Front matter

FAMOUS PERSONS

AND

PLACES.

BY

N. PARKER WILLIS.

NEW YORK:

CHARLES SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU STREET.

1854

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1854, by

CHARLES SCRIBNER,

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the

Southern District of New York.

TOBITT’S COMBINATION-TYPE,

185 William St.

PRINTED BY R. CRAIGHEAD

63 VESEY STREET, N. Y.

PREFACE.

For some remarks that should properly introduce much of the contents of the present volume, the reader is referred to the Preface published with a previous number of the Series, entitled “Pencillings by the Way.” A portion of the original “Pencillings” is here given, the size of the work having compelled an unequal division of it, and the remaining and smaller part serving to complete another volume, with some additional sketches of the same character.

The personal portrayings of distinguished contemporaries, of which this volume is mainly composed, will, (as has been abundantly proved in their previous shapes of publication,) ensure its readableness. It will have a value, from the same quality, that will increase with time, and be, also, independent, to a certain degree, of its literary merits. Sketches of the men of mark of any period are eagerly devoured—more eagerly as the subjects pass away, and are beyond farther seeing and describing—the public requiring less that they should be ably done than that they should be true to the life. Correctness, in such pencilling, is more important than grace in the art. And this I claim to have been proved for these sketches. In the years that they have been before the public, not a single incorrectness has ever been proved or even charged upon them. I sketched what I saw at the time, and, to the best of my ability, sketched truly. With the acrid and persevering warfare that has been waged upon them by the critics, their truth would have been invalidated long ago, if flaw or blemish in this shield of their chief merit could have been found. Expecting vague charges of incorrectness from the malice of criticism, however, I have accumulated testimonials that have never yet been called forth—no friend or acquaintance having ever been estranged or offended by the descriptions I have ventured to give, and subsequent intimacy or exchange of courtesies furnishing ample proof, that, to such sharing of my admiration and opportunities to see more nearly, the world was welcome.

I will add a few remarks, upon somewhat the same point, from a previous Preface:—

For the living portraitures of the book I have a word to say. That sketches of the whim of the hour, its manners, fashions, and those ephemeral trifles, which, slight as they are, constitute in a great measure its “form and pressure”—that these, and familiar traits of persons distinguished in our time, are popular and amusing, I have the most weighty reasons certainly to know. They sell. “Are they innocent?” is the next question. And to this I know no more discreet answer than that mine have offended nobody but the critics. It has been said that sketches of contemporary society require little talent, and belong to an inferior order of literature. Perhaps. Yet they must be well done to attract notice at all; and if true and graphic, they are not only excellent material for future biographers, but to all who live out of the magic circles of fashion and genius, they are more than amusing—they are instructive. To such persons, living authors, orators, and statesmen, are as much characters of history, and society in cities is as much a subject of philosophic curiosity, as if a century had intervened. The critic who finds these matters “stale and unprofitable,” lives in the circles described, and the pictures drawn at his elbow lack to his eye the effect of distance; but the same critic would delight in a familiar sketch of a supper with “my lord of Leicester” in Elizabeth’s time, of an evening with Raleigh and Spenser, or perhaps he would be amused with a description by an eye-witness of Mary Queen of Scots, riding home to Holyrood with her train of admiring nobles. I have not named in the same sentence the ever-deplored blank in our knowledge of Shakspere’s person and manners. What would not a trait by the most unskilful hand be worth now—if it were nothing but how he gave the good-morrow to Ben Jonson in Eastcheap?

How far sketches of the living are a breach of courtesy committed by the author toward the persons described, depends, of course, on the temper in which they are done. To select a subject for complimentary description is to pay the most undoubted tribute to celebrity, and, as far as I have observed, most distinguished persons sympathize with the public interest in them and their belongings, and are willing to have their portraits drawn, either with pen or pencil, by as many as offer them the compliment. It would be ungracious to the admiring world if they were not.

The outer man is a debtor for the homage paid to the soul which inhabits him, and he is bound, like a porter at the gate, to satisfy all reasonable curiosity as to the habits of the nobler and invisible tenant. He owes his peculiarities to the world.

For myself, I am free to confess that no age interests me like the present; that no pictures of society since the world began, are half so entertaining to me as those of English society in our day; and that, whatever comparison the living great men of England may sustain with those of other days, there is no doubt in my mind that English social life, at the present moment, is at a higher pitch of refinement and cultivation than it was ever here or elsewhere since the world began—consequently it, and all who form and figure in it, are dignified and legitimate subjects of curiosity and speculation. The Count Mirabel and Lady Bellair of D’Israeli’s last romance, are, to my mind, the cleverest portraits, as well as the most entertaining characters, of modern novel-writing; and D’Israeli, by the way, is the only English author who seems to have the power of enlarging his horizon, and getting a perspective view of the times he lives in. His novels are far more popular in America than in England, because the Atlantic is to us a century. We picture to ourselves England and Victoria as we picture to ourselves England and Elizabeth. We relish an anecdote of Sheridan Knowles as we should one of Ford or Marlowe. This immense ocean between us is like the distance of time; and while all that is minute and bewildering is lost to us, the greater lights of the age and the prominent features of society stand out apart, and we judge of them like posterity. Much as I have myself lived in England, I have never been able to remove this long perspective from between my eye and the great men of whom I read and thought on the other side of the Atlantic. When I find myself in the same room with the hero of Waterloo, my blood creeps as if I had seen Cromwell or Marlborough; and I sit down afterward to describe how he looked, with the eagerness with which I should communicate to my friends some disinterred description of these renowned heroes by a contemporary writer. If Cornelius Agrippa were redivivus, in short, and would show me his magic mirror, I should as soon call up Moore as Dryden—Wordsworth or Wilson as soon as Pope or Crichton.

