Court ball at Amsterdam on Tuesday
night. The fetes of the birthday of the Prince of Orange
(yesterday, 4th) consisted in a dinner to the Ministers of
State, and Chiefs of Foreign Legations, and the ball, day after
to-morrow, to AA-hich the foreign ministers are not invited, so
that I shall hardly find an acquaintance there. I wrote to the
Marechal de la Cour that I had no court-dress, the invitation
being to a "bal gala," but I received in consequence an
invitation to come "en frac," and to Amsterdam I must go.
Fortunately the Danish Minister, Avho is the most kind-
hearted, obliging fellow in the world, is going to stay on after
the dinner at Amsterdam, and has promised to see that I
have a room, a carriage, together Avith his OAvn servant to go
to the ball with me. His name is de Bille ; he Avas brought up
in America, where his father Avas minister, and he is the most
amiable creature living. It is my present intention to leave
the Hague for Arnheim this day Aveek, on my Avay to Vevay. I
may possibly stop one day Avith Bismarck if he is at Frankfort,
but I think I shall be Avith you at latest this day fortnight,
perhaps a little earlier.

1858.] COURT BALL AT AMSTERDAM. 313
The weather has been dreary for a fortnight, I hope you
have it better in Switzerland.
Good-bye, my dearest Mary. My love to my dear children.
God bless you ! Ever affectionately yours,
J. L. M.
P.S. — I forgot to mention that, by a rather odd coincidence,
on the same day on Avhich I received the King's present, I
took from the post office a letter from one John Hopkins of
Chattanooga, Tennessee, informing me that " some weeks
since a bookseller, of whom he was making some purchases,
insisted until he purchased the D. E. ; " he then declares
himself highly gratified by the perusal of the Avork, and
expresses a thousand wishes for my hapj)iness.
J. L. M.

To his Wife.

The Hague,
September llth, 1858.

My dearest Mary, — I have neither time nor topics for
anything but a very brief epistle. I leave to-morroAv morning
early for Arnheim, thence I intend to make a brief
excursion to Zutphen for the sake of seeing that toAvn, Avhich
Avas the scene of many events in the period I am to write
about, and the neighbouring village of Warmfeld, Avhere Sir
Philip Sidney Avas killed. I suppose I shall sleep at Zutphen
to-morrow night, and the next day get as far as Bonn,
thence to Mayence, Bale, and Vevay. If Bismarck is at
Frankfort, I shall pass a day with him there, if not I shall
not go to Frankfort at all. I may arrive on Thursday. I
may not get to Vevay till Saturday. I hope that you got my
note from Amsterdam and acted upon it immediately.
The ball at the Amsterdam palace Avas much like other
Court balls, or rather it Avas much unlike them in one respect,
the Hague Society Avas not there. As Touchstone would have
said, in respect that it is at x\.msterdam, it liketh me Avell, but

314 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. X.
in respect it is not at Court, 'tis a very vile ball. In fact it
Avas rather a national sort of thing. The marechals and cham
berlains of the Court, and other sAvells were there, and of course
the royal family and their hangers on, but no other ladies from
the Hague. The royal family were all very civil to me. The
king came up to me very early in the evening, shook hands
very cordially, and after talking Avith me some time, said his
brother Prince Henry Avished to make my acquaintance, and
if I Avould come with him, he would introduce me. So Ave
went together to the next room and I Avas presented. Prince
Henry is a young, delicate-looking felloAV, rather shy, and I
believe quite intelligent. He talked about America, where he
was once, and seemed to have been very much pleased with his
visit. The Prince of Orange came up to me as soon as he saAv
me, and the king introduced me. He is rather tall, and very
slight in figure, Avith a very interesting and amiable face,
resembling very much his mother. I believe he is considered
very kind-hearted, disposed to act Avell his part, and Avith very
good talents. The Queen says he is lazy, but she is very fond
of him. His manner is extremely good. I Avas also intro
duced to the Princess Frederic, Avho is an intelligent and
accomplished person, the sister of the King of Prussia and of
the Empress-do Avager of Eussia, and also of the Princess
Henry, Avho is very lively, young, and jolly, daughter of Duke
Bernhard of Saxe Weimar, who travelled in America, and Avas
the hero of the famous story about " Are you the man Avho is
going in the stage to Baltimore ? " " Yes." " Well, I am the
gentleman who is going to drive you."
I Avas just going to ask her if she remembered the story,
when the music struck up a tremendous flourish and droAvned
the conversation.
I must break off short here, dearest Mary, for I have a
million things to do. Give a thousand kisses to my dear
children, and believe me always. Most a-ffectionately yours,
J. L. M.

CHAPTEE XI.
ROME, PARIS.
Rome — AUibone's notice of the ' History ' — Other letters of commendation — Work
on the ' History of the United Netherlands '—Its difficulties— Want of a hero
—Mr. Story— Letter fjom M. Guizot about the 'Dutch Repubhc'— The
Prince of Wales in Rome — Outbreak of the war in Italy — Mr. Motley and
family go to Paris — Causes and prospects of the war — Retura to England —
Gloomy prospects of European politics.
To his Mother. Rome,
October 10th, 1858.
My DEAREST Mother, — I write a line in the midst of great
confusion, merely to let you know that Ave have arrived in this
place for the winter. We are still in the hotel, and our trunks
are still packed, so I cannot get your letter to Mary (which
we had the great pleasure of receiving just before we left
Vevay) to read over again, which I shall be most delighted to
do the first thing after Ave get established. We have taken a
lodging, very satisfactory on the Avhole, on the Corso, Avith
plenty of rooms, new furniture, and sunny. It will be ready
for us in five days, and I hope to get to work very soon
afterwards. The Storys whom we expected to find already
returned from the country are not yet here, but are expected
every day.
I am most happy to hear from yourself such good accounts
of your health. I do entertain very sincere hopes that you
have turned the corner, and that your constitution Avill prove
itself much stronger than you feared, and that your recovery
will be permanent. Do not fail to AA-rite to me as often as you
can. Your letters are inexpressibly delightful to me. I am
sorry to find by your last that my father had not been very
well. By your description of his ailment, however, it seems
obvious that it Avas but a temporary one, and no doubt it has

316 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XL
long since passed away. I have not yet had time to reply to
two or three notes which I received from him. The reason is
that they came just as I was obliged to pack up everything,
and since that time I have been so much on the road that my
papers have been buried out of sight. I remember, however,
that he enclosed the proof sheets of an extract from Mr.
AUibone's Biographical Dictionary in which honourable men
tion was made of my labours. Perhaps he will be Avilling, as
he has been in correspondence with that gentleman, to state to
him that I feel very much honoured and flattered by the very
obliging manner in which he has spoken of my work, and that
I wish every success to the difficult and very important enter
prise in which he is engaged. That it deserves to succeed
cannot be doubted, to judge from the strong language of
encomium used concerning it by the eminent gentlemen
whose letters on the subject have been published. As I have
not myself yet seen the work, I am of course not able to express
an opinion of my own.
I feel also very grateful for the warm and hearty com
mendations bestowed upon me in the letters of Dr. Lieber,
Mr. Everett, Mr. Prescott, Hillard, Sumner, and others.
Nothing can be more encouraging to a writer engaged in the
arduous pursuits of literature, in which he is obliged to
spend not only time and strength but also no inconsiderable
amount of money, than to find his labours smiled upon and
sympathised Avith by the most eminent minds of his country,
and I shall ahvays feel proud of such approbation. I expect
to be as hard at work as I have been ever since I left home for
a good while to come. I do not know when I shall have a
couple of volumes ready, for I have gone in very deep and
have been striking out wide. I left Holland at the latter end
of August, and, after stopping a couple of very agreeable days
at Frankfort with one of the most intimate friends I have in
the world, Mr. de Bismarck, now Prussian Ambassador at the
Diet, and formerly a companion of my youth, I came to Vevay,
Avhence, after reposing a fortnight, Ave took the rail to Lyons
and Marseilles, and thence the steamboat to Civita Vecchia.
Our voyage of tAvo nights and a day was very prosperous, the

1858.] RESIDENCE IN ROME. 317
sea calm, and the skies bright and warm, so much so that I, in
my own person, passed the night on deck.
I had hoped to have found an opportunity to send the
London letters, Avhich you think will amuse you, before now.
It has, however, been impossible thus far, but I am in daily
hope of finding some one AAho will take them to London at
least, whence there will be always a chance of getting them
to Boston. I must once more observe that for two reasons
they ought never to go out of the house. First, because they
are deliberately full of egotism and vanity. I mean that Mary
and Lily wished to know Avhat people said to me about my
book, and I did so to a certain extent, although I have a
right to say in my defence that a great many things were
said to me which I should blush to repeat even in a letter to
them or to you.

To his Mother.

Rome,
November 21th, 1858.

My dearest Mother, — It is several weeks since I wrote,
I believe, but time passes so rapidly that it does not seem so
long ago.
We are now in very comfortable lodgings in the Corso, about
opposite the church of San Carlo, if you happen to remember
it. We are on the third floor, but as the rooms are all sunny
and well furnished when you get there, and plenty of them, we
do not much mind going upstairs.
I have a very good room for my study, and I am hard at
work. I began my first volume about a fortnight ago and
hope to have it done by April. My task is, however, rather a
difficult one, more so I think than in my former book. I have
to spread myself over a Avide surface, for after the death of
William the Silent, the history of the provinces becomes for a
time swalloAved in the general current of European history.
I do not mean by that that it loses its importance. On the
contrary the Netherlands question becomes the great question
of Christendom. Netherlands history is for a time the only

318 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XL
European history. France, England, Spain, and Holland being
all mingled into one great conflicting mass, it is difficult to
say Avho are friends and who are enemies, except as the divid
ing line is draAvn according to religious opinion. I am
obliged, therefore, in order to carry out my intention, to go
more fully into English and French contemporaneous history
than I did in the other book. This obliges me to take much
greater care, because I come very often upon fields which
have been more trodden before than the historical soil of
the Netherlands. I have, however, made very extensive
collections of MSS. in England, Holland and France, and
whatever may be the success of the merits of the volumes
when done, I am sure I shall have plenty of solid work in
them, and from original and substantial materials.
You may imagine that it is not a very money-making
concern, but history writing must be pursued honestly as a
science, if it is to be permanently valuable, and not as a
trade. I have not yet succeeded in getting a title for my
book. It is in reality a continuation of the other on a little
different plan, but I do not mean to call it so, but bring it
out as an independent Avork. All history is of course but a
fragment. You may Avrite the history of two centuries, and
yet you will give but a slice of the great lump of human
history, and I Avish each of my histories to stand on their own
legs. I suppose I shall eventually think of some brief title.
That is the only part of the book of Avhich I hope to take a
mercantile vicAv. A telling and selling title is always
desirable to attract readers and buyers. The great cause of
regret that I have, hoAvever, admits of no remedy. There is
no great hero. It is difficult to scare up another William of
Orange, and whatever success or virtue my other book may
have had, is OAving to my having discovered one of the great
men of the world's history, who was, I think, not generally
known or appreciated. I have several lesser lights in the
course of my new volumes, and shall make what I can of them
in succession, but I feel the difference between them and that
radiant character.
I have been talking of myself, my dearest mother, or rather

1859.] MR. STORY. 319
of what I am about, because I know that it will interest you.
I get up at daylight every morning and begin to Avork. This
sounds very fine, but you knoAv it is not daylight at this
season before seven. Little Mary and I and Susie have a cup
of coffee at that hour together, the two other females not rising
so early. The French governess comes from nine to eleven
for the two children, and at 11 -30 we breakfast a la fourchette,
and dine at six. I thus get every day eight or nine hours of
work. The children are very well, and the climate agrees
with them. The , Storys Ave see frequently, and like them
both very much. She is a bright, sweet-tempered, intelligent
person, and he is decidedly a man of genius. His sculpture
is of a very high order of merit. He has just completed an
exquisite statue of Hero holding a torch, as if looking for
Leander, AA'hich has as much expression as has often been put
into marble. I Avish I were rich enough to buy it, not because
he is in the condition of a poor artist, having money enough
of his own. His statue of his father is admirable. He has
also just finished a Cleopatra, which is highly original in
attitude and design.
The children are very fond of E  , Avho is about Mary's
age, and they have a dancing class together tAvice a week,
which is a good deal of amusement for them. Mr. and Mrs.
Charles Perkins, Mrs. Bruen, and Miss Bruen, are also here,
and I believe Edward Perkins and his Avife. Mrs. Cleveland
and Mrs. Doane are come, or coming. There are also other
scattering of Americans here and there, but none I think
whom you are acquainted with.
I am, most affectionately, your son,
J. L. M.

From M. Guizot.

Paris,
25fevrier 1859.
Vous avez probablement deja vu par les journaux. Mon
sieur, que le premier volume de la traduction de votre
'Histoire de la Fondation de la EepubUque des Provinces-

320 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XL
Unies' vient de paraitre. L'editeur, ^l. Michel-Levy, a du,
d'apres ma recommandation, vous en envoyer deux ex-
em plaires. Je vous prie de me faire savoir si cet ordre a
eie execute. J'aurai mieux aime qu'on publiat les deux
volumes ensemble ; la traduction francaise en aura quatre ;
mais la publication, deja avanpee, d'une autre traduction
francaise en Belgique a decide 31. ]Michel-Levy a se presser.
Je sais que cette traduction beige a ete faite sans votre aveu ;
31. Mohl m'a donne connaissance de ce que vous lui avez
ecrit a cet egard. Je ne doute pas que votre ouvrage
n'obtienne, en France, le succes bitn merite qu'il a obtenu
aux Etats-Unis et en Angleterre, et qu'il n'aide efficacement
an triomphe de cette grande cause de la liberie religieuso
que vous avez soutenu avec tant de sincerite, de savoir et
d'eloquence. Eecevez, 31onsieur, I'assurance de tous mes sentiments
d'estime et de consideration tres distinguee. Guizot.

To Ms Mother.

Rome,
March 26th, 1859,
My dearest Mother, — We go on here in a very jog-trot
fashion. I work pretty hard, but the ditch groAvs larger with
every successive dig. I have nearly finished a volume, but I
am not very well satisfied with it. You need not be anxious
about my head-aches ; I have them from time to time, but thcA'
are by no means so furious or so frequent as they used to be.
The children and Mary are all very well. Last Tuesday 1
had the honour of dining Avith the Prince of Wales, who is
passing the winter here. The invitation Avas quite unexpected
by me. Colonel Bruce (who is his governor, and a very agree
able person, brother of Lord Elgin) called on me, and said his
Eoyal Highness was desirous of making my acquaintance.
The next day I receved a note from him, saying that H.E.H.
Baron Eenfrew would be happy to see me at dinner, etc.
Baron Eenfrew is the Princes travelling name. The party

1858.] THE PRINCE OF WALES. 321
was very small ; there was Colonel and Mrs. Bruce, the parson,
the doctor, the aide-de-camp, the diplomatic representative
here, Mr. Eussell, Mr. Gibson the sculptor, Mr. Hay, an
excellent old gentleman here, formerly an Under-Secretary of
State, and myself.
The Prince is about eighteen. His profile is extremely like
that of the Queen. The complexion is pure, fresh, and healthy,
like that of most English boys ; his hair is light brown, cut
short, not curly. His eyes are bluish-grey, rather large, and
very frank in their expression; his smile very ready and
genuine ; his manners are extremely good. I have not had
much to do with royal personages, but of those I have known,
I know none whose address is more winning, and with Avhom
one feels more at one's ease. He has been Avell educated, and
I should think had a good mind ; but of course it is impossible
to measure his intellect after so brief an acquaintance. I
talked to him before dinner. At dinner he sat on one side of
Mrs. Bruce, and I on the other, and we talked upon the
common topics, the table not being too large for general conver
sation. After dinner he asked me to take the chair next him,
and Ave conversed for half an hour together. He talked about
German literature, Goethe, and Schiller, objects of art in
Eome. Altogether the dinner was a very pleasant one, and it
is very agreeable to me to have made the acquaintance of the
future Sovereign of the magnificent British Empire in such a
simple and unceremonious manner. I have left myself no
room, my dearest mother, except to say God bless you. Give
my love to the governor, A  , and all the rest of the family,
small and great, and with the united and kindest affection of
us all, I am, Most affectionately, your son,
J. L. M.

VOL. I.

