Letters From England

LETTER I.

LETTER II.

Mode of Travelling.—Penryn.—Truro.—Dreariness of the Country.—Bodmin.—Earth-Coal the common Fuel.—Launceston.—Excellence of the Inns and Roads.—Okehampton.—Exeter.

Early in the morning our chaise was at the door, a four-wheeled carriage which conveniently carries three persons. It has glass in front and at the sides, instead of being closed with curtains, so that you at once see the country and are sheltered from the weather. Two horses drew us at the rate of a league and a half in the hour;—such is the rapidity with which the English travel. Half a league from Falmouth is the little town of Penryn, whose ill-built 9and narrow streets seem to have been contrived to make as many acute angles in the road, and take the traveller up and down as many steep declivities as possible in a given distance. In two hours we reached Truro, where we breakfasted: this meal is completely spoilt by the abominable bitterness of the bread, to which I shall not soon be able to reconcile myself. The town is clean and opulent; its main street broad, with superb shops, and a little gutter stream running through it. All the shops have windows to them; the climate is so inclement that it would be impossible to live without them. J— showed me where some traveller had left the expression of his impatience written upon the wainscot with a pencil—“Thanks to the Gods another stage is past”—for all travellers are in haste here, either on their way home, or to be in time for the packet. When we proceeded the day had become dark and overclouded;—quite English weather:—I could scarcely keep myself 10warm in my cloak: the trees have hardly a tinge of green, though it is now so late in April. Every thing has a coarse and cold appearance: the heath looks nipt in its growth, and the hedge-plants are all mean and insignificant: nettles, and thistles, and thorns, instead of the aloe, and the acanthus, and the arbutus, and the vine. We soon entered upon a track as dreary as any in Estremadura; mile after mile the road lay straight before us; up and down long hills, whose heights only served to show how extensive was the waste.

Mitchel-Dean, the next place to which we came, is as miserable as any of our most decayed towns; it is what they call a rotten borough: that is, it has the privilege of returning two members to parliament, who purchase the votes of their constituents, and the place has no other trade:—it has indeed a very rotten appearance. Even the poorest houses in this country are glazed: this, however, proves rather the inclemency of the climate than 11the wealth of the people. Our second stage was to a single house called the Indian Queens, which is rather a post-house than an inn. These places are not distinguished by a bush, though that was once the custom here also, but by a large painting swung from a sort of gallows before the door, or nailed above it, and the house takes its name from the sign. Lambs, horses, bulls, and stags, are common; sometimes they have red lions, green dragons, or blue boars, or the head of the king or queen, or the arms of the nearest nobleman. One inconvenience attends their mode of travelling, which is, that at every stage the chaise is changed, and of course there is the trouble of removing all the baggage.

The same dreary country still lay before us; on the right there was a wild rock rising at once from the plain, with a ruin upon its summit. Nothing can be more desolate than the appearance of this province, where most part of the inhabitants live in the mines. “I never see the greater 12part of my parishioners,” said a clergyman here, “till they come up to be buried.” We dined at Bodmin, an old town which was once the chief seat of religion in the district, but has materially suffered since the schism; ill-built, yet not worse built than situated, being shadowed by a hill to the south; and to complete the list of ill contrivances, their water is brought through the common burial-place. They burn earth-coal every where; it is a black shining stone, very brittle, which kindles slowly, making much smoke, and much ashes: but as all the houses are built with chimneys, it is neither unwholesome nor disagreeable. An Englishman’s delight is to stir the fire; and I believe I shall soon acquire this part of their manners, as a means of self-defence against their raw and chilly atmosphere. The hearth is furnished with a round bar to move the coals, a sort of forceps to arrange them, and a small shovel for the cinders; all of iron, and so shaped and polished as to be 13ornamental. Besides these, there is what they call the fender, which is a little moveable barrier, either of brass or polished steel, or sometimes of wire painted green and capt with brass, to prevent the live embers from falling upon the floor. The grates which confine the fire are often very costly and beautiful, every thing being designed to display the wealth of the people; even the bars, though they are necessarily blackened every day by the smoke, are regularly brightened in the morning, and this work is performed by women. In good houses the chimneys have a marble frontal, upon the top of which vases of alabaster or spar, mandarins from China, flower-stands, or other ornaments, are arranged.

After dinner we proceeded to Launceston; the country improved upon us, and the situation of the place as we approached, standing upon a hill, with the ruins of the castle which had once commanded it, reminded me of our Moorish towns. We 14arrived just as the evening was closing; our chaise wheeled under the gateway with a clangor that made the roof ring; the waiter was at the door in an instant; by the time we could let down the glass, he had opened the door and let the steps down. We were shown into a comfortable room; lights were brought, the twilight shut out, the curtains let down, the fire replenished. Instead of oil, they burn candles made of tallow, which in this climate is not offensive; wax is so dear that it is used by only the highest ranks.

Here we have taken our tea; and in the interval between that and supper, J— is reading the newspaper, and I am minuting down the recollections of the day. What a country for travelling is this! such rapidity on the road! such accommodations at the resting-places! We have advanced fourteen leagues to-day without fatigue or exertion. When we arrive at the inn there is no apprehension lest the apartments should be pre-occupied; we 15are not liable to any unpleasant company; we have not to send abroad to purchase wine and seek for provisions; every thing is ready; the larder stored, the fire burning, the beds prepared; and the people of the house, instead of idly looking on, or altogether neglecting us, are asking our orders and solicitous to please. I no longer wonder at the ill-humour and fastidiousness of Englishmen in Spain.

Launceston castle was formerly used as a state prison. There were lazar-houses here and at Bodmin when leprosy was common in England. They attributed this disease to the habit of eating fish, and especially the livers; the fresher they were the more unwholesome they were thought. Whatever has been the cause, whether change of diet, or change of dress, it has totally disappeared.

The Tamar, a clear shallow and rapid 16stream, flows by Launceston, and divides Cornwall from Devonshire. The mountainous character of the river, the situation of the town rising behind it, its ancient appearance, and its castle towering above all, made so Spanish a scene, that perhaps it pleased me the more for the resemblance; and I would willingly for a while have exchanged the chaise for a mule, that I might have loitered to enjoy it at leisure. The English mode of travelling is excellently adapted for every thing, except for seeing the country.

We met a stage-waggon, the vehicle in which baggage is transported, for sumpter-beasts are not in use. I could not imagine what this could be; a huge carriage upon four wheels of prodigious breadth, very wide and very long, and arched over with cloth, like a bower, at a considerable height: this monstrous machine was drawn by eight large horses, whose neck-bells were heard far off as they approached; the carrier walked beside them, with a 17long whip upon his shoulder, as tall again as himself, which he sometimes cracked in the air, seeming to have no occasion to exercise it in any other manner; his dress was different from any that I had yet seen, it was a sort of tunic of coarse linen, and is peculiar to this class of men. Here would have been an adventure for Don Quixote! Carrying is here a very considerable trade: these waggons are day and night upon their way, and are oddly enough called flying waggons, though of all machines they travel the slowest, slower than even a travelling funeral. The breadth of the wheels is regulated by law, on account of the roads, to which great attention is paid, and which are deservedly esteemed objects of national importance. At certain distances gates are erected and toll-houses beside them, where a regular tax is paid for every kind of conveyance in proportion to the number of horses and wheels; horsemen and cattle also are subject to this duty. These gates are rented by auction; 18they are few or frequent, as the nature of the soil occasions more or less expense in repairs: no tax can be levied more fairly, and no public money is more fairly applied. Another useful peculiarity here is, that where the roads cross or branch off a directing post is set up, which might sometimes be mistaken for a cross, were it in a Catholic country. The distances are measured by the mile, which is the fourth of a league, and stones to mark them are set by the way-side, though they are often too much defaced by time or by mischievous travellers to be of any use.