* * * * * * *

CONTENTS.

LETTER I.

PAGE

Immensity of London—Voyage to Leith—Society of the Steam Packet—Analogy between Scotch and American manners—Strict observance of the Sabbath on board—Edinburgh—Unexpected recognition11

LETTER II.

Edinburgh—A Scotch Breakfast—The Castle—Palace of Holyrood—Queen Mary—Rizzio—Charles the Tenth17

LETTER III.

Dalhousie Castle—The Earl and Countess—Antiquity of their Family23

LETTER IV.

Sporting and Its Equipments—Roslin Castle and Chapel28

LETTER V.

“Christopher North”—Mr. Blackwood—The Ettrick Shepherd—Lockhart—Noctes Ambrosianæ—Wordsworth—Southey—Captain Hamilton and his Book on America—Professor Wilson’s Family, etc.34

LETTER VI.

Lord Jeffrey and his family—Lord Brougham—Count Flahault—Politics—The “Grey” Ball—Aberdeen—Gordon Castle46

LETTER VII.

Gordon Castle—Company There—The Park—Duke of Gordon—Personal Beauty of the English Aristocracy52

LETTER VIII.

English Breakfast—Salmon Fishery—Lord Aberdeen—Mr. McLane—Sporting Establishment of Gordon Castle59

LETTER IX.

Scotch Hospitality—Immense Possessions of the Nobility—Dutchess’ Infant School—Manners of High Life—The Tone of Conversation in England and America Contrasted66

LETTER X.

Departure from Gordon Castle—The Pretender—Scotch Character Misapprehended—Observance of Sunday—Highland Chieftains73

LETTER XI.

Caledonian Canal—Dogs—English Exclusiveness—English Insensibility of Fine Scenery—Flora Macdonald and the Pretender—Highland Travelling80

LETTER XII.

Invarenden—Tarbot—Cockney Tourists—Loch Lomond—Inversnade—Rob Roy’s Cave—Discomfiture—The Birthplace of Helen M’Gregor87

LETTER XIII.

Highland Hut, its Furniture and Inmates—Highland Amusement and Dinner—“Rob Roy,” and Scenery of the “Lady of the Lake”94

LETTER XIV.

Scottish Stages—Thorough-bred Setter—Scenery—Female Peasantry—Mary, Queen of Scots—Stirling Castle101

LETTER XV.

Scotch Scenery—A Race—Cheapness of Lodgings in Edinburgh—Abbottsford—Scott—Lord Dalhousie—Thomas Moore—Jane Porter—The Grave of Scott108

LETTER XVI.

Border Scenery—Coachmanship—English Country-seats—Their Exquisite Comfort—Old Customs in High Preservation—Pride and Stateliness of the Lancashire Gentry—Their Contempt for Parvenues118

LETTER XVII.

English Cordiality and Hospitality, and the Feelings awakened by it—Liverpool—Uncomfortable Coffee-house there—Travelling Americans—New York Packets—The Railway—Manchester125

SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND132

EGLINTON TOURNAMENT188

TALKS OVER TRAVEL217

The Streets of London229

London235

London241

London247

London254

Isle of Wight—Ryde259

Comparison of the Climate of Europe and America265

Stratford-on-Avon271

Visit to Stratford-on-Avon—Shakspere280

Charlecote291

Warwick Castle294

Kenilworth297

A Visit to Dublin about the time of the Queen’s Marriage305

Closing Scenes of the Session at Washington313

The Inauguration319

Washington in the Session324

Washington after the Session335

ARTICLES FROM THE JOURNAL.

LETTERS FROM ENGLAND AND THE CONTINENT IN 1845–’46

LETTER I.

What the Writer has seen of this World for twenty-four days—The Passengers of the Britannia—The Difference Between the American and English Custom-house Officers—The Working Classes—Female Dress—Bustles—Writing against the Doctor’s Orders, etc.345

LETTER II.

London349

LETTER III.

S—— Vicarage354

LETTER IV.359

LETTER V.362

LETTER VI.364

LETTER VII.368

LETTER VIII.374

LETTER IX. 378

LETTER X.385

LETTER XI.

To any Lady Subscriber who may wish for Gleanings from that first Concert of Jenny Lind which the Critics of the Daily Papers have so well harvested392

LETTER XII.

To the Lady-Subscriber in the Country399

LETTER XIII.

To the Lady-Subscriber in the Country407

THE REQUESTED LETTER.

To the Lady-reader in the Country412

NATURE CRITICISED BY ART.

Jenny Lind’s Propitiatory Acceptance of one Invitation from New York Fashionable Society—The History of the Day of which it was the Evening—Her Martyrdom by Charity-Seekers and other Wanters of Money and Gratifiers of their own Impertinent Curiosity—The Criticism of her Manners at the Party, as given in the “Courrier des Etats Unis”—A Counter-picture of her Conversation and Appearance—Singular Accidental “Tableau Vivant,” &c., &c.417

JENNY LIND429

THE KOSSUTH DAY.

The Magyar and the Aztec, or the Two Extremes of Human Development433

Near View of Kossuth443

Death of Lady Blessington454

Moore and Barry Cornwall463

Jane Porter, Authoress of “Scottish Chiefs,” “Thaddeus of Warsaw,” etc.; etc.471

Ole Bull’s Niagara484

Dr. Lardner’s Lecture489

FAMOUS PERSONS AND PLACES