322 MOTLEYS LETTERS. [Chap. XL
To his Mother. Paris,
June 5th, 1859.
3Iy dearest Mother, — We left Eome Wednesday morning,
June 1st, and reached Paris Friday afternoon at 5 P.JI.
of June 3rd. This is the most rapid travelling Ave were
ever guilty of. The railroad took us in Iavo hours to Civita
Vecchia ; then the steamer landed us in Marseilles in about
thirty hours more. Then the express train, which started at
10-30 P.M. of Thursday evening, brought us to Paris in eighteen
additional hours. The Aveather Avas very fine, so that the journey,
though disagreeable, Avas soon accomplished. It seems almost
incredible that we were breakfasting in our Eoman lodgings
on Wednesday, and that I am now writing to you on Sunday
morning from an apartment in which avc have already installed
ourselves at Paris.
We were driven out of Italy by the war. My plans have
been quite upset by these unforeseen circumstances. It had
been my intention to pass most of the summer in Venice,
going thither about the middle of June, and staying there till
September, after Avhich we should have probably Avintered in
Florence. There is much very important and interesting
matter in Venice which I had reckoned upon, not only for
the work which at present occupies me, but for future historical
labours ; and as EdAvard Perkins and Lillie Cleveland, Avhom
our Lily is very fond of, thought of passing the summer
there also, the project was a very satisfactory one. I could
have worked hard all day, and we could have swum about by
moonlight in gondolas in the evenings. But —
" The best laid schemes o' mice and men gang oft a-gley,"
and so there was no staying in Italy. We have come for the
present to Paris — a place which Ave one and all detest. Eome
was tranquil enough, but the climate after the middle of June
has a bad reputation, and, indeed, there Avere three cases of
fever, one, and perhaps two, fatal ones in the apartment
underneath ours in the same house. I believe, however, that

1859.] THE WAR IN ITALY. 323
it was typhus and not Eoman fever, and contracted in another
place. We have been all, thank God, very well, and the
weather in Eome was exquisitely beautiful up to the moment
of our departure, the very perfection of spring— that season
which exists only in imagination with us. I can hardly con
ceive of tAVO things more diametrically opposed to each other
in the Avay of atmosphere than the April and May of Eome
and Boston.
It is not very easy for me to give you any noAvs about the
war in Italy. The events, as they occur, are of course imme
diately given in the American newspapers. The telegraph
adding, hoAvever, its inevitable blunders to the indispensable
lies of the bulletin, the confusion is worse confounded than
ever. Thus there is no doubt that in all the engagements
that have taken place hitherto, in which much life has been
squandered v/ithout any result, the advantage has been
uniformly with the French and Sardinians. Yet in the official
accounts, for example, of the action of Montebello the state
ment of the allies is that there were 4000 French and 400
Sardinians engaged with 18,000 Austrians. The Austrian
commander-in-chief, on the contrary, puts the number of
French and Sardinians at 40,000.
With regard to the war itself, my sympathies are Avarmly with
Sardinia. Nothing can be more chivalrous, manly, vigorous,
progressive, and enlightened, than the King of Sardinia, his
Prime Minister, and his Avhole nation. It seems to me that
no man deserves to mention the Avord liberty, Avho does not
feel the Avarmest admiration and sympathy Avith so noble a
cause. But of course it is extremely difficult to place con
fidence in the intentions of the French Emperor — for me it is
impossible, and while I do not wonder that Sardinia should
have made the alliance, yet it is not easy to be very hopeful as
to the result. It is true that the Emperor has hedged himself
about Avith protestations and self-denying ordinances of all
kinds, but those Avho remember his career for the last ten
years, can hardly put much faith in such exuberance of virtue
on his part, and -I do not believe there Avill be very much
gained for liberty and human progress if Prince Napoleon is

324 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XL
made into a King of Etruria, and a Murat into King of Naples,
and a Bonaparte (I forget his name) made into a pope. Yet
the Italian liberals are very sanguine. There are no Italians,
high or loAV, Avho do not sympathise Avith the movement (except
the reigning individuals of course), and who do not abhor
Austria. The position of Prussia with a king who has hope
lessly lost his reason, and yet may IIa'c many years, complicates
matters very much. The German politicians are rapidly
tending to an almost unanimous conviction that the interests
of Germany require them all to support Austria, and they pro
bably will do so, a result which will make the war universal.
They are impelled to this by their hereditary and natural
hatred of France, and by the indispensable necessity of keeping
a united Germany as a buhvark against Eussia.
Yet if there Avere a young, vigorous, intellectual sovereign in
Prussia at this moment, a man like Frederic the Great, or
Peter the Great, he would see that the time had arrived for
Prussia to secure at last the object of its ambition, the imperial
croAvn of Germany. If the house of Brandenburg, Avhich governs
the powerful, wholly German, and progressive Prussia, could
become emperors of Germany, to the utter annihilation of a
fictitious, artificial sham, Avhich Avas got up at the Congress of
Vienna forty years ago, and baptized the Empire of Austria, in
Avhich there are only about seven millions of Germans, shaken
up pell-mell in a great bag with some thirty millions of
Slavonians, Magyars, Italians, Croats, and Greeks, and the
Lord knows what a hedge podge, which has never had any
vitality except in defiance of all laws, divine or human— if
such a result could take place, then there might be a real
Germany, and a handsome solution to the present European
question. You ask me whether I propose publishing one volume at a
time of my book, and that is exactly what I do not know
myself. I have written a volume since November last — in
Eome. But it will take me some two or three months to get
it into publishing shape, and where I shall find a resting-place
I know not. Two days in Paris have convinced me that the
expense of this town is so frightful, as to make it altogether

1858.] PARIS. 325
beyond my possibilities, and we are now thinking a little of
England for a time.
My facilities for work are greater there than anywhere,
as I have ahvays a copyist or two engaged at Avork. But we
have not yet decided on anything, but have meantime taken a
lodging for a month, during which we shall make up our
minds. I do not know that I can say anything more to entertain
you, my dear mother. The influences of Paris are very
depressing to me. I dislike the place more and more every
time I come to it. I like Italy, but there are many draAvbacks
to a residence there for a literary man. But the climate is
most delightful, and spoils you for other atmospheres. I
found it favourable to labour, and I do not think I ever got
through a greater amount of Avork in the same time than I did
in Eome. My habits in one respect are changed. I have
become a comparatively early riser. I got up usually in the
winter at seven, and latterly at six. I get more time I find by
this system. We are all avcU. Most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

To his Mother. Mount Felix, Walton-on-Thames,
August 18th, 1859.
My dearest Mother,— Y^our letter of 18th July was wel
comed most Avarmly. I am delighted to find you feeling
yourself so Avell, and I was still more gratified to be informed
a few days ago by Mr. Lothrop that he had seen you just
before he left home, and that he had not seen you looking so
well for years, and that you seemed to him quite recovered.
I cannot help regretting a little that you did not carry out
your plan of making a visit to Nahant, for it seems to me that
a tonic atmosphere like that of Nahant AAOuld give you
courage and strength to grapple Avith your enemy, who seems
already a retreating one. As to age, I Avish you could see
some of the people in London society. There is Lord Palmer-

326 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XL
ston, seventy-five years exactly. Prime Minister in England
for the second time, full of life, bustle, and business in the
House of Commons every night till after midnight, and
making a speech every night, receiving large companies at
dinner, and in the evening every Saturday for the whole
season, and having no more idea of considering himself old
than Lady Palmerston, who is, I believe, of exactly the same
age, and in her way quite as alive and youthful in manner and
appearance, and quite as active, influential, and reigning, and
charming a personage in the great London world as she ever
Avas. Then there is Lord Lyndhurst, Avho celebrated his eighty-
seventh birthday last month, Avhose intellect is as vivid, whose
A'oice as melodious, and whose interest in the great questions
agitating the Avorld as comprehensive and unflagging, as if he
had fifty years less upon his back tL^^fuJi,,^ has.
He made an admirable speech on foriL-,gn politics the other
night, and he told me a few days ago that n.-^ meant to make a
speech on a subject Avhich he has very much at heart — the
natural necessity of a strong and cordial alliance betAveen the
two great English commonwealths on the two sides of the
Atlantic. England and America together, he says, may defy
the Avorld, and England can have no real friend among the
despotic governments of Europe. The season vras too late, he
thought, for him to make a speech on the subject this year,
but he meant to do it next session. So you see that eighty-
seven years do not prevent him from laying out work for
himself in the future. He is very fond of his tAvo nieces, Mrs.
Amory and her daughter, and ahvays speaks of them, as you
may suppose, with the Avarmest interest and affection. I do not
say anything of our feAv weeks in London. You have been
recently reading my letters of last year, in Avhich the whole
ground Avas gone over, and, in addition, Lily has written you
(I hope you have received them, and were not alarmed at the
postage) a detailed account of our proceedings in the form of a
journal, vhich she kept mainly because she thought it would
amuse and interest you.
I did not care a great deal about going through a second
London season. But as Ave were obliged to leave Italy (where

1858.] EUROPEAN POLITICS. 327
I had intended passing a second winter, having sent all my
books and papers there), there seemed no other course open,
particularly as I had much literary business in England. I
thought too that, as Lily Avas just grovATU up, and old enough
to go into society, and likely to please and be pleased, it Avas
a kind of duty to let her have the advantage which my
position as a man of letters gives her, of seeing for once the
most brilliant and cultivated society in the ANorld, viz., the
highest circles of London in the full of the season. I must
say, without meaning to take any credit to myself, except as
belonging to a peculiar class, that I cannot help forming a
favourable idea of English civilisation when I see the position
accorded in this country to those who cultivate art, science,
and literature, as if those things Avere Avorth something, and
Avere entitled to some consideration, as Avell as high birth,
official rank, and wealth, which on the Continent are the only
passports. I do not like to say much about European politics. A
black cloud seems to envelop the Continent. The nations
of the earth, in their cowardice or their inertness, haA'e
alloAved the most dangerous malefactor who ever usurped
supreme poAver to paralyse and stultify them all, and frighten
them all out of their wits. The confidence reposed by the
Avhole Italian people at the beginning of this year in the
intentions of Louis Napoleon, Avas as incredible as it was
pathetic, and would have converted into a hero any man
standing in his position Avho had been possessed of one spark
of virtue or generosity. There is no doubt of two things —
that he originated the Italian revolt, and that he has, against
the unanimous wishes of the Italians, left them in the lurch,
having pledged himself to Austria to restore the archdukes.
The firm, moderate, consistent, unanimous, dignified and cou
rageous conduct of the Italians in this tremendous crisis will
always remain one of the grand lessons of history. If they are
destined to be crushed into submission, after this calm and
deliberate expression of their Avishes, at any rate a significant
chapter in the history of freedom and tyranny Avill have been
recorded, and it will be something that the mask will at last

328 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XL
be torn from the face of the French Emperor. The Tuscan
Assembly has just voted unanimously that the Hapsburg-
Lorraine dynasty shall never be restored. They will doubt
less vote as unanimously to annex themselves to Sardinia.
Our plans are not yet fixed, although they will be before
the end of the Aveek. A furnished house is offered me at the
Hague for a year, which I shall either take, or take lodgings
in the country in England. I have lost three months, and
must get to work again, if my two volumes are to be ready by
next fall.
We are all well, staying at this delightful country house
of the Sturgis's, where we are always treated with such
hospitality that it seemed as if the house belonged to us.
Mrs. John Sturgis had a little girl born a Aveek ago, and both
mother and child are going on very Avell. Little H  ,
the youngest child of Mr. and Mrs. Eussell Sturgis, is a most
charming little boy. Give my love to the governor and all
the family. Always most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

CHAPTEE XII.
residence in ENGLAND — PUBLICATION OF
'THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.'
Oatlands Park — Difficnities of his -work— London in November— Wm. Stirling —
East Sheen— Professor Owen — Mr. and Mrs. Grote — John Murray and the
' History of the United Netherlands ' — Letter from M. Guizot proposing
Mr. Motley as corresponding member of the French Academy — Letter to Dr.
O. W. Holmes about the ' Autocrat ' — International copyright — Mr. Motley's
affection for England — American and European politics — Letter from Mr. N.
Ha-wthorne — 'The Marble Faun' — Lector from Dr. O. W. Holmes — Poli
tical and literary affairs in the States — Praise of the ' Dutch Republic ' —
The Royal Academy dinner — D.C.L. at Oxford — -Oxford Commemoration —
Letter from Lady Dufferin to Mrs. Norton — Lady Duiferin and her son
— Approaching completion of the ' United Netherlands ' — Lord de Grey —
Studley Royal — Fountains Abbey — Sidney Herbert — Visits in Scotland
— Keir — Glen Quoich — ^Mr. and Mrs. Ellice — Inveraray — The Duke of
Argyll — Taymouth — Lord Breadalbane — The Prince of AVales' visit to
America — Election of Abraham Lincoln — Publication of the ' United Nether
lands ' — Letters of acknowledgment from M. St. Ililairo and from M. Guizot.
To his Mother.
Oatlands Paik Hotel, Walton-on-Thames,
November 21th, 1859.
My dearest Mother, — My life is uoav very much within
the four walls of my study. I am hard at A\ork, but, alas,
my work grows and expands around me every day. I am
like the conjuror's apprentice in the German ballad, AAho
raised a Avhole croAvd of spectres and demons by stealing his
master's Avand, and then did not know how to exorcise them
and get rid of them. The apparitions of the sixteenth
century rise upon me, phantom after phantom, each more
intrusive and threatening and appalling than the other,
and I feel that I have got myself into a mob of goblins, who
are likely to be too much for me. The other day I read of
an eminent photographic artist to Avhom a ghost appeared.

330 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII.
Instead of being frightened, the photographer AA-as enchanted.
" Stop a bit, my dear spectre," said he, Avhile he made a
hurried search for the implements of his trade, thinking that
the chance of getting a daguerrotype of a bond fide ghost was
a speculation not to be neglected. Upon which the ghost
vanished, much disgusted at being converted into an article of
merchandise. Well, I am afraid my ghosts will vanish while
I am trying to photograph them, and that always keeps me in
a state of impatience and excitement. For Iavo or three years,
during Avhich I have written almost nothing, I have been col
lecting a vast quantity of materials in the shape of unpublished
letters, and other documents, of eminent historical characters,
and I haA^e been reading them so much and so constantly
that the individuals seem to clothe themselves Avith a ghastly
kind of life, and seem to haunt me.
The truth is, I have laid out too much AA'ork. If I laboured
aAA-ay like a galley slave at the oar, eight hours a day for the
next five years, I should hardly fill up the outlines Avhich I
have chalked out. HoAvever, I hope to get a couple of volumes
ready in the course of the next year, although it will only be
in the sAveat of my broAv.
We are living a most retired life. The country here is very
rural, cultivated, and pretty. The climate is moderate, the
early Avinter thus far being rarely frosty, but often foggy.
To-day, for example, the tall trees, Avithin a hundred yards of
my windoAv, are SAvalloAved up in a Avhite gloom, Avhile the big
oaks and beeches closer to me are, like Ossian's heroes, vague,
misty, and gigantic. I do not object to fog, ahvays excepting
a black fog, a London fog. I Avas obliged to pass the day in
toAvn yesterday, and to breathe unmitigated coal-smoke for six
hours. When the fog settles doAvn in London, the smoke from
millions of chimneys settles doAvn Avith it. It cannot escape
upwards, and so every breathing being is turned for the time
into a chimney. I Avas a chimney all day yesterday, and
rejoice that I was not born in that station in life, not finding
it exhilarating. London is not attractive in November. I
had something to do in the libraries. Just before leaving
town I stumbled against Stirling in the fog, and had a walk

1859.] ENGLAND IN NOVEMBER. 331
and talk with him. He had just got back from Spain. He
tells me that he expects to publish his Life of Don John of
Austria in a foAv months. Do you know his books ? If not, I
advise you to read them. His ' Cloister Life of Charles V.' is
a charming book. So are his Lives of the Spanish painters.
The Life of Don John will, doubtless, be best of all. He is
a man of large fortune and of ancient family, a Member of
Parliament, and, as Dogberry says, " with two gOA\'ns, and
everything handsome about him." He has a magnificent
place in Scotland, mentioned in some of Scott's poems as
the " lordly brow of ancient Keir." Last year he invited
me down there, but I left England as soon as the London
season was over. While I have been writing, the fog has been
growing whiter and whiter, and thicker and thicker. My
Ossianic trees have withdrawn themselves deeper and deeper
into the mist, and have nearly all vanished. Only one giant,
Avhom I can almost touch from the window, is dimly visible, a
shrouded and vegetable phantom. I am delighted to find, my
dearest mother, that you give such good accounts of your
health. I ahvays believed that you Avould triumph over your
disorders, and now I am convinced of it. Pray accept this
letter for what it is worth, and if you are Avilling, I will write
oftener, and each one stupider than the other. Give my best
love to my father and all the family great and small, and
believe me always Most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

To his Father.

East Hoi-sley Towers,
December 2dth, 1859.

My dear Father, — I received your kind letter three days
ago, and I thank you very much for the cheque therein con
tained. You do not say anything as to my dear mother's
health, but as she has ahvays reported very well of herself, and
as the accounts have ahvays been good, I trust sincerely that

332 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII.
she is as well as she has lately been, and that many years of
happy life are in store for her. I ahvays believed that the
strength of her constitution would enable her to surmount her
difficulties, and now I feel convinced of it.
I notice what you say about the map for the siege of
Leyden. I could send a plan or chart cut from a contempo
rary chronicle, which I used very minutely in writing my
account, and perhaps it might be worth while to have it copied
and inserted. I will think of it, and let you knoAv very soon.
I am glad to hear that General Pierce expressed himself so
agreeably on the subject of the ' Dutch Eepublic' We met
several times at Eome, and he seemed a very kind-hearted and
excellent man, and although I differ from him in politics as
far as it is perhaps possible for two persons to differ, yet I was
very favourably impressed by him. I Avas especially touched
by the gentleness and care which he had for his wife, who
is a great invalid, and also for the warm sympathy which he
manifested for his old friend, and my friend, Hawthorne,
during the alarming illness of his daughter.
I hear, by the way, that Hawthorne is about to publish a
new novel. I know that he wrote one in Eome, and I hope it
will be as beautiful and as successful as his other Avorks. We
liked him very much. He is the most bashful man I believe
that ever lived, certainly the most bashful American, mauvaise
honte not being one of our national traits, but he is a very
sincere, unsophisticated, kind-hearted person, and looks the
man of genius he undoubtedly is.
We had a merry Christmas party at Mount Felix. Every
body enjoyed themselves, as they are apt to do at that most
hospitable mansion.
This place is in Surrey, about ten miles from our oavu
residence at Oatlands Hotel. The only guest here to-day (we
had some others yesterday) is Euskin, of the ' Seven Lamps '
and the ' Italian Painters.' He is very agreeable company, very
fond of talking, but not dogmatic as in his books.
Most affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

I860.] THE GROTES. 333
To Ms Mother. East Sheen,
February 13th, 1860.
My dearest Mother,— I am writing to you from the house
of your old acquaintance Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Bates. Satur
day we had a large party of country neighbours to dine, but
there were none of them known to fame, nor any of them at all
interesting, except one lady, who sang and played remarkably
well, and charmed us all at the piano for an hour or two after
dinner. Yesterday we had no one at dinner but a Polish
gentleman Avhom one often meets in London society, and the
celebrated Professor Owen. This is the great lecturer and
writer on comparative anatomy and on fossil remains, to hear
Avhom Lily goes up to toAvn every Tuesday, generally passing
the day with her friend. Lady Annabella King, at her grand
mother's, old Lady Byron. She was, therefore, very glad to
make his personal acquaintance. To-day Ave are to have more
people at dinner, the Van der Weyers among others. Van
der Weyer is a particularly agreeable person, and a great
favourite Avith everybody.
Mr. Bates is a most excellent man, kind-hearted, benevolent,
and sensible. He is in very good health, and goes to Bishops-
gate Street every day of his life, which I should not care to do
if I were past seventy, and had a million pounds sterling.
The last house where Ave were visiting a Aveek ago is a very
different place, belonging to very different persons — Mr. and
Mrs. Grote. I do not know Avhether you have ever read
Grote's ' History of Greece.' But it is one of the great works
of the age, is fully recognised as such, and will last as long as
Gibbon's ' Eoman Empire.' I feel it a great honour to have
been commended and taken cordially by the hand by such a
man. He had been reading my book, and showed me many
passages Avhich he had marked and commented upon. He is
very kind-hearted, and with most genuine, childlike sim
plicity of manner, not always found in company with such
exuberant and accurate erudition as he possesses. Mrs. Grote
is a character, very firm, decided, clever, accomplished, strong-