The dresses of the peasantry are far less interesting than they are in our own land; they are neither gay in colour, nor graceful in shape; that of the men differs little in make from what the higher orders wear. I have seen no goats; they are not common, for neither their flesh nor their milk is in use; the people seem not to know how excellent the milk is, and how excellent a cheese may be made from it. All 19the sheep are white, and these also are never milked. Here are no aqueducts, no fountains by the way-side.

Okehampton, which we next came to, stands in the county of Devonshire; here also is a ruined castle on its hill, beautifully ivyed, and standing above a delightful stream. There was in our room a series of prints, which, as they represented a sport peculiar to England, interested me much: it was the hunting the hare. The first displayed the sportsmen assembled on horseback, and the dogs searching the cover: in the second they were in chace, men and dogs full speed, horse and horseman together leaping over a high gate,—a thing which I thought impossible, but J— assured me that it was commonly practised in this perilous amusement: in the third they were at fault, while the poor hare was stealing away at a distance: the last was the death of the hare, the huntsman holding her up and winding his horn, while the dogs are leaping round him.

20This province appears far more fertile than the one we have quitted; the wealth of which lies under ground. The beauty of the country is much injured by inclosures, which intercept the view, or cut it into patches; it is not, however, quite fair to judge of them in their present leafless state. The road was very hilly, a thick small rain came on, and prevented us from seeing any thing. Wet as is the climate of the whole island, these two western provinces are particularly subject to rain; for they run out between the English and Bristol channels, like a peninsula; in other respects their climate is better, the temperature being considerably warmer; so that sickly persons are sent to winter here upon the south coast. Much cyder is made here: it is a far pleasanter liquor than their beer, and may indeed be considered as an excellent beverage by a people to whom nature has denied the grape. I ought, perhaps, to say, that it is even better than our country wines; but 21what we drank was generous cyder, and at a price exceeding that which generous wine bears with us; so that the advantage is still ours.

We only stopped to change chaises at our next stage; the inn was not inviting in its appearance, and we had resolved to reach Exeter to a late dinner. There were two busts in porcelain upon the chimney-piece, one of Buonaparte, the other of John Wesley, the founder of a numerous sect in this land of schismatics; and between them a whole-length figure of Shakespeare, their famous dramatist. When J— had explained them to me, I asked him which of the three worthies was the most popular. “Perhaps,” said he, “the Corsican just at present; but his is a transient popularity; he is only the first political actor of the day, and, like all other stage-players, must one day give way to his successors, as his predecessors have given way to him. Moreover, he is rather notorious than popular; 22the king of Prussia was a favourite with the people, and they hung up his picture as an alehouse sign, as they had done prince Eugene before him, and many a fellow gets drunk under them still; but no one will set up Buonaparte’s head as an invitation. Wesley, on the contrary, is a saint with his followers, and indeed with almost all the lower classes. As for Shakespeare, these people know nothing of him but his name; he is famous in the strictest sense of the word, and his fame will last as long as the English language; which by God’s blessing will be as long as the habitable world itself.” “He is your saint!” said I, smiling at the warmth with which he spake.

At length we crossed the river Exe by a respectable bridge, and immediately entered the city of Exeter, and drove up a long street to an inn as large as a large convent. Is it possible, I asked, that this immense house can ever be filled by travellers? He 23told me in reply, that there were two other inns in the city nearly as large, besides many smaller ones; and yet, that the last time he passed through Exeter, they were obliged to procure a bed for him in a private dwelling, not having one unoccupied in the house.

LETTER III.

Exeter Cathedral and Public Walk.—Libraries.—Honiton.—Dangers of English Travelling, and Cruelty with which it is attended.—Axminster.—Bridport.

If the outside of this New London Inn, as it is called, surprised me, I was far more surprised at the interior. Excellent as the houses appeared at which we had already halted, they were mean and insignificant compared with this. There was a sofa in our apartment, and the sideboard was set forth with china and plate. Surely, however, these articles of luxury are misplaced, as they are not in the slightest degree necessary to the accommodation of a traveller, and must be considered in his bill.

25Exeter is an ancient city, and has been so slow in adopting modern improvements that it has the unsavoury odour of Lisbon. One great street runs through the city from east to west; the rest consists of dirty lanes. As you cross the bridge, you look down upon a part of the town below, intersected by little channels of water. The cathedral is a fine object from those situations where both towers are seen, and only half the body of the building, rising above the city. It cannot be compared with Seville, or Cordova, or Burgos; yet certainly it is a noble pile. Even the heretics confess that the arches, and arched windows, and avenues of columns, the old monuments, the painted altar, and the coloured glass, impress them with a feeling favourable to religion. For myself, I felt that I stood upon ground, which, desecrated as it was, had once been holy.

Close to our inn is the entrance of the Norney or public walk. The trees are elms, and have attained their full growth: indeed 26I have never seen a finer walk; but every town has not its Norney^[2] as with us its alameda. I was shown a garden, unique in its kind, which has been made in the old castle ditch. The banks rise steeply on each side; one of the finest poplars in the country grows in the bottom, and scarcely overtops the ruined wall. Jackson, one of the most accomplished men of his age, directed these improvements; and never was accident more happily improved. He was chiefly celebrated as a musician; but as a man of letters, his reputation is considerable; and he was also a painter: few men, if any, have succeeded so well in so many of the fine arts. Of the castle itself there are but few remains; it was named Rougemont, from the colour of the red sandy eminence on which it stands, and for the same reason the city itself was called by the Britons The Red City.

27In most of the English towns they have what they call circulating libraries: the subscribers, for an annual or quarterly payment, have two or more volumes at a time, according to the terms; and strangers may be accommodated on depositing the value of the book they choose. There are several of these in Exeter, one of which, I was told, was considered as remarkably good, the bookseller being himself a man of considerable learning and ability. Here was also a literary society of some celebrity, till the French revolution, which seems to have disturbed every town, village, and almost every family in the kingdom, broke it up. The inhabitants in general are behindhand with their countrymen in information and in refinement. The streets are not flagged, neither are they regularly cleaned, as in other parts of the kingdom; the corporation used to compel the townspeople to keep their doors clean, as is usual in every English town; but some little while ago it was 28discovered, that, by the laws of the city, they had no authority to insist upon this; and now the people will not remove the dirt from their own doors, because they say they cannot be forced to do it. Their politics are as little progressive as their police: to this day, when they speak of the Americans, they call them the rebels. Everywhere else, this feeling is extinguished among the people, though it still remains in another quarter. When Washington died, his will was published in the newspapers; but in those which are immediately under ministerial influence, it was suppressed by high authority. It was not thought fitting that any respect should be paid to the memory of a man whom the Sovereign considered as a rebel and a traitor.

The celebrated Priestley met with a singular instance of popular hatred in this place. A barber who was shaving him heard his name in the midst of the operation;—he dropt his razor immediately, and 29ran out of the room exclaiming, “that he had seen his cloven foot.”

I bought here a map of England, folded for the pocket, with the roads and distances all marked upon it. I purchased also a book of the roads, in which not only the distance of every place in the kingdom from London, and from each other, is set down, but also the best inn at each place is pointed out, the name mentioned of every gentleman’s seat near the road, and the objects which are most worthy a traveller’s notice. Every thing that can possibly facilitate travelling seems to have been produced by the commercial spirit of this people.