334 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII.
minded, tall, and robust, whom Sydney Smith called the most
gentleman-like of women. She is very droll in her dress,
despising crinoline and flounces, and attiring herself, when
going out for a walk, in a shawl thrown over her shoulders and
tied round her waist, with a poplin gown reaching to the tops
of her boots, a tall brown man's hat, with a feather in it, and a
stout walking-stick. She is the best company in the world,
full of originality and humour, has seen and known every
remarkable person in England and France, and is full of
anecdotes about everybody and everything. One of the best
things she ever said was about Sydney Smith's daughter (Avho
was married to Dr. Holland), in consequence of her husband
being baroneted. Somebody hearing Lady Holland spoken
of, asked if Lord Holland's Avife Avas referred to. "No," said
Mrs. Grote, " this is New Holland, and the capital is Sydney."
I am going to town to-morrow to see John Murray, the pub
lisher, about my new volumes. I do not knoAV Avhether you
remember that when I was first about to publish the ' Dutch
Eepublic,' I offered the MS. to Murray, to whom I had a note of
introduction. After retaining the Avork a fortnight, he declined it
very civilly but decidedly. In consequence, as you remember,
I had it printed and published by Chapman, and the governor
was kind enough to pay the expenses. Well, the other day I
received a note from Murray, expressing in very strong lan
guage his self-reproaches for his shortsightedness for having
lost his chance of being my publisher, and his desire, if pos
sible, to repair his mistake if I was not bound to any one
else. ... So I hope to make an arrangement with Murray,
who is by far the best publisher in England.
Most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

From M. Guizot. Paris,
16 mars 1860.
J'ai eu un grand plaisir a vous proposer a I'Academie des
Sciences morales et politiques, comme successeur de M. Pres
cott en qualite de correspondant, et je me suis felicite de cette

I860.] THE 'AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE.' 335
occasion d'exposer vos titres a cet honneur. J'espere que
vous continuerez votre belle ' Histoire de la Fondation de la
Eepublique des Provinces-Unies,' en la conduisant jusqu'au
moment. ou I'Espagne elle-meme a ete forcee de reconnaitre
que la Eepublique etait fondee. Le succes de votre premier
ouvrage ne vous permet pas de le laisser incomplet, et je serai
charme d'apprendre que vous vous occupez de la completer.
J'ai bien regrette de ne pas me trouver a Paris pendant le
temps que vous y avez passe.
Eecevez, je vous prie. Monsieur, I'assurance de ma con
sideration la plus distinguee. Guizot.

To Dr. 0. W. Holmes.

Oatlands Park Hotel, Walton-on-Thames,
March 20th, 1860.
My dear Wendell, — I am not going to make one word of
apology for my long silence. If you will forgive it and write
me again at once, I promise faithfully that I will write to you
as often as once a quarter if you will do the same. I cannot
do without letters from you, and although I have a special dis
like to writing them myself, I am willing to bore you for the
sake of the reward. I really believe that you are the only one
of my friends to whom I have not expressed in rapturous terms
the delight with Avhich I have read and re-read your 'Autocrat.'
We were quite out of the way of getting the 'Atlantic ' in our
foreign residences — in Nice, Switzerland, and Eome. But one
day after it had been collected into a volume some traveller
lent it to us, and we carefully forgot to return it — a petty
larceny combined with breach of trust which I have never
regretted, for no one could appreciate it more highly than I, in
the first place, and then all my family. It is really even better
than I expected it to be, and that is saying much, for you
know how high were my anticipations, and if you do not, poor
Phillips, now no more, who always so highly appreciated you,
could have told you how surely and how often I predicted
your great and inevitable success. The ' Autocrat ' is an insepa-

336 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII.
rable companion, and will live, I think, as long certainly as
anything which we have turned out on our side. It is of the
small and rare class to which ' Montaigne's Essays,' ' Elia,' and
one or two other books belong, which one wishes to have for
ever under one's thumb. Every page is thoughtful, suggestive,
imaginative, didactic, witty, stimulating, grotesque, arabesque,
titillating — in short, I could string together all the adjectives
in the dictionary without conveying to you an adequate ex
pression of my admiration.
In order that you shall not think me merely a devourer and
not an appreciator, I will add that the portions which give me
the most pleasure are those, by far the largest, which are
grave, earnest, and profound ; and that the passages least to
my mind are those which in college days would have most
highly delighted me — viz., the uproariously funny ones. But,
as Touchstone observes, " we that have good wits cannot hold,
we must be flouting," and I do not expect to bottle you up.
I have not the book at my elbow at this moment, and am too
lazy to go downstairs to fetch it, but as an illustration of what
I most enjoy, take such a passage as about our brains being
clock-work. I remember nothing of the diction at this instant,
but the whole train of thought is very distinct to me. Also
the bucketful of fresh and startling metaphors which the
autocrat empties on the head of the divinity student in return
for his complimentary language as to the power of seeing
analogies. Also — but I shall never get any further in this
letter if I once begin to quote the ' Autocrat,' so I will only
add that I admire many of the poems, especially the Voiceless,
which I am never tired of repeating. It is scarcely necessary
for me to add that it is always with a deep sensation of pride
and pleasure that I turn to page 28 and read the verses
therein inscribed. Strange to say, I have not yet read the
' Professor at the Breakfast Table.' I tried to buy it the other
day at Sampson Low's, one of the chief American re-publishers
or importers, but he said that it had been done by 
(gentlemen who have, among others, done me the same favour).
Is there no chance of ever getting an international Copy
right Bill and hanging these filibusters, who are legally

I860.] INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 337
picking the pockets of us poor devil authors, who would fain
become rich devils if we could? Why do you not make use
of your strong position, having the whole American public by
the button, to make it listen to reason. If I were an autocrat
like you, I would issue an edict immediately. Or I would
have a little starling that should say nothing but " copyright "
and let the public hear nothing else. Let me not omit to
mention also with hoAv much pleasure I read your poem on
Burns. It is magnificent, and every verse rings most sym
pathetically upon the heart. So you see. we do not lose the
run of you, although I have been so idle about Avriting, and
1 am promising myself much pleasure from the ' Professor at
the Breakfast Table,' which I shall have sent to me from
Boston. By the Avay, I bagged the other day a splendid pre
sentation copy of the 'Autocrat,' which you had sent to
Triibner for some one else, and I gave it to Mrs. Norton (of
whom you have heard often enough, and Avho is a poet herself),
who admires it as much as I do. I do not know whether I
shall like the novel as well as your other readers are likely
to do, because the discursive, irresponsible, vagrant way of
writing which so charms me in tlie ' Autocrat ' is hardly in
place in a narrative, and for myself I always find, to my
regret, that I grow every year less and less capable of reading
novels or romances. I wish it were not so. However, I doubt
not you will reclaim me, but I do not mean to read it until it
is finished.I have not a great deal to talk about now that I find myself
face to face with you. We have been, by stress of circum
stances rather than choice, driven to England, and we have
seen a great deal of English society, both in toAvn and country.
We have received much kindness and sat at many "good
men's feasts " ; and T must say that I have, as I always had, a
warm affection for England and the English. I have been
awfully hard at work for the last year and a half, with unlucky
intermissions and loss of time, but I hope to publish a couple
of bulky volumes by the beginning of next year. There is a
cartload of MS. already in Murray's hands, but I do not know
how soon we shall begin to print.
VOL. L 2

338 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIL
I wish when you write — and you see that I show a generous
confidence in your generosity by assuming that you will write
notwithstanding my delinquencies — you would tell me what is
going on in your literary world, and also something about
politics. One can get but little from the newspapers — but I
should really like to know what chance there is of the country's
being rescued from the Government which now oppresses us.
But I forget, perhaps you are not a Eepublican, although I can
hardly conceive of your being anything else. With regard to
my views and aspirations, I can only say that if Seward is not
elected (provided he be the candidate) this autumn, good
night, my native land ! I admire his speech, and agree with
almost every word he says, barring of course the little senti
mentality about the affection we all feel for the South, which
I suppose is very much like the tenderness of Shylock —
"Kind sir, you spat on me ,Qa. Thursday last, you spurned
me such a day, and another do ti you called me dog, and for
these courtesies," etc., etc. '.Kowever, if Mr. Seward thinks it
worth while to stir in a little saccharine of this sort, he knows
best. The essential is to get himself nominated and elected.
Now please write and tell me Avhat the chances are, always
provided you agree with me, but not if you are for the pro-
slavery man, whoever he may be. I have not yet succeeded
in suppressing Louis Napoleon, who bamboozles tho English
Cabinet and plays his fantastic tricks before high heaven with
more impunity than ever. Of a truth it may be said now — three
hundred years ago it was uttered by one of the most illustrious
of her sons — " Gallia silvescit." What can be more barbarous
than the condition of a country relapsed of its own choice under
a military despot ?
Pray remember us most kindly to your wife and children,
and believe me always Most sincerely yours,
J. L. Motley.
Pray remember me most affectionately to all the fellows at
the Club.

I860.] NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 339

From Mr. N. Haivthorne. 13, Charles Street, Bath,
April 1st, 1860.
My dear Motley,— You are certainly that Gentle Eeader
for whom all my books were exclusively written. Nobody else
(my wife excepted, who speaks so near that I cannot tell her
voice from my own) has ever said exactly what I loved to
hear. It is most satisfactory to be hit upon the raw, to be
shot straight through the heart. It is not the quantity of
your praise that I care so much about (though I gather it all
up most carefully, lavish as you are of it), but the kind, for
you take the book ^ precisely as I meant it, and if your note
had come a few days sooner I believe I should have printed it
in a postscript which I have added to the second edition,
because it explains better than I found it possible to do
myself, the way in which my romance ought to be taken. . . .
Now don't suppose that I fancy the book to be a tenth part
as good as you say it is. You work out my imperfect efibrts
and half make the book with your own imagination and see
what I myself saw but could only hint at.
Well, the romance is a success even if it never finds another
reader. We spent the winter in Leamington, whither we had come
from the sea-coast in October. I am sorry to say that it was
another winter of shadow and anxiety, not on Una's account,
however, but my Avife's. She had an attack of acute bronchitis,
which reduced her very low, and (except for an enduring
faith in the energy and elasticity of her constitution) I should
have been almost in despair. After a long confinement to her
bed she at last recovered so far as to enable us to remove from
Leamington to Bath ; and the change of air seems to have
been very beneficial. The physician feels confident that she
will be quite restored by our return to the United States. I
have engaged our passages for June 16 th, and patriotic as
you know me to be, you can conceive the rapture Avith which
I shall embrace my native soil. Mrs. Hawthorne and the
' Hawthorne's Romance, ' The Marble Faun.'

340 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII.
children will probably remain in Bath until the eve of our
departure ; but I intend to pay one more visit of a week or
two in London, and I shall certainly come and see you. I
wonder at your lack of recognition of my social propensities.
I take so much delight in my friends that a little intercourse
goes a great way and illuminates my life before and after.
Are you never coming back to America ? It is dreary to
stay away, although not very delightful to go back. I should
be most happy, and so would my Avife, to think that Mrs. Motley
and yourself and your daughters were within our reach, and
really you ought to devote yourselves in the cause of your
country. It is the worst sort of treason for enjoyable people
to expatriate themselves. Your friend,
Nath. Hawthorne.

From Dr. 0. W. Holmes.

Boston,
April 29th, 1860.
It was SO pleasant, my dear Lothrop, to get a letter from
you. I have kept it a week or two so as to have something
more to tell you, yet I fear it will not be much after all.
I'esterday, the Saturday Club had its meeting, I carried your
letter in my pocket, not to show to anybody, but to read a
sentence or two which I knew would interest them all, and
especially your kind message of remembrance. All were de
lighted with it ; and on my proposing your health, all of them
would rise and drink it standing. We then, at my sugges
tion, gave three times three in silence, on account of the
public character of the place and the gravity and position
of the high assisting personages. Be assured that you were
heartily and affectionately, not to say proudly, remembered.
Your honours are our honours, and when we heard you had
received that superior tribute, which stamps any foreigner's
reputation as planetary, at the hands of the French Institute,
it was as if each of us had had a ribbon tied in his own

1800.] THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. 341
button-hole. I hoped very much to pick up something which
might interest you from some of our friends which know more
of the political movements of the season than I do.
1 vote with the Eepublican party. I cannot hesitate
between them and the Democrats. Yet what the Eepublican
party is now doing it would puzzle me to tell you. What its
prospects are for the next campaign, perhaps I ought to know,
but I do not. I am struck Avith the fact that we talk very
little politics of late at the Club. Whether or not it is dis
gust at the aspect of the present political parties, and espe
cially at the people who represent them, I cannot say ; but
the subject seems to have been dropped for the present in
such society as I move about in, and especially in the Club.
We discuss first principles, enunciate axioms, tell stories, make
our harmless jokes, reveal ourselves in confidence to our next
neighbours after the Chateau Margaux has reached the emo
tional centre, and enjoy ourselves mightily But we do not
talk politics. After the President's campaign is begun, it is
very likely that we may, and then I shall have something more
to say about Mr. Seward and his prospects than I have now.
How much pleasure your praise gave me I hardly dare to
say. I know that I can trust it. You would not bestow it
unless you liked what I had done, but you would like the
same thing better if I had done it than coming from a
stranger. That is right and kind and good, and notwith
standing you said so many things to please me, there were
none too many. I love praise too Avell always, and I have had
a surfeit of some forms of it. Yours is of the kind that is
treasured and remembered. I have written in every number
of the Atlantic since it began. I should think myself indus
trious if I did not remember the labours you have gone
through, which simply astonish me. What delight it would
be to have you back here in our oavu circle of men — I think
Ave can truly say whom you would find worthy companions :
Agassiz, organising the science of a hemisphere ; Longfellow,
writing its songs ; Lowell, than whom a larger, fresher, nobler,
and more fertile nature does not move among us ; Emerson,
with his strange, familiar remoteness of character, I do not

342 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII.
know what else to call it ; and Hawthorne and Dana, when he
gets back from his voyage round the world, and all the rest of
us thrown in gratis. But you must not stay too long ; if all
the blood gets out of your veins, I am afraid you will transfer
your allegiance.
I am just going to Cambridge to an " exhibition," in which
Oliver ^Vendell Holmes speaks a translation {expectatur versio
in lingua vernacula), the Apology for Socrates ; Master 0. W.
Holmes, Jun., being now a tall youth, almost six feet high,
and lover of Plato and of Art.
I ought to have said something about your grand new book,
but I have not had time to do more than read some passages
from it. My impression is that of all your critics, that you
have given us one of the noble historical pictures of our
time, instinct with life and glowing with the light of a
poetical imagination, which by itself Avould give pleasure,
but which, shed over a great epoch in the records of our race,
is at once brilliant and permanent. In the midst of so much
that renders the very existence of a civilisation amongst us
problematical to the scholars of the Old World, it is a great
pleasure to have the cause of letters so represented by one of
our own countrymen, citizens, friends. Your honours belong
to us all, but most to those who have watched your upward
course from the first, who have shared many of the influences
which have formed your own mind and character, and who
now regard you as the plenipotentiary of the true Eepublic
accredited to every Court in Europe.

To Ms Mother.

31, Hertford Street, Mayfair,
May 10th, 1860.
My dearest Mother, — I send by this steamer a copy of
the Times containing an account of the Anniversary Banquet
of the Eoyal Academy. You will see that I was called on to
respond to the toast of Literature, and that 1 was obliged to
make a short speech. It was a most awful ordeal. For the

I860.] THE ROYAL ACADEMY DINNER. 343
company is exceedingly select, which made the compliment
very great, but the feeling of trepidation still greater. How
ever, as I knew a day or two beforehand that I was to be called
on, I got out of the scrape pretty well, and received much
applause and congratulations afterwards. But it Avas quite
impossible for me to enjoy the dinner as I should have done
had I been merely a spectator. Fancy being obliged to get
up and address such an awful set of swells as the Cabinet
Ministers, Palmerston, Gladstone, Lord Eussell, the Chancellor,
the judges, the Opposition fellows, Dizzy and the rest, the Lord
Mayor in all his glory, all the artists, and many distinguished
men of letters ! It was a horrible moment for a bashful youth
like me ! The dinner was in itself a very pretty sight. It was
in the principal hall of tlie Exhibition (opened that day and
the day before for invited guests only, and made public a day
or two afterwards). The leading pictures of the year cover
the walls of the room. The dinner begins at six, and as the
twilight comes on, after the tables are cleared, the choristers
begin ' God Save the Queen.' At the first stave the gas is
suddenl}' let on, and the walls become alive and glowing with
the pictures. The effect is very startling and brilliant. There
is to be another dinner, that of the Literary Fund, next week.
I have accepted the office of steward, one of the twenty of
course merely nominal officers, but with the express condition
that I am not to be called on for a speech. I wish to have the
satisfaction this time of enjoying the dinner and hearing the
others, which I cannot do with the knowledge that I am to bo
served up as a part of the entertainment.
Of course it is unnecessary to add that this is strictly
between ourselves. I hardly feel at home here yet, and am
discontented and fidgety because I have not yet got to work.
I always feel thrown on my beam ends when I am compelled
to be idle. However, I have a good, comfortable, little library,
with all my books and papers arranged, and it will be my own
fault if I do not turn off a good lot of MS. daily so soon as
the mill gets going, which will be to-morrow.
Good-bye for the moment, my dearest mother. I pray most
fervently that you may continue in good health, and that you

344 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIL
will pass a happy summer at Eiverdale. Write to me as often
as you can, if only a fcAv lines, which gives us always the
greatest pleasure. All send much love to my father and your
self, and I remain Most affectionately yours,
J. L. M.
P.S. — We had one glimpse, but a delightful one, of the
xVgassizs. They only stayed three days in London. They
would have been overwhelmed with invitations had they
remained, which I suppose A\'as one reason for their rapid
departure.