As the chief trade of Exeter lies with Spain, few places have suffered so much by the late war. We departed about noon the next day; and as we ascended the first hill, looked down upon the city and its cathedral towers to great advantage. Our stage was four leagues, along a road which, a century ago, when there was little travelling, 30and no care taken of the public ways, was remarkable as the best in the West of England. The vale of Honiton, which we overlooked on the way, is considered as one of the richest landscapes in the kingdom: it is indeed a prodigious extent of highly cultivated country, set thickly with hedges and hedge-row trees; and had we seen it either in its full summer green, or with the richer colouring of autumn, perhaps I might not have been disappointed. Yet I should think the English landscape can never appear rich to a southern eye: the verdure is indeed beautiful and refreshing, but green fields and timber trees have neither the variety nor the luxuriance of happier climates. England seems to be the paradise of sheep and cattle; Valencia of the human race.

Honiton, the town where we changed chaises, has nothing either interesting or remarkable in its appearance, except that here, as at Truro, a little stream flows along the street, and little cisterns or basons, 31for dipping places, are made before every door. Lace is manufactured here in imitation of the Flanders lace, to which it is inferior because it thickens in washing; the fault is in the thread. I have reason to remember this town, as our lives were endangered here by the misconduct of the innkeeper. There was a demur about procuring horses for us; a pair were fetched from the field, as we afterwards discovered, who had either never been in harness before, or so long out of it as to have become completely unmanageable. As soon as we were shut in, and the driver shook the reins, they ran off—a danger which had been apprehended; for a number of persons had collected round the inn door to see what would be the issue. The driver, who deserved whatever harm could happen to him, for having exposed himself and us to so much danger, had no command whatever over the frightened beasts; he lost his seat presently, and was thrown upon the pole between the horses; still he kept the reins, 32and almost miraculously prevented himself from falling under the wheels, till the horses were stopped at a time when we momently expected that he would be run over and the chaise overturned. As I saw nothing but ill at this place, so have I heard nothing that is good of it: the borough is notoriously venal; and since it has become so the manners of the people have undergone a marked and correspondent alteration.

This adventure occasioned considerable delay. At length a chaise arrived; and the poor horses, instead of being suffered to rest, weary as they were, for they had just returned from Exeter, were immediately put-to for another journey. One of them had been rubbed raw by the harness. I was in pain the whole way, and could not but consider myself as accessory to an act of cruelty: at every stroke of the whip my conscience upbraided me, and the driver was not sparing of it. It was luckily a short stage of only two leagues and a 33quarter. English travelling, you see, has its evils and its dangers. The life of a post-horse is truly wretched:—there will be cruel individuals in all countries, but cruelty here is a matter of calculation: the post-masters find it more profitable to overwork their beasts and kill them by hard labour in two or three years, than to let them do half the work and live out their natural length of life. In commerce, even more than in war, both men and beasts are considered merely as machines, and sacrificed with even less compunction.

There is a great fabric of carpets at Axminster, which are woven in one entire piece. We were not detained here many minutes, and here we left the county of Devonshire, which in climate and fertility and beauty is said to exceed most parts of England: if it be indeed so, England has little to boast of. Both their famous pirates, the Drake and the Raleigh, were natives of this province; so also was Oxenham, another of these early Buccaneers, of 34whose family it is still reported, that before any one dies a bird with a white breast flutters about the bed of the sick person, and vanishes when he expires.

We now entered upon Dorsetshire, a dreary country. Hitherto I had been disposed to think that the English inclosures rather deformed than beautified the landscape, but I now perceived how cheerless and naked the cultivated country appears without them. The hills here are ribbed with furrows, just as it is their fashion to score the skin of roast pork. The soil is chalky and full of flints: night was setting-in, and our horses struck fire at almost every step. This is one of the most salubrious parts of the whole island: it has been ascertained by the late census, that the proportion of deaths in the down-countries to the other parts is as 65 to 80,—a certain proof that inclosures are prejudicial to health.^[3] After having travelled 35three leagues we reached Bridport, a well-built and flourishing town. At one time all the cordage for the English navy was manufactured here; and the neighbourhood is so proverbially productive of hemp, that when a man is hanged, they have a vulgar saying, that he has been stabbed with a Bridport dagger. It is probable that both hemp and flax degenerate in England, as seed is annually imported from Riga.

Here ends our third day’s journey. The roads are better, the towns nearer each other, more busy and more opulent as we advance into the country; the inns more modern though perhaps not better, and travelling more frequent. We are now in the track of the stage-coaches; one passed us this morning, shaped like a trunk with a rounded lid placed topsy-turvy. The passengers sit sideways; it carries sixteen persons withinside, and as many on the roof as can find room; yet this unmerciful weight, with the proportionate luggage of 36each person, is dragged by four horses, at the rate of a league and a half within the hour. The skill with which the driver guides them with long reins, and directs these huge machines round the corners of the streets, where they always go with increased velocity, and through the sharp turns of the inn gateways, is truly surprising. Accidents, nevertheless, frequently happen; and considering how little time this rapidity allows for observing the country, and how cruelly it is purchased, I prefer the slow and safe movements of the calessa.

LETTER IV.

Dorchester.—Gilbert Wakefield.—Inside of an English Church.—Attempt to rear Silkworms.—Down-country.—Blandford.—Salisbury.—Execrable Alteration of the Cathedral.—Instance of public Impiety.

We started early, and hurried over four leagues of the same open and uninteresting country, which brought us to Dorchester, the capital of the province, or county town, as it is called, because the provincial prison is here, and here the judges come twice a-year to decide all causes civil and criminal. The prison is a modern building: the height and strength of its walls, its iron-grated windows, and 38its strong gateway, with fetters hanging over the entrance, sufficiently characterise it as a place of punishment, and render it a good representation of a giant’s castle in romance.

When J— passed through this town on his way to Spain, he visited Gilbert Wakefield, a celebrated scholar, who was confined here as a favourer of the French Revolution. One of the bishops had written a book upon the state of public affairs, just at the time when the minister proposed to take from every man the tithe of his income: this the bishop did not think sufficient; so he suggested instead, that a tenth should be levied of all the capital in the kingdom; arguing, that as every person would be affected in the same proportion, all would remain relatively as before, and in fact no person be affected at all. This curious argument he enforced by as curious an illustration; he said, “That if the foundation of a great building were to sink equally in every part at the same time, 39the whole pile, instead of suffering any injury, would become the firmer.”—“True,” said Wakefield in his reply, “and you, my lord bishop, who dwell in the upper apartments, might still enjoy the prospect from your window;—but what would become of me and the good people who live upon the ground floor?”

Wakefield was particularly obnoxious to the government, because his character stood very high among the Dissenters for learning and integrity, and his opinions were proportionately of weight. They brought him to trial for having in his answer to the bishop’s pamphlet applied the fable of the Ass and his Panniers to existing circumstances. Had it indeed been circulated among the poor, its tendency would certainly have been mischievous; but in the form in which it appeared it was evidently designed as a warning to the rulers, not as an address to the mob. He was, however, condemned to two years confinement in this prison, 40this place being chosen as out of reach of his friends, to make imprisonment more painful. The public feeling upon this rigorous treatment of so eminent a man was strongly expressed, and a subscription was publicly raised for him which amounted to above fifteen hundred pieces-of-eight, and which enabled his family to remove to Dorchester and settle there. But the magistrates, whose business it was to oversee the prison, would neither permit them to lodge with him in his confinement, nor even to visit him daily. He was thus prevented from proceeding with the education of his children, an occupation which he had ever regarded as a duty, and which had been one of his highest enjoyments. But, in the midst of vexations and insults, he steadily continued to pursue both his literary and christian labours; affording to his fellow prisoners what assistance was in his power, endeavouring to reclaim the vicious, and preparing the condemned for death. His imprisonment eventually proved 41fatal. He had been warned on its expiration to accustom himself slowly to his former habits of exercise, or a fever would inevitably be the consequence; a fact known by experience. In spite of all his precautions it took place; and while his friends were rejoicing at his deliverance he was cut off. As a polemical and political writer he indulged an asperity of language which he had learnt from his favourite philologists, but in private life no man was more generally or more deservedly beloved, and he had a fearless and inflexible honesty which made him utterly regardless of all danger, and would have enabled him to exult in martyrdom. When J— had related this history to me, I could not but observe how far more humane it was to prevent the publication of obnoxious books than to permit them to be printed and then punish the persons concerned. “This,” he said, “would be too open a violation of the liberty of the press.”

42By the time we had breakfasted the bells for divine service were ringing, and I took the opportunity to step into one of their churches. The office is performed in a desk immediately under the pulpit, not at the altar: there were no lights burning, nor any church vessels, nor ornaments to be seen. Monuments are fixed against the walls and pillars, and I thought there was a damp and unwholesome smell, perhaps because I involuntarily expected the frankincense. They have an abominable custom of partitioning their churches into divisions which they call pews, and which are private property; so that the wealthy sit at their ease, or kneel upon cushions, while the poor stand during the whole service in the aisle.

An attempt was made something more than a century ago to rear silkworms in this neighbourhood by a Mr Newberry; a man of many whimsies he was called, and whimsical indeed he must have been; for the different buildings for his silkworms 43and his laboratories were so numerous that his house looked like a village, and all his laundry and dairy work was done by men, because he would suffer no women servants about him.

The road still lay over the downs; this is a great sheep country, above 150,000 are annually sold from Dorsetshire to other parts of England; they are larger than ours, and I think less beautiful, the wool being more curled and less soft in its appearance. It was once supposed that the thyme in these pastures was so nourishing as to make the ewes produce twins, a story which may be classed with the tale of the Lusitanian foals of the wind; it is however true that the ewes are purchased by the farmers near the metropolis, for the sake of fattening their lambs for the London market, because they yean earlier than any others. The day was very fine, and the sight of this open and naked country, where nothing was to be seen but an extent of short green turf under a sky 44of cloudless blue, was singular and beautiful. There are upon the downs many sepulchral hillocks, here called barrows, of antiquity beyond the reach of history. We past by a village church as the people were assembling for service, men and women all in their clean Sunday clothes; the men standing in groups by the church-yard stile, or before the porch, or sitting upon the tombstones, a hale and ruddy race. The dresses seem every where the same, without the slightest provincial difference: all the men wear hats, the least graceful and least convenient covering for the head that ever was devised. I have not yet seen a cocked hat except upon the officers. They bury the dead both in town and country round the churches, and the church-yards are full of upright stones, on which the name and age of the deceased is inscribed, usually with some account of his good qualities, and not unfrequently some rude religious rhyme. I observe that the oldest churches are always the 45most beautiful, here as well as every where else; for as we think more of ourselves and less of religion, more of this world and less of the next, we build better houses and worse churches. There are no storks here: the jackdaw, a social and noisy bird, commonly builds in the steeples. Little reverence is shown either to the church or the cemetery; the boys play with a ball against the tower, and the priest’s horse is permitted to graze upon the graves.

At Blandford we changed chaises; a wealthy and cheerful town. The English cities have no open centre like our plazas; but, in amends for this, the streets are far wider and more airy: indeed they have never sun enough to make them desirous of shade. The prosperity of the kingdom has been fatal to the antiquities, and consequently to the picturesque beauty of the towns. Walls, gates, and castles have been demolished to make room for the growth of streets. You are delighted 46with the appearance of opulence in the houses, and the perfect cleanliness every where when you are within the town; but without, there is nothing which the painter would choose for his subject, nothing to call up the recollections of old times, and those feelings with which we always remember the age of the shield and the lance.

This town and Dorchester, but this in particular, has suffered much from fire; a tremendous calamity which is every day occurring in England, and against which daily and dreadful experience has not yet taught them to adopt any general means of prevention. There are large plantations about Blandford:—I do not like the English method of planting in what they call belts about their estates; nothing can be more formal or less beautiful, especially as the fir is the favourite tree, which precludes all variety of shape and colour. By some absurdity which I cannot explain, they set the young trees so thick 47that unless three-fourths be weeded out, the remainder cannot grow at all; and when they are weeded, those which are left, if they do not wither and perish in consequence of the exposure, rarely attain to any size or strength.

Our next stage was to the episcopal city of Salisbury; here we left the down-country, and once more entered upon cultivated fields and inclosures. The trees in these hedge-rows, if they are at all lofty, have all their boughs clipt to the very top; nothing can look more naked and deplorable. When they grow by the way-side, this is enjoined by law, because their droppings after rain injure the road, and their shade prevents it from drying. The climate has so much rain and so little sun, that over-hanging boughs have been found in like manner injurious to pasture or arable lands, and the trees, therefore, are every where thus deformed. The approach to Salisbury is very delightful;—little rivers or rivulets 48are seen in every direction; houses extending into the country, garden-trees within the city, and the spire of the cathedral over-topping all; the highest and the most beautiful in the whole kingdom.

We visited this magnificent building while our dinner was getting ready: like all such buildings, it has its traditional tales of absurdity and exaggeration—that it has as many private chapels as months in a year, as many doors as weeks, as many pillars as days, as many windows as hours, and as many partitions in the windows as minutes: they say also, that it is founded upon wool-packs, because nothing else could resist the humidity of the soil. It has lately undergone, or, I should rather say, suffered a thorough repair in the true spirit of reformation. Every thing has been cleared away to give it the appearance of one huge room. The little chapels, which its pious founders and benefactors had erected in the hope of exciting piety 49in others, and profiting by their prayers, are all swept away! but you may easily conceive what wild work a protestant architect must make with a cathedral, when he fits it to his own notions of architecture, without the slightest feeling or knowledge of the design with which such buildings were originally erected. The naked monuments are now ranged in rows between the pillars, one opposite another, like couples for a dance, so as never monuments were placed before, and, it is to be hoped, never will be placed hereafter. Here is the tomb of a nobleman, who, in the reign of our Philip and Mary, was executed for murder, like a common malefactor, with this difference only, that he had the privilege of being hanged in a silken halter; a singularity which, instead of rendering his death less ignominious, has made the ignominy more notorious. The cloisters and the chapter-house have escaped alteration. I have seen more beautiful cloisters in our own country, but never a finer chapterhouse; 50it is supported, as usual, by one central pillar, whose top arches off on all sides, like the head of a spreading palm. The bishop’s palace was bought during the reign of the presbyterians by a rich tailor, who demolished it and sold the materials.

The cemetery has suffered even more than the church, if more be possible, from the abominable sacrilege, and abominable taste of the late bishop and his chapter. They have destroyed all memorials of the dead, for the sake of laying it down as a smooth well-shorn grass plat, garnished with bright yellow gravel walks! This suits no feeling of the mind connected with religious reverence, with death, or with the hope of immortality; indeed it suits with nothing except a new painted window at the altar, of truly English design, (for England is not the country of the arts,) and an organ, bedecked with crocketed pinnacles, more than ever was Gothic tower, and of stone colour, to imitate masonry! This, however, it should be added, 51was given in a handsome manner by the King. A subscription was raised through the diocese to repair the cathedral, the King having enquired of the bishop how it succeeded, proceeded to ask why he himself had not been applied to for a contribution. The prelate, with courtly submission, disclaimed such presumption as highly improper. I live at Windsor, said the King, in your diocese, and, though I am not rich, can afford to give you an organ, which I know you want; so order one in my name, and let it be suitable to so fine a cathedral.