To his Mother. 31, Herfbrd Street, London,
June 22nd, 1860.
My dearest Mother, — I do so long to see you again, and
feel very unhappy that the work which I have given myself to
do seems to protract our exile. My two volumes will be pub
lished, I suppose, early in November, and I hope aaIU prove
interesting,-although they do not cover so large a space of
time as I expected would be the case when I began them.
But my materials have grown so enormously on my hands that
I have found it difficult to keep within reasonable bounds.
The next two, which will complete the work, will travel over
a much longer range of years.
Lily's letter has so Avell described the " Commemoration
Day " at Oxford, when I received my honorary degree of Civil
Law, that there is no need of my saying anything about it. It
was an honour quite unexpected and unsolicited by me.''
Indeed, I knew nothing of it until the other morning, when
Dean Milman, in inviting me to breakfast, congratulated me.
When I went there I told him there must be some mistake,
but on returning to my house I found the official communica
tion. The only thing I have to add to Lily's account is a
' He, with his wife and eldest Westminster) and of his sister Miss
daughter, were the guests of Rev. Stanley.
Arthur Stanley (afterwards Dean of

I860.] OXFORD COMMEMORATION. 345
slight allusion to the absurd figure the Doctors cut walking
gravely through the streets.
" A Ion? red gown, well brushed and neat.
We manfully did throw "
over the customary suit of solemn black, and thtn with a vast
black velvet machine on the head, something between the
Doge of Venice's cap and a large coal scuttle, we proceeded
through the rain Avith as much solemnity as if we were not the
most absurd caricature in the world. And the best of it was,
that even the street boys, who I supposed would receive us
with jeers and chaff, were evidently very much in awe of us.
Nothing could be more absurd than old Brougham's figure,
long and gaunt, with snow-white hair under the great black
porringer, and with his wonderful nose Avagging lithely from
side to side as he hitched up his red petticoats and stalked
through the mud. Three of the new-made Doctors were
very distinguished personages — Lord Brougham, Sir Eichard
BethcU (the Attorney-General), and Leopold MacClintock.
The other three — viz., Swedish envoy. Platen, Count Strzelecki,
and the humble Avriter of this note — were much less known to
fame. You would know that I am not writing this out of mock
modesty, even if I were capable of such an affectation, if you
could have heard the tempest of cheers and' hand-clapping
that greeted Brougham and MacClintock. The others crept
in under a very mild expression of approbation from the gods
in the gallery — videlicet the undergraduates — who from time
immemorial make this a kind of " nigger's holiday," and
indulge themselves in all the chaff they can manufacture.
I regretted very much that the weather was so bad that we
could see nothing of Oxford to any advantage. I Avas also
sorry that on the Commemoration Day we lunched in Univer
sity Hall rather than in All Souls', where we were also expected,
because All Souls' was founded by Archbishop Chicheley, in
the reign of Henry VL, of a Northampton family, of Avhich
your grandfather Checkley was no doubt descended. Until
very recently, any one proving kindred with the old arch
bishop might have claimed free instruction at his college, so
that I might have been educated at All Souls' at small expense,

346 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII.
but the privilege is now done away with. I leave to Lily the
task of chronicling our movements, as she does it, I think, very
well indeed, and is fond of writing letters, while I, on the con
trary, am so fearfully driven for time, being hard at work
eight hours a day, when I can secure myself against interrup
tion, that I must confine myself, until my volumes are done,
to very brief notes. Ever your most affectionate son,
J. L. M.

From Lady Dufferin to Hon. Mrs. Norton.^
Dear Car, — Eefuges have been erected at all the expoged
parts of the road, pattens are provided for entering the dining-
room ; water souches and flounders will be the staple of the
repast, with ducks, snipes, and other water birds. Beds —
water beds — are provided for belated travellers ; in short, every
aqueus comfort that can be expected.
" Come unto these yellow sands." Three beaux await the
fair Lily, who must be a water-lily for the nonce, and a warm
welcome for the rest. I trust we shall be able to keep our
heads above water, and have no doubt the little aquatic party
will get on swimmingly.
Seriously, you will all be very welcome ; and what signifies
the weather to determined souls in waterproof soles ?
Your affectionate Naiad,
H. D.
To Ms Mother. Dufferin Lodge, Highgate.
August nth, 1860.
My DEAREST Mother,— It gave me the greatest delight to
receive once more a letter from you, and although you do not
speak of your health in quite as satisfactory language as I had
hoped, I cannot doubt that the Nahant air has been rapidly
bringing you up beyond the former level. The governor, in
' Who was engaged to dine, as well proved so wet that a note was dis-
as Mr., Mrs., and Miss Motley, at patched to know if the guests were
Duff'enn Lodge, Highgate. The day still expected.

I860.] LADY DUFFERIN. 347
his last letter, spoke of you in such sanguine terms that I can
not help feeling entirely encouraged about you. We have
been here at this pretty villa more than a week. I do not know
whether any of us have ever mentioned that we were coming
here. I found myself a little run down at the fag end of the
season, for I have been very hard at work; and so Lady
Dufferin, who is the most kind-hearted and amiable and
accomplished woman in the world, insisted on our all coining
here to make a visit of a week or two. Little Mary, who
was also rather poorly, has picked up wonderfully in the few
days that we have spent here. We return to town to-morrow,
and have hardly time to get ready for our intended visit to
Scotland. We have a great many invitations to country
houses — I hardly know how many we shall be able to accept
— but our head-quarters will be Keir, the place of my parti
cular friend Stirling. His works you are acquainted with, I
know. He is a most accomplished Avriter, a good speaker in
Parliament, and the most genial and delightful of companions.
His fortune is large, and his family very ancient and distin
guished. You will find his place mentioned in the ' Lady of
the Lake,' in the description of FitzJames's rapid ride after
the combat with Eoderick Dhu —
" They saw just glance and disappear
The lofty brow of ancient Keir."
Our old friends, the Misses Forbes, are going to have the
children for a visit to Aberdeen, which they will enjoy very
much, and meantime Ave can make our visits and excursions.
Lady Dufferin herself went yesterday to Ostend, whither
she was summoned to make her friend, the Prince Eegent of
Prussia, a visit ; and she only would go on condition that we
would stay on making use of her establishment here as long
as we could. There is too great a blank left, however, by her
departure, and we shall leave to-morrow morning. Her son.
Lord Dufferin, has gone to Syria as British Commissioner, and
_ she is in great anxiety for fear he should catch the fever, which
prevails there at this season. He is very amiable, accom
plished, and good-looking, and in every respect worthy to be
son to such a mother. You know, of course, that Lady Duf-

348 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII.
ferin is sister to Mrs. Norton. The other sister, the Duchess
of Somerset, has been kind enough to invite us to a wedding
which is to take place on the 25th of this month in church,
with the breakfast afterwards at her house, thinking that we
might like to see an English wedding. The couple to be
married are a very pretty Miss Graham with a young officer
named Baring.
I feel that I am writing a very stupid letter, but in truth I
have got very much out of the way of writing anything but
history. I feel rather anxious about my ncAV volumes, and for
this reason. When I handed in my MS. to Murray some two
or three months ago, I called it, and supposed it. Volume I. ;
but to my horror, I found that it would make two large volumes.
Now the time covered is so short, although it is a most im
portant epoch, I thought it even rather too brief for one
volume. Of course, therefore, the objection is double for two.
However, if the matter seems only one-tenth part as interest
ing to the reader as it did to me when writing, he will not
quarrel with the slow movement in point of time. I can hardly
noAV understand how I managed to write so much, for I have
j ust calculated that I was exactly ten months and a half writing
the whole, which is rather rapid work for two octavo volumes.
It is true that from November 1858, when I began to write,
till May 1860, when the book was finished, are eighteen
months ; but I lost the whole period from May 1859 to
November in travelling and loafing. You must not think,
however, that I have written in a hurry, for I have not done
so at all, and I am only surprised that what I thought one
volume has turned out two.
The remainder of the work will be about as much more,
namely, two volumes, but they will go over six times as much
ground. I hope that you have had better weather than ours. I never
knew that such a summer could be as this has been. Literally
and honestly, I do not think we have had three really fine
days since the 1st of May, and not one hot, or even warm, day.
V/e never think of sunshine any more than if such an article
did not exist, as it rains regularly every day. The possibility

I860.] LORD DE GREY. 349
of such a season is certainly a great set-off to the certainty
that Ave can never have one of our horrible winters. A New
England winter and an Old England summer, such as this has
been, would bring the world to an end very soon.
I am always most affectionately yours,
J. L. M.

To his Mother.

Studley Royal, Ripon,
September 21th, 18G0.
My dearest Mother, — I am going to take advantage of
your permission to write you a little note instead of a long
letter, for which it seems to me that I never shall find time.
It is no joke to do what I am now doing, namely, making a
tour of country visits and correcting the sheets of two great
octavo volumes while on the road. I am pursued by printer's
devils at every turn and by every post, so that my holiday is
not a pure and absolute one as you may suppose, and Avhen I
get back to London my hard labour will begin afresh, for there
are two more volumes unwritten, which must be finished as
soon as possible. It was a very great pleasure to us all to see
Tom, and to have such fresh and delightful news of you — for
he reports you as in better health than for some years.
We came to this place the day before yesterday.
Lord de Grey is a young man, one of the rising politicians
of England. He was in the House of Commons as Lord
Goderich when I first knew him two years ago, but since
then he has succeeded to the earldoms of Eipon and de
Grey by the deaths of his father and uncle, and he is now
of course in the House of Peers. He is Under-Secretary for
War, and he is a hard-working public man, and a most amiable
and agreeable companion. His wife is most charming and
fascinating, very pretty, very gentle, and very amiable, a
great favourite in London society. This place, Studley, is a
large house, the park of 400 acres is very magnificent, and the
deer swarm about it in every direction. They have become

350 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Ch.ap. XIL
SO familiar, however, as hardly to seem like wild animals,
and like the beasts roaming over the plain commemorated
by Mr. Selkirk— " Their lameness is shocking to me.''
The crowning glory of the place, however, is Fountain's
Abbey. I do not know whether you ever heard of it, and I
doubt whether it is as famous as Melrose or Tintern ; but I
suspect that it is the first ecclesiastical ruin in the world.
It stands in the most beautiful part of Lord de Grey's park,
and is very extensive. The tall tower, looking at a little dis
tance as if belonging to a cathedral, is still in good preserva
tion, but as you come nearer you find that all the rest of the
spacious church is a mass of most picturesque ruin, with large
trees growing in the nave, and ivy and wild-flowers festooning
the old Norman pillars and the beautiful lancet-shaped
windows. The cloisters are very extensive, and still preserve
their roofs, so that you walk through their whole range and
look out through the Avindows at a beautiful stream which
murmurs along among the ruins, and at tAvilight or moonlight
it would not require a violent imagination to picture the
forms of hooded monks stalking through the cloisters, or to
hear a midnight mass pealing from the ruined choir of the
beautiful chapel. Descriptions of buildings and scenery are a
bore, so I shall say nothing further of this exquisite ruin, save
to repeat that it is far the most impressive one that I have
ever seen, and much more beautiful than Melrose Abbey. We
have a small but pleasant party here. The father and mother
of Lady de Grey, Mr. and Lady Mary Vyner, Mr. Sidney
Herbert (the Minister of War), and his very pretty wife,
Mrs. Hughes, wife of Tom Hughes, author of ' Tom Brown's
Schooldays,' and a most excellent fellow, A\'ho I am sorry to
say is only coming when we are going, and one or two others.
Mr. Herbert is one of the most distinguished persons in
Lonaon, being very handsome, with considerable talents, of
famous lineage, as he is a descendant of the family which
numbers Sir Philip Sidney among their illustrations. He is
himself brother and heir to the present Earl of Pembroke.

I860.] SCOTLAND. 351
We leave this I suppose on Saturday (day after to-morrow)
for Keir, whore we shall stop a day, and on Monday we go to
Aberdeen, where Mary and Susie are passing the time of our
absence in the house of our excellent friends, the Miss Forbes's,
of wham you have often heard us speak, and they have been
making several visits among the friends of that family, and
passing their time very agreeably.
Our house in Hertford Street, which I have taken on for six
months, is small, but very neat and clean, and sufficiently
comfortable, and my books and papers are all ready in my
library, which is a satisfactory room enough, commanding an
uninterrupted view of the water-butt and the dead Avail of an
adjacent house, but perfectly quiet and retired. This is a
wretched little letter, my dear mother, but it will serve to
express my affection for you, and my delight to hear that your
health is so much improved. Your ever affectionate son,
J. L. M.

To Ms Mother. Taymouth Castle,
October 2Sth, 1S60.
My dearest Mother, — I am ashamed to think how long it
is since I have written to you. . . . You may imagine, how
ever, that letter-writing — even to you — has been an absolute
impossibility. And- even now I am only sending you a little
note — no more — only for the pleasure of talking to you for
the moment, and sending you my warmest greetings of affec
tion not in the shape of writing anything worth the trouble of
reading. Most unluckily, too, I have taken up my headaches
again, and have been and am still enduring one unceasing
one of four days and nights long. After having, as I
thought; entirely distanced them, I am much disappointed.
I think Lily has written to you a pretty full account of our
journeyings. At Keir we have been several times. We
passed a week in the wildest part of the Highlands, at a
place called Glen Quoich, the property of Mr. Ellice, an old

352 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII.
gentleman much known in the world of London, once a Cabinet
Minister and still in Parliament, and as vigorous and active
almost as Lord Palmerston, at almost the same age, seventy-
six. He Avent to America two years i|go (where both in New
York and Canada he is a large landowner), and returned
extremely delighted with everything he saAv and heard in our
country. His place in the Highlands he has created out of
the wilderness during the last twenty years. His estate runs
thirty miles long, through mountain, ravine, torrent, waterfall,
deer forest, and lonely rocks, and his house is the only habita
tion, except the cabins of some of his own people, for miles
and miles around. The house stands on the very edge of the
wild Loch Quoich, surrounded by purple mountains on all
sides. Beyond that lake is a magnificent sea inlet called
Loch Hourn, hemmed in by precipitous crags, some of the
more distant ones 3000 or 4000 feet high, Avith the heights of
the Isle of Sky e in the background. At the time of our visit, the
second week in October, the mountains were all covered nearly
to their base with new fallen snow, so that the scenery had an
almost Alpine expression, and as the outlines are always bold and
picturesque, the views were certainly of a very noble character.
The company Avas not a very large one. Many members of
his family, Mrs. Ellice, his son's wife, who is a most delightful
person, full of talent and amiable qualities, singing like a
nightingale, and painting portraits or caricatures or scenery
like a professional artist. Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe, the
ancient Ambassador in Turkey, with his wife and daughters,
the young Chief of Lochiel, and a few others. In spite of
rain, sleet, and snow, walked, drove, and fished, and were very^
sorry when our visit came to an end.
We afterwards passed a few days very pleasantly at Inve
raray Castle, the seat of the Duke of Argyll. This is a great
turreted building, standing near Loch Fyne on the Avest coast,
surrounded by very grand scenery of cliff, wood, and water.
The present head of all the Campbells, the MacCallum More,
is comparatively young, about thirty-seven, handsome, with
very Scottish golden locks. He is a member of the present
Cabinet, is very clever, cultivated, a good speaker, an excel-

I860.] TAYMOUTH CASTLE. 353
lent man of affairs, and very agreeable. The Duchess, who is
daughter to the Duchess of Sutherland, is gentle, amiable, and
very cultivated and attractive. They have a quiver full of
children to the numbar of eleven. We passed a few days
rather quietly, but much to our satisfaction.
We have now been spending a week at this magnificent
place, one of the most princely establishments in the kingdom,
Taymouth Castle, the seat of the Marquis of Breadalbane.
The house stands on the Tay, a dark, transparent, rapidly
rolling river, which flows out from Loch Tay, about two miles
off. The position is very beautiful, but perhaps in some degree
melancholy, as the house and pleasure-grounds are a little too
much shut in by the mountains like the happy valley of
Easselas. There is a Avalk along the Tay on both sides, under
magnificent beeches two or three miles long, with the most
velvety laAvn under foot, which is one of the most beautiful
things I ever saw. Nothing can be imagined much more
agreeable than these scenes, where a beautiful Nature has been
assisted to decorate itself by the hands of Art and intelligent
wealth. Lord Breadalbane is the chief of another branch of
the great Campbell family. He is about sixty-eight years of
age, the most amiable, kind-hearted, and benevolent of men,
evidently taking the greatest delight in making other people
happy. The Marchioness is somewhat of an invalid, but is
very amiable, accomplished, and agreeable. There are several
very charming young girls in the house, especially two niece.s
of Lord Breadalbane, and other young people, so that there are
always pleasant excursions all day long, and in the evening,
after the magnificent dinner (which is always like a royal en
tertainment in a splendid hall, a table blazing Avith silver and
gold, with bag-pipes blowing martial airs in alternation with
a band of music), comes dancing till after midnight, reels ami
flings, and strathspeys and Eoger de Coverleys. Last night
several of the young men Avere in Highland costume, dancing
as only Scotchmen can, or do. It has been a very pleasant
week for Lily and for Mary. As for myself, I should have
enjoyed myself better if I had not been tormented Avith this
horrible headache, Avhich still continues, and which must be
VOL. I. 2 A

354 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XII,
my excuse for the fearful stupidity of this letter. A hundred
pages of uncorrected proofs lie glaring at me in my dressing-
room ; but I am absolutely incapable of reading, and I am
afraid that there will be some delay in the book if my head
will not stop. Good-bye, my dearest mother. I promise
faithfully to write again very soon, for before a great while
the printer's devils will have ceased for a while to torment
me. Ever your most affectionate son,
J. L. M.

To Ms Mother.

31, Hertford Street,
November 19th, 1860.
My dearest Mother, — Your kind letter of 22nd October
reached me a few days ago, and gave me, as your letters
always do, very great pleasure. As to the governor, he seems
to grow younger every day, and I am sure that I should not
have been up to dancing all night till five o'clock, and then
getting to breakfast in the country by 8.30.
The Prince of Wales has returned, after a passage of twenty-
eight days, safe and sound. I met him at dinner at Oxford
just before he sailed, as I think I mentioned to you. I am told
that the Queen is much pleased with the enthusiasm created
in America by his visit. I am sure that she has reason to be,
and all good Englishmen rejoice in it. It was certainly a
magnificent demonstration of the genuine and hearty good
feeling that exists between the two great branches of the
Anglo-Saxon race, and I read the long accounts given in the
Times by the special correspondent of his reception in New
York and Boston with the greatest pleasure.
I am very sorry that I cannot exchange congratulations with
the governor on the subject of the Presidential election.^ The
account has this instant reached us by telegraph, and although
I have felt little doubt as to the result for months past, and
Tom will tell you that I said so at Keir, yet as I was so
intensely anxious for the success of the Eepublican cause, I
' The first election of Lincoln.