The soil here abounds so much with water, that there are no vaults in the churches, nor cellars in the city; a spring will sometimes gush up when they are digging a grave. Little streams flow through several of the streets, so that the city has been called the English Venice; but whoever gave it this appellation, either had never seen Venice, or grossly flattered Salisbury. Indeed, till the resemblance 52was invented, these streamlets were rather thought inconvenient than beautiful; and travellers complained that they made the streets not so clean and not so easy of passage, as they would have been otherwise. The place is famous for the manufactory of knives and scissars, which are here brought to the greatest possible perfection. I am sorry it happened to be Sunday; for the shops, which form so lively a feature in English towns, are all fastened up with shutters, which give the city a melancholy and mourning appearance. I saw, however, a priest walking in his cassock from the church,—the only time when the priests are distinguished in their dress from the laity.

A remarkable instance of insolent impiety occurred lately in a village near this place. A man, in derision of religion, directed in his will, that his horse should be caparisoned and led to his grave, and there shot, and buried with him, that he might be ready to mount at the resurrection, 53and start to advantage. To the disgrace of the country this was actually performed; the executors and the legatees probably thought themselves bound to obey the will; but it is unaccountable why the clergyman did not interfere, and apply to the bishop.

LETTER V.

Old Sarum.—Country thinly peopled,—Basingstoke.—Ruins of a Catholic Chapel.—Waste Land near London.—Staines.—Iron Bridges.—Custom of exposing the dead Bodies of Criminals.—Hounslow.—Brentford.—Approach to London.—Arrival.

Half a league from Salisbury, close on the left of the London road, is Old Sarum, the Sorbiodunum of the Romans, famous for many reasons. It covered the top of a round hill, which is still surrounded with a mound of earth and a deep fosse. Under the Norman kings it was a flourishing town, but subject to two evils; the want of water, and the oppression of the 55castle soldiers. The townsmen, therefore, with one consent, removed to New Sarum, the present Salisbury, where the first of these evils is more than remedied; and the garrison was no longer maintained at Old Sarum when there was nobody to be pillaged. So was the original city deserted, except by its right of representation in parliament; not a soul remaining there. Seven burgage tenures, in a village westward of it, produce two burgesses to serve in parliament for Old Sarum; four of these tenures (the majority) were sold very lately for a sum little short of 200,000 peso-duros.

From this place Salisbury Plain stretches to the north, but little of it is visible from the road which we were travelling: much of this wide waste has lately been inclosed and cultivated. I regretted that I could not visit Stonehenge, the famous druidical monument, which was only a league and a half distant: but as J— was on his way home, after so long an absence, I 56could not even express a wish to delay him.

Stockbridge and Basingstoke were our next stages: the country is mostly down, recently enclosed, and of wonderfully thin population in comparison of the culture. Indeed harvest here depends upon a temporary emigration of the western clothiers, who come and work during the harvest months. The few trees in this district grow about the villages which are scattered in the vallies—beautiful objects in an open and naked country. You see flints and chalk in the fields, if the soil be not covered with corn or turnips. Basingstoke is a town which stands at the junction of five great roads, and is of course a thriving place. At the north side is a small but beautiful ruin of a chapel once belonging to a brotherhood of the Holy Ghost. J— led me to see it as a beautiful object, in which light only all Englishmen regard such monuments of the piety of their forefathers and of their own lamentable 57apostasy. The roof had once been adorned with the history of the prophets and the holy apostles; but the more beautiful and the more celebrated these decorations, the more zealously were they destroyed in the schism. I felt deeply the profanation, and said a prayer in silence upon the spot where the altar should have stood. One relic of better times is still preserved at Basingstoke: in all parishes it is the custom, at stated periods, to walk round the boundaries; but here, and here only, is the procession connected with religion: they begin and conclude the ceremony by singing a psalm under a great elm which grows before the parsonage-house.

Two leagues and a half of wooded country reach Hertford Bridge, a place of nothing but inns for travellers: from hence, with short and casual interruptions, Bagshot Heath extends to Egham, not less than fourteen miles. We were within six leagues of London, a city twice during the late war on the very brink of famine, 58and twice in hourly dread of insurrection from that dreadful cause:—and yet so near it is this tract of country utterly waste! Nothing but wild sheep, that run as fleet as hounds, are scattered over this dreary desert: flesh there is none on these wretched creatures; but those who are only half-starved on the heath produce good meat when fatted: all the flesh and all the fat being laid on, as graziers speak, anew, it is equivalent in tenderness to lamb, and in flavour to mutton, and has fame accordingly in the metropolis.

At Staines we crost the Thames,—not by a new bridge, now for the third time built, but over a crazy wooden one above a century old. We enquired the reason, and heard a curious history. The river here divides the counties of Middlesex and Surrey; and the magistrates of both counties, having agreed upon the necessity of building a bridge, did not agree exactly as to its situation; neither party would give way, and accordingly each collected materials 59for building a half-bridge from its respective bank, but not opposite to the other. Time at length showed the unfitness of this, and convinced them that two half bridges would not make a whole one: they then built three arches close to the old bridge; when weight was laid on the middle piers, they sunk considerably into an unremembered and untried quicksand, and all the work was to be undone. In the meanwhile, an adventurous iron bridge had been built at Sunderland, one arch of monstrous span over a river with high rocky banks, so that large ships could sail under. The architect of this work, which was much talked of, offered his services to throw a similar but smaller bridge over the Thames. But, alas! his rocky abutments were not there, and he did not believe enough in mathematics to know the mighty lateral pressure of a wide flat arch. Stone abutments, however, were to be made; but, from prudential considerations, the Middlesex abutment, of seeming 60solidity, was hollow, having been intended for the wine-cellar of a large inn; so as soon as the wooden frame-work was removed, the flat arch took the liberty of pushing away the abutment—alias the wine-cellar—and after carriages had passed over about a week, the fated bridge was once more closed against passage.

I know not how these iron bridges may appear to an English eye, but to a Spaniard’s they are utterly detestable. The colour, where it is not black, is rusty, and the hollow, open, spider work, which they so much praise for its lightness, has no appearance of solidity. Of all the works of man, there is not any one which unites so well with natural scenery, and so heightens its beauty, as a bridge, if any taste, or rather if no bad taste, be displayed in its structure. This is exemplified in the rude as well as in the magnificent; by the stepping stones or crossing plank of a village brook, as well as by the immortal works of Trajan: but to look at these 61iron bridges which are bespoken at the foundries, you would actually suppose that the architect had studied at the confectioner’s, and borrowed his ornaments from the sugar temples of a desert. It is curious that this execrable improvement, as every novelty is called in England, should have been introduced by the notorious politician, Paine, who came over from America, upon this speculation, and exhibited one as a show upon dry ground in the metropolis.^[4]

Staines was so called, because the boundary stone which marked the extent of the city of London’s jurisdiction up the river formerly stood here. The country on the London side had once been a forest; but has now no other wood remaining than a few gibbets; on one of which, according to the barbarous custom of this country, a criminal was hanging in chains. Some 62five-and-twenty years ago, about a hundred such were exposed upon the heath; so that from whatever quarter the wind blew, it brought with it a cadaverous and pestilential odour. The nation is becoming more civilized; they now take the bodies down after reasonable exposure; and it will probably not be long before a practice so offensive to public feeling, and public decency, will be altogether discontinued. This heath is infamous for the robberies which are committed upon it, at all hours of the day and night, though travellers and stage-coaches are continually passing: the banditti are chiefly horsemen, who strike across with their booty into one of the roads, which intersect it in every direction, and easily escape pursuit; an additional reason for inclosing the waste. We passed close to some powder-mills, which are either so ill-contrived, or so carelessly managed, that they are blown up about once a-year: then we entered the great Western road at Hounslow; from thence 63to the metropolis is only two leagues and a half.

Three miles further is Brentford, the county town of Middlesex, and of all places the most famous in the electioneering history of England. It was now almost one continued street to London. The number of travellers perfectly astonished me, prepared as I had been by the gradual increase along the road; horsemen and footmen, carriages of every description and every shape, waggons and carts and covered carts, stage-coaches, long, square, and double, coaches, chariots, chaises, gigs, buggies, curricles, and phaetons; the sound of their wheels ploughing through the wet gravel was as continuous and incessant as the roar of the waves on the sea beach. Evening was now setting in, and it was dark before we reached Hyde Park Corner, the entrance of the capital. We had travelled for some time in silence; J—’s thoughts were upon his family, and I was as naturally led to think on mine, from whom I 64was now separated by so wide a tract of sea and land, among heretics and strangers, a people notoriously inhospitable to foreigners, without a single friend or acquaintance, except my companion. You will not wonder if my spirits were depressed; in truth, I never felt more deeply dejected; and the more I was surprised at the length of the streets, the lines of lamps, and of illuminated shops, and the stream of population to which there seemed to be no end,—the more I felt the solitariness of my own situation.

The chaise at last stopped at J—’s door in ——. I was welcomed as kindly as I could wish: my apartment had been made ready: I pleaded fatigue, and soon retired.

LETTER VI.

Watchmen.—Noise in London Night and Morning.—An English Family.—Advice to Travellers.

The first night in a strange bed is seldom a night of sound rest;—one is not intimate enough with the pillow to be quite at ease upon it. A traveller, like myself, indeed, might be supposed to sleep soundly any where; but the very feeling that my journey was over was a disquieting one, and I should have lain awake thinking of the friends and parents whom I had left, and the strangers with whom I was now domesticated, had there been nothing else to disturb me. To sleep in London, however, is an art which a foreigner must acquire 66by time and habit. Here was the watchman, whose business it is, not merely to guard the streets and take charge of the public security, but to inform the good people of London every half hour of the state of the weather. For the three first hours I was told it was a moonlight night, then it became cloudy, and at half past three o’clock was a rainy morning; so that I was as well acquainted with every variation of the atmosphere as if I had been looking from the window all night long. A strange custom this, to pay men for telling them what the weather is, every hour during the night, till they get so accustomed to the noise, that they sleep on and cannot hear what is said.

Besides this regular annoyance, there is another cause of disturbance. The inhabitants of this great city seem to be divided into two distinct casts,—the Solar and the Lunar races,—those who live by day, and those who live by night, antipodes to each other, the one rising just as the others 67go to bed. The clatter of the night coaches had scarcely ceased, before that of the morning carts began. The dustman with his bell, and his chaunt of dust ho! succeeded to the watchman; then came the porter-house boy for the pewter-pots which had been sent out for supper the preceding night; the milkman next, and so on, a succession of cries, each in a different tune, so numerous, that I could no longer follow them in my enquiries.

As the watchman had told me of the rain, I was neither surprised nor sorry at finding it a wet morning: a day of rest after the voyage and so long a journey is acceptable, and the leisure it allows for clearing my memory, and settling accounts with my journal, is what I should have chosen. More novelties will crowd upon me now than it will be easy to keep pace with. Here I am in London, the most wonderful spot upon this habitable earth.

The inns had given me a taste of English 68manners; still the domestic accommodations and luxuries surprised me. Would you could see our breakfast scene! every utensil so beautiful, such order, such curiosity! the whole furniture of the room so choice, and of such excellent workmanship, and a fire of earth-coal enlivening every thing. But I must minutely describe all this hereafter. To paint the family group is out of my power; words may convey an adequate idea of deformity, and describe with vivid accuracy what is grotesque in manner or costume; but for gracefulness and beauty we have only general terms. Thus much, however, may be said; there is an elegance and a propriety in the domestic dress of English women, which is quite perfect, and children here and with us seem almost like beings of different species. Their dress here bears no resemblance to that of their parents; I could not but feel the unfitness of our own manners, and acknowledge that our children in full dress look like colts in harness. 69J—’s are fine, healthy, happy-looking children; their mother educates them, and was telling her husband with delightful pride how they had profited, how John could spell, and Harriet tell her letters. She has shown me their books, for in this country they have books for every gradation of the growing intellect, and authors of the greatest celebrity have not thought it beneath them to employ their talents in this useful department. Their very playthings are made subservient to the purposes of education; they have ivory alphabets with which they arrange words upon the table, and dissected maps which they combine into a whole so much faster than I can do, that I shall not be ashamed to play with them, and acquire the same readiness.

J— has a tolerable library; he has the best Spanish authors; but I must not keep company here with my old friends. The advice which he has given me, with respect to my studies, is very judicious. Of our best books, he says, read none but such as 70are absolutely necessary to give you a competent knowledge of the land you are in; you will take back with you our great authors, and it is best to read them at leisure in your own country, when you will more thoroughly understand them. Newspapers, Reviews, and other temporary publications will make you best acquainted with England in its present state; and we have bulky county histories, not worth freight across the water, which you should consult for information concerning what you have seen, and what you mean to see. But reserve our classics for Spain, and read nothing which you buy.^[5]

The tailor and shoemaker have made their appearance. I fancied my figure was quite English in my pantaloons of broad-striped fustian, and large coat buttons of cut steel; but it seems that although they are certainly of genuine English manufacture, they were manufactured only for foreign 71sale. To-morrow my buttons will be covered, and my toes squared, and I shall be in no danger of being called Frenchman in the streets.

LETTER VII.

General Description of London.—Walk to the Palace.—Crowd in the Streets.—Shops.—Cathedral of St Paul.—Palace of the Prince of Wales.—Oddities in the Shop Windows.

My first business was to acquire some knowledge of the place whereof I am now become an inhabitant. I began to study the plan of London, though dismayed at the sight of its prodigious extent,—a city a league and a half from one extremity to the other, and about half as broad, standing upon level ground. It is impossible ever to become thoroughly acquainted with such an endless labyrinth of streets; and, as you may well suppose, they who 73live at one end know little or nothing of the other. The river is no assistance to a stranger in finding his way. There is no street along its banks, and no eminence from whence you can look around and take your bearings.

London, properly so called, makes but a small part of this immense capital, though the focus of business is there. Westminster is about the same size. To the east and the north is a great population included in neither of these cities, and probably equal to both. On the western side the royal parks have prevented the growth of houses, and form a gap between the metropolis and its suburb. All this is on the north side of the river. Southwark, or the Borough, is on the other shore, and a town has grown at Lambeth by the Primate’s palace, which has now joined it. The extent of ground covered with houses on this bank is greater than the area of Madrid. The population is now ascertained to exceed 74nine hundred thousand persons, nearly a twelfth of the inhabitants of the whole island.

Having studied the way to the palace, I set off. The distance was considerable: the way, after getting into the main streets, tolerably straight. There were not many passers in the by-streets; but when I reached Cheapside the crowd completely astonished me. On each side of the way were two uninterrupted streams of people, one going east, the other west. At first I thought some extraordinary occasion must have collected such a concourse; but I soon perceived it was only the usual course of business. They moved on in two regular counter currents, and the rapidity with which they moved was as remarkable as their numbers. It was easy to perceive that the English calculate the value of time. Nobody was loitering to look at the beautiful things in the shop windows; none were stopping to converse, every one was in haste, yet no one in a hurry; the 75quickest possible step seemed to be the natural pace. The carriages were numerous in proportion, and were driven with answerable velocity.