I860.] PUBLICATION OF THE "UNITED NETHERLANDS." 355
was on tenterhooks till I actually knew the result. I rejoice
in the triumph at last of freedom over slavery more than I can
express. Thank God, it can no longer be said, after the great
verdict just pronounced, that the common law of my country
is slavery, and that the American flag carries slavery with it
wherever it goes 
To change the subject, you will be pleased to hear that
Mr. Murray had his annual trade sale dinner last Thursday
(15th). This is given by him in the City to the principal
London booksellers, and after a three-o'clock dinner, he offers
them his new publications. You will be glad to know that my
volumes^ quite took the lead, and that he disposed at once
of about 3000 copies. As he only intended to publish 2000,
you may suppose that he was agreeably disappointed. He
has now increased his edition to 4000, and expects to sell the
whole. After that he will sell a smaller and cheaper edition.
The work is, however, not yet published, nor will it be for
several weeks. I am very glad to hear that you are pleased with
the opening pages. The volumes have cost me quite as much
labour as the other work ; but, alas, I have no William of
Orange for a hero. I hope the governor will be pleased with
them. Ever most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

From M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire.
Paris, rue de I'Empereur, 51 (ancieu Montmartre),
25 decembre 1860.
Monsieur et tres honorable ami, — J'ai regu ces jours-ci
les deux volumes que vous avez bien voulu m'envoyer, et je
vous remercie de ce beau present. C'est une digne suite a
' L'Histoire de la Fondation de la Eepublique des Provinces-
Unies.' Je vous lirai avec le plus grand plaisir, et j'ai deja
vu avec un tres vif interet votre chapitre sur I'invincible
Armada. Je n'ai vu nuUe part un recit plus attachant ni
plus complet de cette abominable entreprise. Le portrait que
vous avez trace de Philippe II est aussi exact que le person-
' The first two volumes of the ' History of the Netherlands.'

356 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Cuap. XIL
nage est odieux. Je serai presque porte a croire que les
souvenirs, qui datent de 270 ans, ne laissent pas que d'avoir
aujourd'hui leur opportunite. Mais I'Angleterre ne se laissera
pas surprendre par une nouvelle Armada, ni par un nouveau
Philippe IL Le mouvement des volontaires atteste que la
nation est plus vigilante encore que son gouvernement. Je
crains que I'annee prochaine ne demontre la haute necessite
de cette vigilance.
II faut esperer que les dissensions qui agitent votre patrie
se calmeront bientot, et les dernieres nouvelles sent plus
favorables. II me semble, autant que j'en puis juger, que le
message de M. Buchanan offre un terrain d'assez facile con
ciliation, mais il faudrait, de part et d'autre, beaucoup de
sagesse et de prudence.
Nos amis les Mohl sont tres bien, ainsi que nos amis de
I'lnstitut. Votre bien devoue,
B"^- St. Hilaire.

From M. Guizot.

Paris, 52, Rue du Faubourg St. Honore,
7 Janvier 1861.
J'ai repu. Monsieur, les deux nouveaux volumes de votre
histoire des Provinces-Unies, et je vous remercie d'avance du
plaisir que j'aurai a vous lire; je suis siir que j'y trouverai
le memo esprit de philosophie chretienne et le memo talent
dramatique qui out assure a votre premier ouvrage un succes
si legitime et si general. Desirez-vous que ces deux volumes
soient traduits et publies en France comme les precedents?
Je ne veux faire, a ce sujet, aucune demarche avant de savoir
quelles sont vos intentions.
Je ne me promets pas de pouvoir vous lire tout de suite, an
milieu du bruit de Paris en hiver. Mais je retournerai a la
campagne des que le printemps reparaitra, et je reprendrai
la les lectures qui charment mes loisirs.
Eecevez, je vous prie. Monsieur, avec mes remerciments,
I'assurance de toute ma consideration et de mes sentiments les
plus distingues. Guizot.

CHAPTEE XIIL
THE CRISIS IN AMERICA.
The Slavery Question in America— A dangerous outlook— Letter from Dr. 0. W.
Holmes on the labours of an historian — The gathering storm — Literary
gossip from Boston— Publication and reception of the ' United Netherlands '
in America— The Secessionists and publio opinion in England— Charles
Dickens— Mr. Wilkie Collins— Letter from Mr. AV. E. Forster on the crisis in
America — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes— ' Elsie Venner' — Letter to tho
Duchess of Argyll on the American crisis — Mr. Motley goes to Boston — State
of public feeling — 5Ir. Motley's letter to the Times — Causes of the war — Bitter
feeling towards England — A "v/ar of principle" — Unanimous feeling through
out tho North — General Scott — His supposed plans — The army in camp —
Visit to Washington — Evacuation of Harper's Ferry — Gen. McClellan —
Disposition of the army round Washington — Lord Lyons — The Four Articles
of the Congress of Paris — Mr. Seward's negotiations with England — Abraham
Lincoln— England's policy — The blockade and the cotton crop — The Army
of the Potomac — Outpost skirmishes — Massing of troops — Arlington House
— Objects of the war misunderstood in England — Mr. Chase — Counter
revolution in Virginia and other States — The Slavery Question — England's
attitude — General McDowell — General Scott and his suborrlinates — Mr.
Montgomery Blair — Conversation with the President about England — The
President's Message. To his Mother. 31, Hertford Street,
February 9th, 1861.
My DEAREST Mother, .... I wrote you a long letter of
eight pages yesterday, and thsn tossed it into the fire,
because I found I had been talking of nothing but American
politics. Although this is a subject which, as you may sup
pose, occupies my mind almost exclusively for the time
being, yet you have enough of it at home, as before this
letter reaches you it will perhaps be decided whether there
is to be civil war, peaceable dissolution, or a patch up ; it is
idle for me to express any opinions on the subject. I do
little else but read American newspapers, and we wait with
extreme anxiety to know whether the pro-slavery party will

358 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIIL
be able to break up the whole compact at its own caprice, to
seize Washington, and prevent by force of arms the inaugura
tion of Lincoln. That event must necessarily be followed by
civil war, I should think. Otherwise, I suppose it may be
avoided. But whatever be the result, it is now proved beyond
all possibility of dispute that we never have had a government,
and that the much eulogised constitution of the United States
never was a constitution at all, for the triumphant secession
of the Southern States shows that we have only had a league
or treaty among two or three dozen petty sovereignties, each
of them insignificant in itself, but each having the power to
break up the whole compact at its own caprice. Whether the
separation takes place now,' or whether there is a patch up,
there is no escaping the conclusion that a government proved
to be incapable of protecting its own property and the honour
of its own flag is no government at all, and may fall to pieces
at any moment. The pretence of a people governing itself,
without the need of central force and a powerful army, is an
exploded fallacy which can never be revived. If there is a
compromise now, which seems possible enough, because the
Northern States are likely to give way, as they invariably
have done, to the bluster of the South, it will perhaps be the
North which will next try the secession dodge, when we find
ourselves engaged in a war with Spain for the possession of
Cuba, or with England on account of the reopened African
slave trade, either of which events are in the immediate future.
But I find myself getting constantly into this maelstrom of
American politics and must break off short.
I send you by this mail the London Times of the 7th of
February. Y^ou will find there (in the parliamentary reports)
a very interesting speech of Lord John Eussell ; but it will be
the more interesting to you because it contains a very hand
some compliment to me, and one that is very gratifying. 1
have not sent you the different papers in which my book has
been reviewed, excepting three consecutive Times, which con
tain a long' article. I suppose that ' Littell's Living Age '
reprints most of these notices. And the Edinburgh, Quarterly,
and Westminster Reviews (in each of whose January numbers the

1-861.] THE LABOURS OF AN HISTORIAN. 359
work has been reviewed) are, I know, immediately reprinted.
If you will let me know, however, what notices you haA'e seen,
I will send you the others in case you care for them.
We are going on rather quietly. We made pleasant country
visits at Sidney Herbert's, Lord Palmerston's, Lady Stanhope's,
Lord Ashburton's, but now the country season is pretty well
over, parliament opened, and the London season begun. I am
hard at work in the State Paper Office every day, but it will be
a good while before I can get to writing again.
I am most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.

From Dr. 0. W. Holmes.
Boston,
February 16th, 1861.
My DEAR Motley, — It is a pleasing coincidence for me
that the same papers which are just announcing your great
work are telling our little world that it can also purchase, if so
disposed, my modest two volume story. You must be having
a respite from labour. You will smile when I tell you that
I have my first vacation since you were with us — when was
it ? in '57 ? — but so it is. It scares me to look on your labours,
when I remember that I have thought it something to write
an article once a month for the Atlantic Monthly ; that is all
I have to show, or nearly all, for three and a half years, and
in the meantime you have erected your monument more
perennial than bronze in these two volumes of alto relievo.
I will not be envious, but I must wonder — wonder at the
mighty toils undergone to quarry the ore before the mould
could be shaped and the metal cast. I know you must meet
your signal and unchallenged success with little excitement,
for you know too well the price that has been paid for it.
A man does not give away the best years of a manhood like
yours without knowing that his planet has got to pay for his
outlay. You have won the name and fame you must have fore
seen were to be the accidents of your career. I hope, as you
partake the gale with your illustrious brethren, you are well
ballasted with those other accidents of successful authorship.

360 MOTLEY'S LETTERS, [Chap. XIIL
I am thankful for your sake that you are out of this
wretched country. There was never anything in our ex
perience that gave any idea of it before. Not that we have
had any material suffering as yet. Our factories have been
at work, and our dividends have been paid. Society — in
Boston, at least — has been nearly as gay as usual. I hud a
few thousand dollars to raise to pay for my house in Charles
Street, and sold my stocks for more than they cost me. We
have had predictions, to be sure, that New England was to
be left out in the cold if a new confederacy was formed, and
that the grass was to grow in the streets of Boston. But
prophets are at a terrible discount in these times, and, in
.^pite of their predictions, Merrimac sells at 1125. It is the
terrible uncertainty of everything — most of all the uncertainty
of opinion of men. I had almost said of principles. From
the impracticable Abolitionist, as bent on total separation
from the South as Carolina is on secession from the North,
to the Hunker, or Submissionist, or whatever you choose to
call the wretch who would sacrifice everything and beg the
South's pardon for offending it, you find all shades of opinion
in our streets. If Mr. Seward or Mr. Adams moves in favour
of compromise, the whole Eepublican party sways like a field of
grain before the breath of either of them. If Mr. Lincoln says
he shall execute the laws and collect the revenue though the
heavens cave in, the backs of the Eepublicans stiffen again, and
they take down the old revolutionary king's arms, and begin
to ask AA'hether they can be altered to carry minie bullets.
In the meantime, as you knoAv very Avell, a monstrous
conspiracy has been hatching for nobody knows how long,
barely defeated in its first great move by two occurrences —
Major Anderson's retreat to Fort Sumter, and the exposure
of the great defalcations. The expressions of popular opinion
in Virginia and Tennessee have encouraged greatly those
who hope for union on the basis of a compromise ; but this
evening's news seems to throw doubt on the possibility of the
North and the Border States ever coming to terms ; and I see
in this same evening's paper the threat thrown out that if
the Southern ports are blockaded, fifty regiments will be

1861.] BOSTON SOCIETY'. 361
set in motion for Washington ! Nobody knoAVS, everybody
guesses. Seward seems to be hopeful. I had a long talk Avith
Banks ; he fears the formation of a poAverful Southern military
empire, which will give us trouble. Mr. Adams predicts that
the Southern Confederacy will be an ignominious failure.
A Cincinnati pamphleteer, very sharp and knowing, shows
how pretty a quarrel they will soon get up among themselves.
There is no end to the shades of opinion. Nobody knows
where he stands but Wendell Phillips and his out-and-outers.
Before this political cataclysm we were all sailing on as
quietly and harmoniously as a crew of your good Dutchmen
in a treckschuyt. The Club has flourished greatly, and proved
to all of us a source of the greatest delight. I do not believe
there ever were such agreeable periodical meetings in Boston
as these we have had at Parker's. We have missed you, of
course, but your memory and your reputation were with us.
The magazine which you helped to give a start to has
prospered since its transfer to Ticknor and Fields. I suppose
they may make something directly by it, and as an adver
tising medium it is a source of great indirect benefit to them.
No doubt you will like to hear in a few words about its small
affairs. I don't believe that all the Oxfords and Institutes can
get the local recollections out of you. I suppose I have made
more money and reputation out of it than anybody else, on the
whole. I have written more than anybody else, at any rate.
Miss Prescott's stories have made her quite a name. Wentworth
Higginson's articles have also been very popular. Lowell's
critical articles and political ones are always full of point, but
he has been too busy as editor to write a great deal. As for
the reputations that were toutes faites, I don't know that they
have gained or lost a great deal by what their owners have
done for the Atlantic. But oh! such a belabouring as I
have had from the so-called " Evangelical " press for the last
two or three years, almost without intermission ! There must
be a great deal of weakness and rottenness when such extreme
bitterness is called out by such a good-natured person as I can
claim to be in print. It is a new experience to me, but is
made up by a great amount of sympathy from men and

362 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIIL
women, old and young, and such confidences and such senti
mental epanchements, that if my private correspondence is ever
aired, I shall pass for a more questionable personage than
my domestic record can show me to have been.
Come now, why should I talk to you of anything but yourself
and that wonderful career of well-deserved and hardly-won
success which you have been passing through since I waved my
handkerchief to you as you slid away from the wharf at East
Boston ? When you write to me, as you will one of these days,
I want to know how you feel about your new possession, a
European name. I should like very much, too, to hear some
thing of your everyday experiences of English life, — how
you like the different classes of English people you meet — the
scholars, the upper class, and the average folk that you may
have to deal with. You know that, to a Bostonian, there is
nothing like a Bostonian's impression of a new people or mode
of life. We all carry the Common in our heads as the unit of
space, the State House as the standard of architecture, and
measure off men in Edward Everetts as with a yard-stick. I
am ashamed to remember how many scrolls of half-an-hour's
scribblings we might have exchanged with pleasure on one side,
and very possibly with something of it on the other. I have
heard so much of Miss Lily's praises, that I should be almost
afraid of her if I did not feel sure that she would inherit a-
kindly feeling to her father and mother's old friend. Do
remember me to your children; and as for your wife, who
used to be Mary once, and I have always found it terribly
hard work to make anything else of, tell her how we all
long to see her good, kind face again. Give me some stray
half-hour, and believe me always your friend, 0. W. Holmes.

To his Mother. 31, Hertford Street,
March 15th, 1861.
My dearest Mother,—  It is not for want of
affection and interest, not from indolence, but I can hardly tell
you how difficult it is to me to write letters. I pass as much

1861.] PUBLICATION IN AMERICA. 363
of my time daily as I can at the State Paper Office, reading
hard in the old MSS. there for my future volumes ; and as the
hours are limited there to from ten till four, I am not really
master of my own time.
I am delighted to find that the success of the 'United
Netherlands ' gives you and my father so much pleasure. It is
by far the pleasantest reward for the hard work I have gone
through to think that the result has given you both so much
satisfaction. Not that I grudge the work, for, to say the truth,
1 could not exist without hard labour, and if I were com
pelled to be idle for the rest of my days, I should esteem
it the severest affliction possible.
My deepest regret is that my work should be for the present
on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Before leaving the subject
of the new volumes, I should like to say that I regret that no
one has sent me any of the numerous reviews and notices in
the American papers and magazines to which you allude. I
received a number of the Netv York Times from the governor,
and also the Courier, containing notices. The latter, A\'hich was
beautifully and sympathetically A\-ritten, I ascribed to Hillard's
pen, which I do not think I can mistake. If this be so, I hope
you will convey my best thanks to him.
These are the only two which have been sent to me, and it
is almost an impossibility for me to procure American news
papers here. Of course both Mary and Lily, as well as my
self, would be pleased to see such notices, and it seems so easy
to have a newspaper directed to 31, Hertford Street, Avith a
three cent stamp. Fortunately I recently subscribed to the
Atlantic Monthly, and so received the March number, in which
there is a most admirably written notice, although more
complimentary than I deserve. It is with great difficulty
that I can pick up anything of the sort, and I fear now that
as the time passes it will be difficult for me to receive them
from America.
The Harpers have not written to me, but I received a line
from Tom showing that the book was selling very well con
sidering the times. As to politics, I shall not say a word,
except that at this moment we are in profound ignorance as to

364 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIIL
what will be the policy of the new administration, how the
inauguration business went off, and what was the nature of
Mr. Lincoln's address, and how it was received, all which you
at home at this moment have known for eleven days. I own
that I can hardly see any medium between a distinct recogni
tion of the Southern Confederacy as an independent foreign
power, and a vigorous war to maintain the United States
Government throughout the whole country. But a war with
out an army means merely a general civil war, for the great
conspiracy to establish the Southern Eepublic, concocted for
twenty years, and brought to maturity by Mr. Buchanan's
Cabinet Ministers, has, by that wretched creature's connivance
and vacillation, obtained such consistency in these fatal three
months of interregnum as to make it formidable. The sym
pathy of foreign powers, and particularly of England, on which
the seceders so confidently relied to help them on in their
plot, has not been extended to them. I know on the very
highest authority and from repeated conversations that the
English Government looks with deepest regret on the dis
memberment of the great American Eepublic. There has
been no negotiation whatever up to this time of any kind,
secret or open, with the secessionists. This I was assured of
three or four days ago  At the same time I am obliged
to say that' there has been a change, a very great change, in
English sympathy since the passing of the Morrill Tariff Bill.
That measure has done more than any commissioner from the
Southern Eepublic could do to alienate the feelings of the
English public towards the United States, and they are much
more likely to recognise the Southern Confederacy at an early
day than they otherwise A\'ould have done. If the tariff people
had been acting in league with the secessionists to produce a
strong demonstration in Europe in favour of the dissolution of
the Union, they could not have managed better.
I hear that Lewis Staokpole is one of the most rising young
lawyers of the day, that he is very popular everywhere, thought
to have great talents for his profession, great industry, and
that he is sure to succeed. You may well suppose with how
much delight we hear such accounts of him.