If possible, I was still more astonished at the opulence and splendour of the shops: drapers, stationers, confectioners, pastry-cooks, seal-cutters, silver-smiths, booksellers, print-sellers, hosiers, fruiterers, china-sellers,—one close to another, without intermission, a shop to every house, street after street, and mile after mile; the articles themselves so beautiful, and so beautifully arranged, that if they who passed by me had had leisure to observe any thing, they might have known me to be a foreigner by the frequent stands which I made to admire them. Nothing which I had seen in the country had prepared me for such a display of splendour.

My way lay by St Paul’s church. The sight of this truly noble building rather provoked than pleased me. The English, after erecting so grand an edifice, will not 76allow it an open space to stand in, and it is impossible to get a full view of it in any situation. The value of ground in this capital is too great to be sacrificed to beauty by a commercial nation: unless, therefore, another conflagration should lay London in ashes, the Londoners will never fairly see their own cathedral. The street which leads to the grand front has just a sufficient bend to destroy the effect which such a termination would have given it, and to obstruct the view till you come too close to see it. This is perfectly vexatious! Except St Peter’s, here is beyond comparison the finest temple in Christendom, and it is even more ridiculously misplaced than the bridge of Segovia appears, when the mules have drank up the Manzanares. The houses come so close upon one side, that carriages are not permitted to pass that way lest the foot-passengers should be endangered. The site itself is well chosen on a little rising near the river; and were it fairly opened as it ought to be, 77no city could boast so magnificent a monument of modern times.

In a direct line from hence is Temple Bar, a modern, ugly, useless gate, which divides the two cities of London and Westminster. There were iron spikes upon the top, on which the heads of traitors were formerly exposed: J— remembers to have seen some in his childhood. On both sides of this gate I had a paper thrust into my hand, which proved to be a quack doctor’s notice of some never-failing pills. Before I reached home I had a dozen of these. Tradesmen here lose no possible opportunity of forcing their notices upon the public. Wherever there was a dead wall, a vacant house, or a temporary scaffolding erected for repairs, the space was covered with printed bills. Two rival blacking-makers were standing in one of the streets, each carried a boot, completely varnished with black, hanging from a pole, and on the other arm a basket with the balls for sale. On the top of their poles 78was a sort of standard, with a printed paper explaining the virtue of the wares;—the one said that his blacking was the best blacking in the world; the other, that his was so good you might eat it.

The crowd in Westminster was not so great as in the busier city. From Charing Cross, as it is still called, though an equestrian statue has taken place of the cross, a great street opens toward Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament. Most of the public buildings are here: it is to be regretted that the end is not quite open to the abbey, for it would then be one of the finest streets in Europe. Leaving this for my return, I went on to the palaces of the Prince of Wales, and of the King, which stand near each other in a street called Pall Mall. The game from whence this name is derived is no longer known in England.

The Prince of Wales’s palace is no favourable specimen of English architecture. Before the house are thirty columns planted 79in a row, two and two, supporting nothing but a common entablature, which connects them. As they serve for neither ornament nor use, a stranger might be puzzled to know by what accident they came there; but the truth is, that these people have more money than taste, and are satisfied with any absurdity if it has but the merit of being new. The same architect was employed^[6] to build a palace, not far distant, for the second prince of the blood, and in the front towards the street he constructed a large oven-like room completely obscuring the house to which it was to serve as an entrance-hall. These two buildings being described to the late Lord North, who was blind in the latter part of his life, he facetiously remarked, Then the Duke of York, it should seem, has been sent to the 80round-house, and the Prince of Wales is put into the pillory.^[7]

I had now passed the trading district, and found little to excite attention in large brick houses without uniformity, and without either beauty or magnificence. The royal palace itself is an old brick building, remarkable for nothing, except that the sovereign of Great Britain should have no better a court; but it seems that the king never resides there. A passage through the court-yard leads into St James’s Park, the Prado of London. Its trees are not so fine as might be expected in a country where water never fails, and the sun never scorches; here is also a spacious piece of water; but the best ornament of the park are the two towers of Westminster Abbey. Having now reached the proposed limits of my walk, I passed 81through a public building of some magnitude and little beauty, called the Horse Guards, and again entered the public streets. Here, where the pavement was broad, and the passengers not so numerous as to form a crowd, a beggar had taken his seat, and written his petition upon the stones with chalks of various colours, the letters formed with great skill, and ornamented with some taste. I stopped to admire his work, and gave him a trifle as a payment for the sight, rather than as alms. Immediately opposite the Horse Guards is the Banqueting House at Whitehall; so fine a building, that if the later architects had had eyes to see, or understandings to comprehend its merit, they would never have disgraced the opposite side of the way with buildings so utterly devoid of beauty. This fragment of a great design by Inigo Jones is remarkable for many accounts; here is the window through which Charles I. came out upon the scaffold; here also, in the back court, the statue of 82James II. remains undisturbed, with so few excesses was that great revolution accompanied; and here is the weathercock which was set up by his command, that he might know every shifting of the wind when the invasion from Holland was expected, and the east wind was called Protestant by the people, and the west Papist.

My way home from Charing Cross was varied, in as much as I took the other side of the street for the sake of the shop windows, and the variety was greater than I had expected. It took me through a place called Exeter Change, which is precisely a Bazar, a sort of street under cover, or large long room, with a row of shops on either hand, and a thoroughfare between them; the shops being furnished with such articles as might tempt an idler, or remind a passenger of his wants,—walking-sticks, implements for shaving, knives, scissars, watch-chains, purses, &c. At the further end was a man in splendid costume, who proved to belong to a menagerie 83above stairs, to which he invited me to ascend; but I declined this for the present, being without a companion. A maccaw was swinging on a perch above him, and the outside of the building hung with enormous pictures of the animals which were there to be seen.

The oddest things which I saw in the whole walk were a pair of shoes in one window floating in a vessel of water, to show that they were water-proof; and a well-dressed leg in another, betokening that legs were made there to the life. One purchase I ventured to make, that of a travelling caissette; there were many at the shop-door, with the prices marked upon them, so that I did not fear imposition. These things are admirably made and exceedingly convenient. I was shown some which contained the whole apparatus of a man’s toilet, but this seemed an ill assortment, as when writing you do not want the shaving materials, and when shaving as little do you want the writing desk.

84In looking over the quack’s notices after my return, I found a fine specimen of English hyperbole. The doctor says that his pills always perform, and even exceed whatever he promises, as if they were impatient of immortal and universal fame.

LETTER VIII.

Proclamation of Peace.—The English do not understand Pageantry.—Illumination.—M. Otto’s House.—Illuminations better managed at Rome.

The definitive treaty has arrived at last; peace was proclaimed yesterday, with the usual ceremonies, and the customary rejoicings have taken place. My expectations were raised to the highest pitch. I looked for a pomp and pageantry far surpassing whatever I had seen in my own country. Indeed every body expected a superb spectacle. The newspaper writers had filled their columns with magnificent descriptions of what was to be, and rooms or single windows in the streets through 86which the procession was to pass, were advertised to be let for the sight, and hired at prices so extravagant, that I should be suspected of exaggeration were I to say how preposterous.

The theory of the ceremony, for this ceremony, like an English suit at law, is founded upon a fiction, is, that the Lord Mayor of London, and the people of London, good people! being wholly ignorant of what has been going on, the king sends officially to acquaint them that he has made peace: accordingly the gates at Temple Bar, which divide London and Westminster, and which stand open day and night, are on this occasion closed; and Garter king at arms, with all his heraldic peers, rides up to them and knocks loudly for admittance. The Lord Mayor, mounted on a charger, is ready on the other side to demand who is there. King Garter then announces himself and his errand, and requires permission to pass and proclaim the good news; upon which the 87gates are thrown open. This, which is the main part of the ceremony, could be seen only by those persons who were contiguous to the spot, and we were not among the number. The apartment in which we were was on the Westminster side, and we saw only the heraldic part of the procession. The heralds and the trumpeters were certainly in splendid costume; but they were not above twenty in number, nor was there any thing to precede or follow them. The poorest brotherhood in Spain makes a better procession on its festival. In fact, these functions are not understood in England.