1861.] CHARLES DICKENS. 365
My days are always spent in hard work, and as I never work
at night, going out to dinners and parties is an agreeable and
useful relaxation, and as I have the privilege of meeting often
many of the most eminent people of our times, I should be
very stupid if I did not avail myself of it ; and I am glad that
Lily has so good an opportunity of seeing much of the most
refined and agreeable society in the Avorld.
The only very distinguished literary person that I have
seen of late for the first time is Dickens. I met him last
week at a dinner at John Forster's. I had never even seen
him before, for he never goes now into fashionable company.
He looks about the age of Longfellow. His hair is not
much grizzled and is thick, although the crown of his head
is getting bald. His features are good, the nose rather high,
the eyes largish, greyish and very expressive. He wears
a moustache and beard, and dresses at dinner in exactly the
same uniform which every man in London or the civilised
Avorld is bound to wear, as much as the inmates of a peni
tentiary are restricted to theirs. I mention this because 1
had heard that he was odd and extravagant in his costume.
I liked him exceedingly. We sat next each other at table,
and I found him genial, sympathetic, agreeable, unaffected,
with plenty of light easy talk and touch-and-go fun without
any effort or humbug of any kind. He spoke with great
interest of many of his Boston friends, particularly of Long
fellow, Wendell Holmes, Felton, Sumner, and Tom Appleton.
I have got to the end of my paper, my dearest mother, and
so with love to the governor and A  , and all the family
great and small, I remain. Most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.
P.S. — I forgot to say that another of Forster's guests Avas
Wilkie Collins (the ' Woman in White's ' author). He is a
little man, with black hair, a large white forehead, large spec
tacles, and small features. He is very unaffected, vivacious,
and agreable.

366 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIIL

From Rt. Hon. W. E. Forster.
Burnley, near Otley,
March 30th, 1861.
My dear Mr. Motley, — I am very much obliged to you for
both your letters, and can assure you that they, especially the
longer one, will be of the greatest service to me, if I take part
in the debate on the 16th prox.
As I go up to London next Friday, and as I hope to see you
and talk the matter over fully betAveen then and the 16th, I
will do little more now than thank you.
So far as I can judge from the newspapers, the chances of
avoiding war increase. It seems to me Lincoln's policy is
shaping itself into first attempting, by refraining from hostile
measures, by keeping the door for return open on the one
hand, and by making their exclusion on the other as un
comfortable as possible, to get the seceding States back ; and
secondly, should this turn out to be impossible, to let them go
peaceably, straining every nerve to keep the Border States.
My great fear still is, lest the Eepublicans should, in order to
keep the Border States, compromise principle ; but as yet they
have stood as firm as one can reasonably expect.
You must excuse my saying that I do not agree with you
that supposing the Union patched up again, or the Border
Slave States left with the North, you will even then get
rid of the negro question. So long as the Free States re
main in union with Slave States, that question will every day
press more and more urgently for solution. Such union will
be impossible without a Fugitive Slave law, and any Fugitive
Slave law will become every day more and more impossible
to execute; and again, slave-holding in one State, with free
dom of speech and pen in the next State, will become more
and more untenable. I do not doubt, however, that the
question will, in case of the Border States being left by
themselves with the North, be solved by their freeing them
selves before long from their slave population, partly by sale
and partly by emancipation. Did I not think so, I would wish
them to join the South.

1861.] W. E. FORSTER ON 'THE CRISIS IN AMERICA. 367
As it is, however, unless the North degrades and enslaves
itself by concession of principle, the cause of freedom must
gain by present events, either in case of the cotton States re
turning, as they Avould have to do on Northern terms, or in
case of their going on by themselves, when they will be far less
powerful for harm than they were while backed by the whole
strength of the North. I am therefore most anxious that our
Government should not, as yet, recognise the South, not only
because I think a premature recognition Avould be an inter
ference in your affairs, and an interference most unjust and
unfriendly to the old Union — our ally, but because I think it
would strengthen the South, and so either tend to harden her
against concession to the North, or give her a fairer chance, and
therefore more power for evil in a separate start. Such recog
nition would also, I fear, do harm by making it less unlikely
for the seceding States to join the South. I thought I
ought to write this much in order to show you Avhy I feel so
interested in this matter ; but the best mode of meeting the
debate in the House must be left for consideration nearer the
time, when I hope to see you. Yours most faithfully,
W. E. Forster.

To Dr. 0. W. Holmes.

31, Hertford Street, Mayfair, W.
April 19th, 1861.
My dear Holmes, —  I did not wish to let this
steamer go without thanking you for your delightful letter
of 16th February. I wish I had deserved such a pleasure
as it gave me, or that at this moment I had entitled myself
to just such another at an early day. I can only promise
that I. will send another note on the heels of this one, and
thus give myself a better chance. I only desire at this
moment to tell you that I have read ' Elsie Venner.' I re
frained on purpose from reading it until it was all finished,
and then I gobbled it up at a single meal— so hungry was I

368 MOTLEY'S LETTERS, [Chap. XIIL
for the long deferred banquet. I assure you that I admire it
extremely. I was in some anxiety before I began, because I
knew that you had never written a novel before, and I felt
somehow as if you had announced yourself to come out as
Hamlet, or to walk over Niagara on a tight rope, or to do, in
short, some of those things by Avhich men achieve fame, but to
which they are apt to have apprenticed themselves in their
tender epochs. One ceases to suspect a man
" Cujus octavum trepidavit a:ta3
Claxidere lustrum "
of such romantic delinquencies as you have just committed —
w-ith even (shall w-e say it ?) an additional lustre or so to those
which Horace confesses. But fortunately your reputation has
gained infinite lustre by your crimes. Then I knew how hard
it was to write a novel. Hand inexpertus loquor. Did I not
have two novels killed under me (as Balzac phrases it) before
1 found that my place was among the sappers and miners and
not the lancers ? And was it not natural, having thus come
to grief in the bygone ages, that I should feel solicitous when
I saw you setting off on the- same career ?
But you have been perfectly successful. I assure you that the
interest is undying throughout the book — that the characters
are sharply and vigorously drawn and coloured — that the
scenery is fresh, picturesque, and poetical, and the dialogue,
particularly when it is earnest and thoughtful, is suggestive,
imaginative, and stimulating in the highest degree. As to the
mother-thought of the book, it is to me original, poetical, and
striking. I knew that there AAas no resemblance to ' Christabel';
but I had not read ' Lamia ' since college days. So after finish
ing ' Elsie ' I took up Keats and read the poem, but found no
resemblance w-hatever. There is a snake, to be sure, and so
there is in 'Paradise Lost,' and plenty in ' Virginia,' but none
AAith a family likeness. I took the deepest interest in Elsie,
and AA'as passionately in love with her myself, and could not
approve your excellent but somewhat calm-blooded Bernard
C. Langdon (I never will forgive you that "C") for not taking
the snake out of her heart and her to his bosom at that last
most touching appeal, ' Love me.' I thought of Eachel's

1861.] 'ELSIE VENNER.' 369
' M'aimes tu ?' as I saw her years ago as Thisbe in ' Angelo,'
which nobody but a Connecticut schoolmaster could have re
sisted, any more than your Elsie's despairing cry. Do not be
angry with me if I seem to underrate your hero. He has all
the necessary heroic New England romance, but he is perhaps
a little too poison proof and has too clear an eye to the main
chance to be much more interesting than all his family of
heroes. In truth I suspect it is only when the hero has a tragic ending,
like the Master of Eavenswood, that one cares very much about
him. If the Master had married the Lord Keeper's daughter,
and Sir William had come down with handsome settlements,
and the Master had grown opulent and fat, and repaired his
residence of Wolf's Crag, we should have found his slouched
hat and black feathers less exciting. On the other hand, you
have succeeded in inspiring a true and legitimate interest in
the school-mistress and her energetic and gentle life. The pure,
vaporous but still sufficiently definite shape comes and goes
like the true indigenous American angel— flitting through all
the book, and filling it with a health-giving atmosphere. I
did not mean to write a criticism on the book. You have
enough of that in the journals. But I feel that you will like
to hear me say how cordially I appreciate and how thoroughly
I have enjoyed it, as we do all. After all, the sympathy of so
old and true a friend as I claim to be will not be indifferent to
you, even though it blends with the general chorus of praise
which salutes you from all sides. The ' Autocrat ' has sold a
great deal here. Dickens told me he had read it through twice
— with great interest and admiration. He remembers you well,
and speaks of you as all who know you are prone to speak. He
promised to read ' Elsie Venner ' at once, and when I next see
him I will get him to tell me Avhat he thinks of it. I hope you
are not thinking hardly of me for not elaborately criticising
the. book. It is not from want of sympathy or admiration, but
from a momentary feeling of incompetency. Besides, a letter
should not be a newspaper notice. I read it through from
beginning to end in a single day and evening with unflagging
interest, and I read and re-read with increased delight the
VOL. I. 2 3

370 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap, XIIL
choice passages, and I consider it a most undeniably successful
novel  I am most sincerely yours, J. L. M.
P.S. — I wrote a note to Longfellow, acknowledging from
my heart the cordial greeting sent me by the Saturday Club.
I send another response by you, and pray give my love to them
one and all.

To ihe Duchess of Argyll. 31, Hertford Street, Mayfair,
May 16th, 1861.
My dear Duchess of Argyll, — I hope that you will kindly
accept the accompanying volumes, in memory of the delightful
days, during which we had the privilege of enjoying your
hospitality at Inverary.
You were my first reader, or rather my first and only listener,
for you may recollect that y^ou allowed me to read a chapter
from the proof sheets.
I have just taken the liberty of writing a hurried note to
the Duke. I do hope that you will use your influence to per
suade him and the English Government and all England, that
the cause of the United States Government is a righteous
cause ; that we are disappointed and mortified at the idea
that there should be any party in England, least of all in the
Liberal Government, who should look coldly on the chance of
our dismemberment, while we are struggling with the most
gigantic rebellion with which a civilized commonwealth was
ever called on to grapple. We are but in the beginning of
the conflict. Of course, we do not expect anything but
neutrality ; but why we are not as much entitled to moral
sympathy as Italy ever was, I cannot understand.
With the greatest regard.
Believe me, very faithfully yours,
J. L. Motley.

1S61.] VISIT TO AMERICA. 371

From Lord Lyndhurst. George Street, June 12th, 1861.
Dear Mr. Motley,— Will you do me the favour to dine
here on Thursday the 21st., and meet a countryman of ours,'^
at a quarter to eight o'clock ? Very faithfully yours,
Lyndhurst.

To Ms Wife and Daughters. Woodland Hill,
June lith, 1861.
My dearest Mary and dearest Darlings,— My note from
Halifax, with the announcement which you must have seen in
the papers, will have told you enough of my voyage.^ It was
a singularly favourable one, and we reached Boston Wednesday
morning at 8 o'clock. I found my dear mother looking not
worse than I had anticipated, but very feeble. She had had
an attack of neuralgic pain the day before, and was not able
to come out of her room. She was, however, pretty well the
next day, and is not very much changed in the face, although
she has evidently become more infirm.
My father seems a good deal older, but is very active and in
vigorous health. All the various members of the family are
very well. I walked out about eleven o'clock, and went first
to the State House to see Governor Andrew. He received me
with the greatest cordiality, I may say distinction, and thanked
me very Avarmly for my papers in the Times. I may as well
mention once for all, that not a single person of the numbers
with whom I have already spoken has omitted to say the same
thing. You know how enthusiastic our people are when
' Lord Lyndliurst was born in ing to follow him. His appointment
America in 1772, an English subject. to the post of U.S. Blinister to Austria,
' Mr. Motley's anxiety in this crisis which became vacant after his return,
of American affairs led to a sudden changed the plan.
visit to Boston, his family then expect-

372 MOTLEY'S LETTERS, [Chap. XIIL
pleased, and you can therefore imagine the earnest and per
haps somewhat exaggerated commendations which I receive.-^
The paper was at once copied bodily into the Boston and
NeAv York papers, with expressions of approbation, and I make
a point of stating this to you, both because I was myself sur
prised at the deep impression which the article seems to have
made here, and in order that you may let any of our English
friends who are interested, know that the position taken in
the article is precisely that Avhich is recognised by all men
throughout the Free States as the impregnable one in this
momentous conflict.
The reason why I am saying so much about it now, is simply
because it is the text, as it were, to all I have or probably shall
have to say on the subject of American politics in my letter to
you. Any one who supposes that this civil war is caused by
anything else than by an outrageous and unprovoked insur
rection against a constituted government, because that govern
ment had manifested its unequivocal intention to circumscribe
slavery, and prevent for ever its further extension on this con
tinent, is incapable of discussing the question at all, and is not
Avorth listening to. Therefore it is (and with deep regret I
say it), that there is so deep and intense a feeling of bitterness
and resentment towards England just now in Boston. Of
course I only speak of Boston, because having been here but
tAVO days, I have as yet taken no wider views, and I intend,
Avhen I write, to speak only of that " which I do know." The
most Avarm-hearted, England-loving men in thisEngland-loving
part of the country are full of sorrow- at the attitude taken
up by England. It would be difficult to exaggerate the
poisonous effects produced by the long-continued, stinging,
hostile articles in the Times. The declaration of Lord John
Eussell, that the Southern privateers were to be considered
belligerents, was received, as I knew and said it Avould be, with
great indignation. Especially the precedent cited of Greece
1 At the beginning of the Civil War, struggle. There was so much misun-
Blr. Motley wrote an elaborate letter to derstanding upon tbe subject that the
the Loudon Times, explaining clearly letter was of the greatest service. It
-ind comprehensively the nature of the was republished in the United States,
union and the actual causes of the and universally read and approved.

1861.] A WAR OF PRINCIPLE. 373
Struggling against Turkey, to justify, as it were, before England
and the world, the South struggling against the United States
GoA'ernment. This then is the value, men say to me every
moment, of the anti-slavery sentiment of England, of which she
has boasted so much to mankind. This is the end of all the
taunts and reproaches which she has flung at the United States
Government— for being perpetually controlled by the slavery
power, and for allowing its policy to be constantly directed
towards extending that institution.
Now that we have overthrown that party, and now that we
are struggling to maintain our national existence, and with
it, liberty, law, and civilization, against the insurrection
which that overthrow has excited, we are treated to the cold
shoulder of the mother country, quite as decidedly as if she
had never had an opinion or a sentiment on the subject of
slavery, and as if the greatest ivar of principle which has
been waged in this generation at least Avas of no more in
terest to her, except as it bore on the cotton question, than
the wretched squabbles of Mexico or South America. The
ignorance, assumed or actual, of the nature of our constitu
tion, and the coolness Avith Avhich public speakers and writers
have talked about the Southern States and the Northern
States, as if all were equally wrong, or equally right, and as
if there had never been such a State in existence as the one
which the Queen on her throne not long ago designated as the
" great Eepublic," has been the source of surprise, disappoint
ment, and mortification to all. Men say to me. We did not
wish England to lift a little finger to help us — we are not
Austria calling in Eussia to put doAvn our insurrections for us
— but Ave have looked in vain for any noble words of en
couragement and sympathy. We thought that some voice,
even of men in office, or of men in opposition, might have been
heard to say. We are sorry for you, you are passing through a
terrible ordeal, but we feel that you are risking your fortunes
and your lives for a noble cause, that the conflict has been
forced upon you, that you could not recede without becoming
a by-word of scorn among the nations ; our hands are tied —
we must be neutral in action — you must fight the fight your-

374 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIIL
self, and you would be ashamed to accept assistance ; but our
hearts are with you, and God defend the right. But of all this
there is not a word.
.... Now it is superfluous for me to say to you that I am
not expressing my own opinions in what I am writing. In
my character of your own correspondent, I am chronicling
accurately my first impressions on arriving here. You see
that the language I hear does not vary so much in character
as in intensity from that which I haVe used myself on all
occasions in England to our friends there. But the intensity
makes a great difference, and I am doing my best, making
use of whatever influence and whatever eloquence I possess,
to combat this irritation towards England, and to bring about,
if I can, a restoration of the old kindliness.
You cannot suppose that I am yet in condition to give you
much information as to facts. One thing, however, is certain,
there is no difference of opinion here. There is no such thing
as party. Nobody asks or cares whether his neighbour was a
republican, or democrat, or abolitionist. There is no very great
excitement now— simply because it is considered a settled
thing which it has entered into no man's head to doubt, that
this great rebellion is to be put down, whatever may be the
cost of life and treasure it may entail. We do hot know what
General Scott's plan is, but every one has implicit confidence
in his capacity, and it is known that he has matured a scheme
on a most extensive scale. There are now in Washington and
Maryland, or within twelve hours' march of them, about 80,000
Union troops. There are, including these, 240,000 enrolled and
drilling and soon to be ready. The idea seems to be, that a
firm grasp will be kept upon Maryland, Washington, Western
Virginia — and that Harper's Ferry, Eichmond, and Norfolk,
Avill be captured this summer — that after the frosts of October,
vast columns of men Avill be sent down the Mississippi, and
along it, co-operating Avith others to be sent by sea ; that New
Orleans will be occupied, and that thus with all the ports
blockaded, and a " cordon " of men hemming them in along
the border of the middle States, the rebellion will be suffocated
Avith the least possible effusion of blood. Of course there will

1861.] WARLIKE PREPARATIONS. 375
be terrible fighting in Virginia this summer, and I am by no
means confident that we shall not sustain reverses at first, for
the rebels have had longer time to prepare than we, and they
are desperate. General Scott promises to finish the war
triumphantly before the second frost, unless England interferes.
This Avas his language to the man who told me.
You see that it was no nightmare of mine, this possibility of
a war with England. General Scott loves and admires Eng
land, but there is a feeling in Washington that she intends
to recognise the Southern Confederacy. This would be con
sidered by our Government, under the present circumstances,
as a declaration of war— and war we' should have, even if it
brought disaster and destruction upon us. But I have little
fear of such a result. I tell CA'ery one what is my profound con
viction, that England will never recognise the " Confederacy "
until the de facto question is placed beyond all doubt, and
until her recognition is a matter of absolute necessity. I
have much reliance on Forster. I know that his speech will
do infinite good, and I dojibt not that Buxton will be warm
and, zealous. I hope that Milnes and Stirling will keep their
promise ; but what nonsense it is for me to tell of what you
know already, and what I shall know in a few days.
Yesterday afternoon I came out here to stop for a couple of
nights. My first object was to visit Camp Andrew. This is
the old Brook farm, the scene of Hawthorne's 'Blithedale
Eomance,' and his original and subtle genius might, I should
think, devise a new romance out of the VAonderful transforma
tion effected now in that locality.
Five regiments, in capital condition, have already gone
from Massachusetts to the seat of war — being, as you know,
the very first to respond to the President's summons. We
have more enlisted for the war, which are nearly ready to
move, and will have their marching orders within a fortnight.
Of these, the crack one is Gordon's regiment — the Massa
chusetts Second. Lawrence Motley is one of the first lieu
tenants in this corps, and you would be as pleased as I was, to
see what a handsome, soldierly fellow he is. And there is no
boy's play before his regiment, for it is the favourite one.

376 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIIL
All the officers are of the jeunesse doree of Boston — Wilder
Dwight, young Quincy, Harry Eussell, Bob Shaw, Harry
Higginson, of Dresden memory, and others Avhose names would
be familiar to you, are there, and their souls are in their work.
No one doubts that the cause is a noble and a holy one ; and
it is certainly my deliberate opinion that there Avas never a
war more justifiable and more inevitable in history.
We went to the camp to see the parade. To my unsophisti
cated eye there was little difference between these young
volunteers and regular soldiers. But of course, my opinion is
of little worth in such matters. I had a good deal of talk
with Colonel Gordon. He is about thirty, I should think.
He graduated first in his class at West Point— served through
the Mexican War, and is, I should think, an excellent soldier.
He is very handsome, very calm and gentle in manner, with a
determined eye. You will Avatch, after this, Avith especial
interest the career of the Massachusetts Second.
.... Gordon's regiment will, it is hoped, be taken into the
permanent service, after the war, as the regular army must
always be on a much larger scale than before. In that case,
these officers Avill have a profession, which has been one of
the great wants for young men of rich families in our part of
the country.
I am noAv going into town, when I shall post this letter, and
order your Boston newspaper. No event has taken place, of
any very great moment, since I left you. General Scott, I
am very glad to say, is in no hurry. He is too old a campaigner
and strategist to wish to go unprepared into petty conflicts to
furnish food for telegrams. The thing is to be done on a
great scale. There is no thought of peace, and there is a
settled conviction in the minds of the most pacific by nature,
that, even had the United States Government been base enough
to acknowledge the Southern Confederacy, it would necessarily
have been involved in war Avith it. There are at least half a
dozen casus belli, which, as betAveen two belligerent nations,
could only be settled by the sword, unless the North chose to
go on its knees, and accept the dictation of the South. There
is no need of saying more. The ]\Iississippi alone speaks war

1861.] AT WASHINGTON. 377
out of its many mouths. The Union hardly intended, when it
bought Louisiana and the Mississippi valley, in order to take
it from the control of one enemy, to make a present of it to
another and more bitter foe.
The girls here are all pretty and nice. N  sings very
well, with a fine, fresh, ringing voice, and gave me ' The Star-
spangled Banner ' last night, with great spirit.
God bless you all, dearest ones. I will write from Wash
ington. Ever most affectionately,
I shall go to see Mrs. Greene^ to-day, who is in town and
in good health. It was impossible for me to do so yesterday,
as I was detained by many visitors. Amory came almost the
first. He is delightful as ever, and sends his love to you.

To his Wife, Washington, June llth, 1861.
My dear Mary, — .... After being at home three days,
I left by the afternoon boat of Saturday, 15th, for New York,
where 1 was obliged to remain all Sunday till 6 p.m. I did
not find Mr. Grinnell, unluckily, who is out of town for the
summer. In the night I came on to Washington, reaching
here at six this morning. I went up to the State Department
in the forenoon, and had the merest moment of a conversation
with Mr. ScAvard, vA'ho begged me to come and dine a\ ith him
to-day at seven, and requested, as it was his despatch day, to
defer all further colloquy until then. I had afterwards a very
brief interview with the Secretary of War, Cameron, to whom
Governor Andrew begged me to give some infol-mation con
cerning Cobb's battery of flying artillery, which is of more
interest to the War Department than to you, so I will not
enlarge on that subject. I also introduced Tom, who had
something to communicate concerning Gordon's regiment;
' Sister to Lord Lyndhurst.

37S MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIIL
and the Secretary took occasion to say that Massachusetts —
and, indeed, all New England — did everything so well that
improvement seemed impossible, and that the country was
more indebted to it than could ever be repaid for its conduct
in the present crisis.
Afterwards I saw a small croAvd waiting on the pavement,
and Lee, who was aa ith us (and Avho, as you know, has a place
in the War Department), told me that they were A\'aiting to
see General Scott come out of his office. It reminded me
of the group I so often saw in Piccadilly vA'aiting to see Lord
Palmerston come out. We stood looking on, too, and very
soon he appeared. He has a fine soldierly, and yet benignant
countenance, very much resembling Dr. Eeynolds in face as
Avell as stature, and not seeming much older than he. Pre
sently Lee, who knows him very well, went up and mentioned
my name. He turned rcmnd with much vivacity, Avith his
hand stretched out very cordially, and expressed himself very
happy to make my acquaintance, being pleased to add that
my writings " were an honour to the age." Of course, I say
these little things to you because it will please you and the
children. He asked us to come and see him of an evening,
and I certainly shall do so as soon as possible.
No one here knows what the plans of the campaign are —
all is conjecture. You will see by the papers that go Avith
this that Harper's Ferry has just been evacuated by the rebels.
Those Avith whom I converse seem to imagine that the plan
is to strengthen and improve day by day the great national
army gradually surrounding the rebellion by an impenetrable
'- cordon," and thus compelling them, by sheer exhaustion, to
lay doAvn their arms before the close of a year. The blockade,
bankruptcy, and famine, it is thought, will be potent enough
Avithout many very severe pitched battles. The show of force
is already so imposing and so utterly beyond any previous
calculation of the rebels that they are thought to be rapidly
demoralizing, while, on the other hand, every day strengthens
the Government. There are at least 100,000 well-furnished
Government troops here and in the immediate neighbourhood,
or within twelve hours march, and they are coming daily.

18<51-] THE ARMY AT WASHINGTON. 379
The Government has plenty of money, plenty of men, and is
constantly improving its commissariat, and arranging all the
details of a great war. It has entered into no man's head that
the rebellion is not to be put down. I doubt not that the
English Government have been fully informed upon this point
now, for Avhen I expressed this sentiment just now to Lord
Lyons, he responded, " Certainly not ; it is only a question of
time." I went to see him after leaving Mr. Seward. In fact Seward
was kind enough to send me there in his carriage. I found
him little changed from the Dresden days, except that he has
grown stouter. He was very cordial, frank and friendly, and
we had a long and full conversation on American affairs. He
was himself sure that every thinking person in England would
deplore a rupture betAveen the two countries as a calamity too
painful to contemplate, and that all his efforts would be to
avert it.
There is a review of 8,000 Government troops on the sacred
soil of Virginia going on just now. General MacDow-ell
invited us to go. My dinner engagement prevents me, but
Tom has gone. The town is full of troops. A Massachusetts
regiment left Boston the day we did, and a Michigan regiment
arrived the same day. All are enlisted for the war just now.
There is no lack of good officers. McClellan, who commands
the Western Division, and is next to Scott, is very competent
to command the whole if anything should happen to the vete
ran. But of that there seems no fear. He looks vigorous,
healthful, and young. There seems nothing senile about him.
To-morrow we are going across the Potomac to see the en
campments, the fortifications, etc. Pay no heed to anything
you may see from time to time of intentions of the rebels to
attack Washington. They are as likely to attack Boston. The
thing I believe to be utterly out of the question. Although
Scott would like nothing better than that they should try
it on.
I dine with Lord Lyons to-morrow, and I dare say I shall
spend the rest of the week here. I have not quite decided
whether to go to Fortress Monroe or not, but probably shall

380 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIII.
do SO. Secretary Cameron has given us a pass recommending
us especially to the commander of troops, etc., etc. I may as
well repeat what I said in my last ; that here as in Boston
every one to whom I speak thanks me for the article in the
Times. Lord Lyons said it was considered the principal docu
ment in the whole affair, and the French Minister said the
same thing. Everybody says it has done much good, and it
most sincerely rejoices me to hear it.
June 18th, Tuesday morning, 7 a.m. — I continue my letter for
a moment before breakfast. We are going across the Potomac
at nine — Tom and I and the two Lees. I dined with Seward
entirely en famille, no one being present but his son and son's
wife. . . .
We had, among the first acts of the new anti-slavery ad
ministration, agreed to do, what we have been so freely
reproached for not doing, when our Government was controlled
by an administration of which Jefferson Davis was a member,
and we are met on the threshold by the declaration that his
invitation to pirates of all nations is sufficient to convert them
into good, honest belligerents.^
Had the English declaration been delayed a few weeks or
even days, I do not think it would ever have been made, and
I cannot help thinking that it was a most unfortunate mis
take. Nevertheless I am much less anxious about the rela
tions between our two countries than I was. Nobody really
wishes a rupture on either side, and I think that the natural
' Early in the administration of Mr. only upon a perfectly equal footing
Lincoln, the Government of the United with all the otlier parties. The Ame-
Stttes proposed to accede to the four rican Government was aggrieved by
articles in regard to maritime warfare the obstruction offered by Great Britain
adopted at the Congress of Paris in to its accession to the four articles,
1856. The British Government, how- especially as Great Britain was at the
ever, wished to state that by the time secretly proposing to the Con-
proposed convention for such acces- federate Government to accept but
sion Great Britain did not mean to three of them. The exequatur of tho
undertake any engagement bearing British Consul at Charleston, who had
upon the Civil War in America. The been the intermediary of the negotia-
President deciding that such a deela- lions of his Government with the Con-
ration was inadmissible, as the United federate authorities, was revoked by
States could accede to the Articles the President.

1861.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 381
love of justice and fair play which characterises England will
cause regret at the mistake which has been committed.
Moreover, there can hardly be much doubt, despite the mis
representations of an influential portion of the English press
and of some public men, that the English nation will under
stand the true position of the American Government in this
great crisis.
We have circumscribed slavery, and prevented for ever its
extension by one square inch on this continent, and at the
same time we mean to preserve our great republic one and
indivisible. It is impossible that so simple and noble a posi
tion as this should fail to awaken the earnest sympathy of
nine-tenths of the English nation. To the question AA'hether
the task is beyond our strength, I can only repeat that
General Scott — than whom a better strategist or a more lofty-
minded and honourable man does not exist — believes that he
can do it in a year ; and so far as I can make out his design,
it is by accumulating so much force and by making such
imposing demonstrations everywhere, as to convince the rebels
that their schemes — already proved to have been false in all
their calculations founded on co-operations in the Free States —
have become ridiculous. Thus without any very great effusion
of blood perhaps, the rebellion may be starved out and broken
to pieces. Mr. Seward says that the great cause of the revolt
is the utter misapprehension in the Slave States of the Northern
character. It has hitherto been impossible to make the sec
tions thoroughly acquainted with each other. Now they will
be brought together by the electric shock of war. And they
will learn to know each other thus, which is better than not
knowing each other at all — and so on. I give you a brief idea
of his schemes and hopes.
He read me a long despatch which he is sending to-day to
the French and English Governments. He did this of course
confidentially, and because, as he was pleased to say, I had
been fighting our battles so manfully in England, for he,
like every one else, praised warmly my Times' letter. I sup
pose ultimately this despatch will be published ; but I have
only room now to say that I think it unobjectionable in

382 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIII.
every way — dignified, reasonable, and not menacing, although
very decided. I said little in reply, and soon afterwards we
went to the White House, in order to fall upon Abraham's
bosom. I found the President better- and younger-looking
than his pictures. He is very dark and swarthy, and gives
me the idea of a very honest, confiding, unsophisticated man,
whose sincerity of purpose cannot be doubted. I will say
more of him in my next, for I am obliged to close sud
denly. By the way, let me correct one statement in another
part of my letter. Both the President and Seward tell me that,
in Scott's opinion, an attack by the rebels on the lines before
Washington is not impossible. It would be a desperate and
hopeless venture. Maryland has just gone for the Union by
a very large majority, electing all members of Congress.
Good-bye. God bless you and my darlings !
Ever your affectionate
J. L. M.

To Ms Wife. Washington, June 20th, 1861.
My DEAREST Mary, — I told you that I went with Seward
in the evening of Monday to see the President. He looks
younger than I expecte.d — less haggard than the pictures—
and on the Avhole, except for his height, which is two or
three inches above six feet, would not be remarked in any
way as ill- or well-looking. His conversation was common
place enough, and I can hardly remember a single word that
he said, except when we were talking — all three — about the
military plans in progress, he observed, not meaning anything
like an epigram, " Scott will not let us outsiders know any
thing of his plans." He seemed sincere and honest, however,
and steady, but of course it is quite out of the question for me
to hazard an opinion on so short an acquaintance as to his
moral or intellectual qualities.
Seward impresses me as being decidedly a man of intellect,
but seems an egotist. . . . There is no doubt whatever that

1861.] ENGEAND'S POLICY. 383
the early impressions of the Foreign Ministers here were favour
able to the success of the rebellion, and that these impressions
were conveyed to their Governments. Mercier, the French
Minister, was most deTiided in his views and his sympathies,
while Lord Lyons, calm and quiet as you know him to be, as
well as sagacious and right-minded, had also little doubt, I
suspect, six or seven weeks ago that the secession or revolution
was an accomplished fact. Hence the anxiety of their Govern
ments to be on good terms with the rebels, particularly after
the astounding misrepresentations of the Southern commis
sioners. It amuses Americans very much when I tell them
that the recognition of Mr. Adams was remonstrated against
by those individuals.
I dined with Lord Lyons yesterday, and M. Mercier Avas
there. Of course we spoke of little else but American affairs.
There is no need of quoting the conversation, but it is suffi
cient to say that little doubt seems now to exist in the minds
of either that the United States Government is sure to put
down this rebellion and remain a great power — greater than
ever before.
The encouragement which the rebels have derived from their
premature recognition which they have received as belligerents,
and still more by the exclusion of our ships of ivar as Avell as
their pirates from the English ports all over the loorld for the
purpose of bringing in prizes, Avhile on the contrary France
does not exclude our ships of war, but only privateers, has
already given the rebellion a new lease of life. Still more per
nicious is the hope which is now entertained by the rebels, that
so soon as the new cotton crop is ready to come forward— say
in October — England will break up our blockade, and of course
become instantly involved in war with us. I refuse to contem
plate such a possibility. It would be madness on the part of
England, for at the very moment when it would ally itself
with the South against the United States, for the sake of sup
plying the English manufacturers with their cotton, there would
be a cry of tiventy millions as from one mouth for the instant
emancipation of all the slaves.
Nothing could resist that cry. The sentiment of the Free

384 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIII.
States would be more overwhelming even than its manifestation
so lately, which has surprised the world by the rising as it
were out of the earth in the brief space of six weeks, of a well
equipped and disciplined army of 250,000 men. The alliance
of England with the South for the sake of re-opening the
cotton ports would have for its instant result the total destruc
tion of the cotton interest. An invading army at half a dozen
different ports would proclaim the instant abolition of slavery.
There is not the slightest exaggeration in this. No logic
can be more inexorable, and the opinion is avowed on all
sides. To break our blockade for the sake of getting cotton for
Manchester, would lead to the total extermination of the cotton
crop for many a long year. No English statesman can be
blind to this, and therefore I do not fear any interference on
the part of England. The South, however, does expect such
interference, and will in consequence prolong its struggle a
little. I passed the whole of the day before yesterday on the other
side of the Potomac — the " sacred soil of Virginia." We hired
a carriage and took it on board a small steamer plying to
Alexandria. The sail for about half a dozen miles along the
broad, magnificent Potomac, under a cloudless sky, but pro
tected by an awning, was very pleasant. The heat is not exces
sive yet, and there is usually a good air stirring. The expanse
of hill and dale and the wooded heights which surround the
margin of the beautiful river make a delightful passage of
scenery. Alexandria, but lately a bustling tobacco port, is
now like a city of the dead so far as anything like traffic is
concerned. It is the head- quarters of General McDowell, an
experienced army officer, who commands all the Union troops
(some 25,000) in this part of Virginia.
We went to the Marshall House, the principal hotel of the
place, where, as I suppose you read in the papers. Colonel
Ellsworth of the New York Zouaves was killed. He had gone
in person to the top of the house to cut down a Secession flag,
and was coming down the stairs with it, when he was shot by
the master of the house, one Jackson, who in his turn was

I86I.] MASSING OF TROOPS. 385
instantly despatched "by a private in the regiment. Ellsworth
is much regretted as a young officer of great courage and irre
proachable character.
By the way, you should read in the Atlantic for June and
July a very spirited account of the march of the New York 7tli
to Washington. It was written by Major Winthrop of New
York, who was killed the other day in that unlucky and
blundering affair of General Pierce at Great Bethel. These
outpost skirmishes are of little consequence to their ultimate
results, but they serve to encourage the enemy a little. On
the other hand, they read a useful lesson to Government upon
the folly of appointing militia officers to high command when
there is no lack of able and experienced army officers. Of
these there are plenty, and no idea is more ridiculous than
that the South has got all the officers and all the military
material. The bone and sinew of the Free States are probably
the best raw material for troops in the world. General Scott
told me last night that the Massachusetts volunteers in a few
months would be equal to the best regulars. To an unsophisti
cated eye they are nearly so already.
A regiment marched into Washington yesterday morning —
the Massachusetts 1st — and A\ith their steady march, stout
frames, good equipments, and long train of baggage waggons,
drawn by admirable teams of horses, following them, they
looked very business-like, I assure you. And this regiment is
but a tenth part of the men whom Massachusetts has already
contributed. As for New York, I am afraid to say how many
are already here, and they are wonderfully well-drilled — at
least 20,000 — and they can send on as many more as can pos
sibly be required. The contention now among the States is to
get the largest proportion of their regiments accepted. The
manner in which these great armies have been so suddenly im
provised is astounding to foreigners. " C'est le pays des impro
visations," said Mr. Mercier to me yesterday. From Alex
andria we went on to Shuter's Hill, one of the heights
commanding Washington, where, under guidance of Colonel
Wright, the engineer who built the works, we examined the
very considerable fortifications which have been erected here.
VOL. I. 2 c

3S6 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XHL
It is very interesting to see the volunteers working with
pick and spade under the broiling sun of Virginia, without
complaint or inconvenience. They are men who have never
doubted that labour was honourable.
We afterwards went to Arlington House, formerly the seat
of Washington Custis, and now the property of General Lee.
He is an excellent officer, and was, before his defection, a
favourite of General Scott. The place has great natural
beauties of hill and dale, lawn and forest, and commands a
magnificent view of Washington .and the whole valley of the
Potomac ; but the house is mean. It is now the head-quarters
of General McDowell (I was Avrongin saying further back that
these were at Alexandria). Colonel Heintzelmann commands
there, and there ave some New York regiments encamped in
the grounds. I observed one alley through the tents had been
christened Fifth Avenue. The property is thoroughly re
spected, and the soldiers have even amused their leisure in
planting little gardens about their tents instead of destroying
or defacing anything.
Thus we passed the day in going about the lines from one
point to another, receiving explanations of everything from
most intelligent officers — generally of the regular army. The
works at the Tete du Pont, to defend the mile-long bridge which
crosses the Potomac from the Virginia side to Washington,
are very thorough, and the attempt upon Washington, if made,
must, I think, result in a total defeat. I passed an hour with
General Scott last night at his house in Washington. He tells
me still that he expects an attack daily along the whole line,
says that the rebels are perhaps in greater number than those
Avhich he has in the immediate neighbourhood, but that his are
much better troops. I could not make out that he had any
reasons to expect an attack, except upon the logical ground
that they must do it, or come to grief by remaining inactive.
They are poorly provisioned, impatient, and in danger of dis
banding. Meantime, Scott has secured Harper's Ferry, a most
important strategical position, without striking a blow. They
were forced to evacuate the place to escape being surrounded.
" Reste d savoir " how it A^'ill be at Manassas Junction. The

1861.] THE PURPOSE OF THE AVAR. 387
General pleases me exceedingly. He is in manner quiet, but
hale, vigorous, and full of energy, and has no doubt whatever of
bringing the whole matter to a happy issue within a reasonable
time. But the things Avhich annoy him most are the lying
telegrams of the noAvspapers and the general impatience of
outsiders. I spent an hour and a half with Seward last even
ing, and afterwards called at the White House on Mrs. Lincoln.
She is rather nice-looking, youngish, Avith very round white
arms, well dressed, chatty enough, and if she would not, like
all the South and West, say " Sir " to you every instant, as if
you were a royal personage, she would be quite agreeable.
Woodland Hill,
June 23rd, 1861.
T continue my letter interrupted at Washington. Thursday
evening I passed with Mr. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury,
the hardest worked man, except Mr. Cameron, just now in
Washington. He is a tall, well-made, robust man, with hand
some features, fine blue eye, and a ready and agreeable smile
— altogether " simpatico." The conversation, of course, turned
very much upon our English relations, and I told him I would
stake my reputation on the assertion that the English Govern
ment would never ally itself with the Southern Confederacy,
or go any further in the course already taken towards its
recognition. I said that I had been over and over again
assured, by those in whom I had entire confidence, that the
sympathy of the English nation was with the American cause,
but that it was exceedingly difficult to make the English
understand that which to us was so self-evident a proposition,
that we meant two things— first, to put an end for ever to
slavery extension and the nationalisation of slavery ; secondly,
to maintain the constitution and laws of the Great Eepublic
one and indivisible ; that war was not contemplated as possible
between the two countries, except by a small and mischievous
faction in England.
Mr. Chase is a frank, sincere, warm-hearted man, who has
always cordially detested slavery and loved the American
consritution as the great charter of American liberty and

388 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIII,
nationality. Like every man, public or private, throughout
the Free States, he is convinced of the simple truth that the
constitutional union of the whole people is all which guaran
tees to each individual the possession of his life and property,
because it is the basis of all our laws. Destroy this, and
anarchy and civil war are the inevitable results. He ex
pressed a most undoubting conviction that the rebellion
would be put down and the Union restored. It was not of
much consequence who was in power — who occupied this or
that office. The people was resolved that it would not be dis
inherited of its constitution and its national life, nor of the
right possessed by every individual in the country to set his
foot at will on any part of the whole broad country of the
United States. It was as idle to attempt resistance to the
great elemental forces of nature as to oppose this movement.
The people Avould put down the rebellion without a govern
ment, were it necessary. In six weeks an army of 250,000
men had been put into the field, armed and equipped for
service. In six months there would be half a million, and
as many more as might be necessary. There is nothing of
the braggart about Mr. Chase, nor about the President, nor
about Cameron, and, after all, the Minister of Finance and
the Secretary of War are the men who are of necessity most
alive to the stern realities of the crisis. They know that
money, men, beef, bread and gunpowder in enormous
amounts are necessary for suppressing this insurrection,
but they have not the slightest doubt as to the issue.
"Already a great result is secured," said Chase. The idea
even of extending slavery has for ever vanished from men's
minds. It can never go an inch further on this continent,
and, in addition, slavery as a governing power (as it has
been for forty years) is for ever dethroned. It can never be
nationalised, but must, so long as it remains, be local, ex
ceptional, municipal and subordinate, restricted to the States
where it at present exists, while the policy of the Government
will be the policy of freedom. The South will be forced to
come back into the Union, such as it has ever existed under
the Constitution. This, he thinks, will be brought about by

1861.] COUNTER REVOLUTION IN VIRGINIA. 389
the pressure caused by the blockade, by the sufferings of the
people thus imprisoned, as it Avere, and thrown out of employ
ment, by the steady pressing down upon them of immense
disciplined armies, backed by the boundless resources of a
fertile country and a well-organised commissariat and vast
wealth; while, on the other hand, the South cannot be in
spired by the enthusiasm which has often enabled a feebler
nation to resist triumphantly & foreign invasion. The United
States Government is no foreigner, it is at home everywhere
upon its own soil, from the Canada line to the Gulf of Mexico,
but conspirators have excluded it for a time from its own
rights, its own property, and the exercise of its benignant
functions over the whole people of which it is the minister
and guardian, appointed by the people itself. The inhabitants
of the Slave States must ere long awake from the madman's
dream which has deprived them of their reason. For the
leaders, of course, there is no returning.
There is already a beginning, and a good beginning, on the
border. Maryland, which seemed but a feAv weeks ago so rabid
in the Secession cause, has just voted largely for the Union.
The progress of the counter revolution in Virginia is steady.
The inhabitants of Western Virginia hav^e repudiated the
action of the State Convention, and are about establishing
a government of their own — not as a separate state, but as
claiming to be Virginia, with the intention of sending members
and senators to Congress, and electing governor and legislature.
This course is supported by United States troops, and will be
recognised by Congress, which has had to deal with similar
cases before, and is the sole judge according to the Constitution
as to the claims of its members to their seats. According to
Chase and other Cabinet Ministers Avith whom I have con
versed, this movement will be triumphant. Thus in the rebel
States, fire is fighting fire, as in a prairie conflagration. The
same phenomenon will be manifested in Eastern Tennessee,
where there are 30,000 or 40,000 fighting men, who will fiercely
dispute the power of a Convention to deprive them of their
rights as citizens of the United States, and who will maintain
the Union with arms in their hands to tho death. The samo

390 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIU
A\ill be sooner or later the case in North Carolina, in North
Alabama, in Louisiana.
In short, the whole white population of the Seceding
States is five and a half millions, against twenty-two or
twenty-three millions. Not another State can secede by any
possibility, and within the five and a half million seceders
there are large numbers Avho are fierce against the rebels, and
still larger numbers among the ignorant masses, Avho will be
soon inquiring. What is all this about? Why is all this
bloodshed and misery ? And they will be made to under
stand, despite the lies of the ringleaders of the rebellion, that
the United States Government is their best friend ; that not
one of their rights has been menaced — that it wishes only to
maintain the constitution and laws under which we have all
prospered for three-quarters of a century, and which have
now been assaulted, because the people at the ballot-box, last
November, chose to elect Mr. Lincoln president, instead of
Mr. Breckenridge. This plunging into " pronunciamiento "
and civil war, by a party defeated at the polls, may be very
good Mexican practice, but it will not go down in the United
States ; and ere long the people, even at the South, will make
this discovery. So thinks JMr. Chase, and I think he is right.
I am much pleased with the directness and frankness of his
language. '- And if all these calculations fail," said he, " if the
insurrection is unreasonably protracted, and we find it much
more difficult and expensive in blood and treasure to put it
down than we anticipated, we shall then draw that sword which
we prefer at present to leave in the sheath, and we shall pro
claim the total abolition of slavery on the American continent. We
do not wish this, we deplore it, because of the vast confiscation
of property, and of the servile insurrections, too horrible
to contemplate, which would follow. We wish the Constitution
and Union as it is, with slavery, as a municipal institution,
existing till such time as each State in its wisdom thinks fit to
mitigate or abolish it, but with freedom the law of the territories
and of the land ; but if the issue be distinctly presented —
death to the American Eepublic or death to slavery, slavery
must die. Therefore," said he, " the great Eepublic cannot be

1861.] ENGLAND'S ATTITUDE. 391
destroyed. The people will destroy slavery, if by no other
means they can maintain their national existence." In this
connection we came to talk again of England and its policy.
But it is hardly worth while to repeat anything more to you
on this subject. Every man with Avhom I have conversed.
holds the same language.
I battle stoutly for England and the English, for no man
knows better than I all the noble qualities of that great
nation; and how necessary it is to our moral greatness and
true prosperity to cultivate the closest and warmest relations
with our ancient mother. I maintain, and I think have
partly convinced many minds, that England has only acted
under a great delusion as to the permanence of our institu
tions, for which error Ave are ourselves somewhat to blame;
that the great heart of the nation is in sympathy with us;
that the idea of going to war with us, has never entered the
minds of any but a few mischief-makers; -that the Times is no
representative of English opinion, nor of the English Govern
ment. I would pledge myself for a marked difference before
long in the whole attitude of England, and that the last thing
she contemplated was allying herself with the South in a war
against the United States Government. Already my words
have been partly justified. Eecent news fromEngland to the
8th of June has produced a good effect. Notwithstanding the
violence of language which I have described to you (in order
that you and such of our dear English friends who care to
read my first impressions may hear and see exactly as I have
seen and heard), I believe that the hearts of this, the most
excitable and the most warmhearted people on the earth, will
soon turn to England, if they catch any warm manifestations
of sympathy with our cause.
While I was at Mr. Chase's, General McDowell, with one
of his aides, came in. He is a firm, square, browned, powerful-
looking soldier, some forty years of age, educated at West
Point, and thoroughly experienced in all the active warfare
which we have had in his time. He commands, as I men
tioned, all the forces on the Virginia side of the Potomac, for
the defence of Washington. He told us of an alarm the night

392 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XIIL
before ; that the rebels were about attacking his lines, and
that they Avere in force to the number of 3000 in the immed iate
vicinity of Alexandria. He A\'ent there, but the 3000 melted
to three, who were taken prisoners. Nevertheless, there is no
doubt that there are ready 100,000 rebels under arms in Vir
ginia, and that they are bound by every rule of war to carry
out their boasts and make the attack.
On the other hand it is the object of the Government daily
to strengthen itself. This, as I told you, Avas the language of
General Scott to me the evening before. By the way, I did
not tell you that on that occasion we rather took the General
by surprise (as I think Jefferson Davis Avill never do). The
servant ushered us at once into his little drawing-room. He
inhabits a small, modest house in — I forget what street — and
we found him, the evening being very sultry, taking a nap in
his shirt sleeves, with an aide-de-camp at each knee, and a
servant brushing files, at his back. He started up, somewhat
confused, and beat a hasty retreat to an adjoining room, whence
he emerged, a quarter of an hour later, arrayed in all the
splendour of an old black bombazine frock coat. But he is a
magnificent old fellow. He told us, with a smile, that a
price had been set upon his head by his native State of Vir
ginia, but he doubted whether it would ever be earned.
Nevertheless his house was only guarded by a sergeant and
ten men. The rest of his conversation I have already reported
to you.
As I told you before, there is no lack of good officers. The
great cause of future trouble may be in neglecting to make
proper use of them, through this detestable system of appoint
ing politicians and militia men to be brigadiers and major-
generals. General Mansfield, who commands in Washington,
seems to me a first-class man in every respect, and so do
McDowell and Colonel Heinzelmann. McClellan, who com
mands in the West, is said to be equal to Scott in talent,
and thirty years his junior; while General Lyon, a Connec
ticut man and a West Pointer, seems to be carrying all before
him in Missouri, and is rather the favourite of the hour. I
do not go quite into military details, because you get them.

1861.] MR MONTGOMERY BLAIR 393
true or false, in the papers. I have already ordered you the
Daily Advertiser, and to-morrow I shall see that you get the
New York Times regularly. Up to this time nothing of im
portance has happened, and I think that you will derive from
my letters as much information to be relied upon as you could
get anywhere. With regard to Missouri, there is not the
slightest possibility of her getting out of the Union. The
Governor is a Secessionist and a fugitive, and his following is
comparatively small. I had a long conversation last evening
with the Attorney-General of the United States, Mr. Bates, who
is himself of Missouri, and he tells me that secession there is
simply an impossibility. General Lyon with his United States
forces has already nearly put down secession there ; but should
the insurrection be protracted much longer, the State would be
entered on three sides at once (for it is surrounded by Free
States) and 150,000 slaves liberated. There is no child's play
intended any longer, and the word compromise, which has
been the country's curse for so long, has been expunged from
the dictionary. Bates has been the champion of freedom for
many years, and he has lived to sit in a cabinet with men of
his own faith. He is a plain man, shroAvd, intelligent.
Sumner, who arrived Wednesday night, told me that Mont
gomery Blair, the Postmaster-General, Avas desirous of making
my acquaintance. Friday morning I was engaged to breakfast
with Mr. Chase. The conversation was very pleasant and
instructive to me, turning on the topics already mentioned,
and as I walked down with him to the Treasury Department,
he insisted on my going Avith him into his office to finish the
subject, the purport of which, he said, I have already given
you. Afterwards I went with Sumner to Mr. Blair's. He is a
Virginian by birth and education, and it is therefore the more
to his credit that, like General Scott, he is of the warmest
among Unionists, and perhaps the most go-ahead, uncompro
mising enemy to the rebels in the cabinet, not even excepting
Mr. Chase. While we were talking, he asked me what I
thought of the President's views. I told him that I had only
passed half-an-hour with him a few evenings before, when I
had been introduced to him by Mr. SoAvard, and that since

394 MOTLEY'S LETTERS [Chap. XIIL
then it had been advertised conspicuously in all the papers
that the President would receive no visitors, being engaged in
preparing his message to Congress. " But you must see him ;
it is indispensable that you should see him, and tell him about
English affairs," said Blair. I told him that I was leaving
Washington that afternoon. He asked if I could not defer my
departure. I said no, for my arrangements were already made.
The truth is, I had resolved not to force myself upon the
President. If he did not care to converse with me, it was in
different to me whether I saw him or not. But Mr. Blair
begged me to stop a moment in his library, and incontinently
rushed forth into the street to the White House, which was
near, and presently came back, saying that the President
would be much obliged if I would pay him a visit.
I went and had an hour's talk with Mr. Lincoln. I am very
glad of it, for had I not done so, I should have left Washing
ton with a very inaccurate impression of the President. I am
now satisfied that he is a man of very considerable native
sagacity ; and that he has an ingenuous, unsophisticated, frank,
and noble character. I believe him to be as true as steel, and
as courageous as true. At the same time there is doubtless an
ignorance about State matters, and particularly about foreign
affairs, which he does not affect to conceal, but Avhich we must
of necessity regret in a man placed in such a position at such
a crisis. Nevertheless his very modesty in this respect dis
arms criticism.
Our conversation was, of course, on English matters, and I
poured into his not unwilling ear everything which my expe
rience, my knowledge, and my heart, could suggest to me, in
order to produce a favourable impression in his mind as to
England, the English Government, and the English people.
There is no need of my repeating what I said, for it is suf
ficiently manifest throughout this letter. And I believe that
1 was not entirely unsuccessful, for he told me that he thought
that I was right, that he was much inclined to agree with me,
but, he added, it does not so much signify what I think, you
must persuade Seward to think as you do. I told him that I
found the secretary much mitigated in his feelings compared

1861.J THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE. 395
with what I had expected. He expressed his satisfaction. I
do not quote any of his conversation because he was entirely a
listener in this part of the interview. Afterwards he took up
his message, which was lying in loose sheets upon the writing-
table, and read me nearly the whole of it, so far as it was
written. On the whole, the document impressed me very
favourably. With the exception of a few expressions, it was
not only highly commendable in spirit, but written with con
siderable untaught grace and power. These were my first im
pressions, which I hope will not be changed Avhen the docu
ment comes before the world. It consists mainly of a narra
tive of events from the 4th of March up to the present hour.
Nothing had yet been written as to foreign relations, but I
understand from Seward that they are all to be dismissed in a
brief paragraph, such as Avill create neither criticism nor
attention anywhere.
We parted very affectionately, and perhaps I shall never
set eyes on him again, but I feel that so far as perfect in
tegrity and directness of purpose go, the country Avill be safe
in his hands. With regard to the great issue, we have good
generals, good soldiers, good financiers, twenty-three millions
of good people "whose bosoms are one," a good cause, and
endless tin.
The weather has been beautiful ever since I landed, mag
nificent sunshine and delicious heat. Just now there is a
heavy shower. When it is over I am going to drive over to
Camp Andrew, to see the Massachusetts 2nd.
Ten more regiments have been ordered from Massachusetts,
and seven, including Gordon's, Avill soon be ready to talje the
field at once. This Avill make 15,000 men from Massachusetts
alone. New York has already sent 20,000, and has a reserve
of 20,000 ready. Pennsylvania about the same, and so on. The
only struggle is who shall get the greatest number accepted.
Give my love to all my English friends. Kiss my three
darlings 3000 times, and believe me. Most lovingly,
J. L. M.

YALE UNIVERSITY

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