The crowd was prodigious. The windows, the leads, or unrailed balconies which project over many of the shops, the house tops, were full, and the streets below thronged. A very remarkable accident took place in our sight. A man on the top of a church was leaning against one of the stone urns which ornament the balustrade; it fell, and crushed 88a person below. On examination it appeared that the workmen, instead of cramping it with iron to the stone, or securing it with masonry, had fitted it on a wooden peg, which having become rotten through, yielded to the slightest touch. A Turk might relate this story in proof of predestination.

If, however, the ceremony of the morning disappointed me, I was amply rewarded by the illuminations at night. This token of national joy is not, as with us, regulated by law; the people, or the mob, as they are called, take the law into their own hands on these occasions, and when they choose to have an illumination, the citizens must illuminate to please them, or be content to have their windows broken; a violence which is winked at by the police, as it falls only upon persons whose politics are obnoxious. During many days, preparations had been making for this festivity, so that it was already known what houses and what public buildings 89would exhibit the most splendid appearance. M. Otto’s, the French ambassador, surpassed all others, and the great object of desire was to see this. Between eight and nine the lighting-up began, and about ten we sallied out on our way to Portman Square, where M. Otto resided.

In the private streets there was nothing to be remarked, except the singular effect of walking at night in as broad a light as that of noon-day, every window being filled with candles, arranged either in straight lines, or in arches, at the fancy of the owner, which nobody stopped to admire. None indeed were walking in these streets except persons whose way lay through them; yet had there been a single house unlighted, a mob would have been collected in five minutes, at the first outcry. When we drew near Pall Mall, the crowd, both of carriages and of people, thickened; still there was no inconvenience, and no difficulty in walking, or in crossing the carriage road. Greater expense had been bestowed 90here. The gaming-houses in St James’s street were magnificent, as they always are on such occasions; in one place you saw the crown and the G. R. in coloured lamps; in another the word Peace in letters of light; in another some transparent picture, emblematical of peace and plenty. Some score years ago, a woman in the country asked a higher price than she had used to do for a basket of mushrooms, and when she was asked the reason, said, it was because of the American war. As war thus advances the price of every thing, peace and plenty are supposed to be inseparably connected; and well may the poor think them so. There was a transparency exhibited this night at a pot-house in the city, which represented a loaf of bread saying to a pot of porter, I am coming down; to which the porter-pot made answer, So am I.

The nearer we drew the greater was the throng. It was a sight truly surprising to behold all the inhabitants of this immense 91city walking abroad at midnight, and distinctly seen by the light of ten thousand candles. This was particularly striking in Oxford-street, which is nearly half a league in length;—as far as the eye could reach either way the parallel lines of light were seen narrowing towards each other. Here, however, we could still advance without difficulty, and the carriages rattled along unobstructed. But in the immediate vicinity of Portman square it was very different. Never before had I beheld such multitudes assembled. The middle of the street was completely filled with coaches, so immoveably locked together, that many persons who wished to cross passed under the horses’ bellies without fear, and without danger. The unfortunate persons within had no such means of escape; they had no possible way of extricating themselves, unless they could crawl out of the window of one coach into the window of another; there was no room to open a door. There they were, and there they must remain, 92patiently or impatiently; and there, in fact, they did remain the greater part of the night, till the lights were burnt out, and the crowd clearing away left them at liberty.

We who were on foot had better fortune, but we laboured hard for it. There were two ranks of people, one returning from the square, the other pressing on to it. Exertion was quite needless; man was wedged to man, he who was behind you pressed you against him who was before; I had nothing to do but to work out elbow room that I might not be squeezed to death, and to float on with the tide. But this tide was frequently at a stop; some obstacle at the further end of the street checked it, and still the crowd behind was increasing in depth. We tried the first entrance to the square in vain; it was utterly impossible to get in, and finding this we crossed into the counter current, and were carried out by the stream. A second and a third entrance 93we tried with no better fortune; at the fourth, the only remaining avenue, we were more successful. To this, which is at the outskirts of the town, there was one way inaccessible by carriages, and it was not crowded by walkers, because the road was bad, there were no lamps, and the way was not known. By this route, however, we entered the avenue immediately opposite to M. Otto’s, and raising ourselves by the help of a garden wall, overlooked the crowd, and thus obtained a full and uninterrupted sight, of what thousands and tens of thousands were vainly struggling to see. To describe it, splendid as it was, is impossible; the whole building presented a front of light. The inscription was Peace and Amity; it had been Peace and Concord, but a party of sailors in the morning, whose honest patriotism did not regard trifling differences of orthography, insisted upon it that they were not conquered, and that no Frenchman should say so; and so the word Amity, which can hardly 94be regarded as English, was substituted in its stead.

Having effected our object, meaner sights had no temptation for us, and we returned. It was three in the morning before we reached home; we extinguished our lights and were retiring to bed, believing ourselves at liberty so to do. But it did not please the mob to be of the same opinion; they insisted that the house should be lit up again, and John Bull was not to be disobeyed. Except a few such instances of unreasonableness, it is surprising how peaceably the whole passed off. The pickpockets have probably made a good harvest; but we saw no quarrelling, no drunkenness, and, what is more extraordinary, prodigious as the crowd was, have heard of no accident.

So famous is this illumination of M. Otto, that one of the minor theatres has given notice to all such persons as were not fortunate enough to obtain sight of it, that it will be exactly represented upon the 95stage for their accommodation, and that the same number of lamps will be arranged precisely in the same manner, the same person being employed to suspend them. Hundreds will go to see this, not recollecting that it is as impossible to do it upon a stage of that size, as it is to put a quart of water into a pint cup.

Illuminations are better managed at Rome. Imagine the vast dome of St Peter’s covered with large lamps so arranged as to display its fine form; those lamps all kindled at the same minute, and the whole dome emerging, as it were, from total darkness, in one blaze of light. After this exhibition has lasted an hour, the dome as rapidly assumes the shape of a huge tiara, a change produced by pots of fire so much more powerful than the former light as at once to annihilate it. This, and the fireworks from St Angelo, which, from the grandeur, admit of no adequate description, as you may well conceive, effectually prevent those persons who have 96beheld them from enjoying the twinkling light of half-penny-candles scattered in the windows of London, or the crowns and regal cyphers which here and there manifest the zeal, the interest, or emulation of individuals.

LETTER IX.

Nothing is now talked of in London but the fate of Governor Wall, who has just been executed for a crime committed twenty years ago. He commanded at that time the English settlement at Goree, an inactive and unwholsome station, little reputable for the officers, and considered as a place of degradation for the men. The garrison became discontented at some real or supposed mal-practices in the distribution of stores; and Wall seizing those whom he conceived to be the ringleaders of the disaffected, ordered them, by his own authority, to be so dreadfully flogged, that three of them died in consequence; he 98himself standing by during the execution, and urging the executioner not to spare, in terms of the most brutal cruelty. An indictment for murder was preferred against him on his return to England; he was apprehended, but made his escape from the officers of justice, and got over to the Continent, where he remained many years. Naples was at one time the place of his residence, and the countenance which he received there from some of his countrymen of high rank perhaps induced him to believe that the public indignation against him had subsided. Partly, perhaps, induced by this confidence, by the supposition that the few witnesses who could have testified against him were dead, or so scattered about the world as to be out of reach, and still more compelled by the pressure of his circumstances, he at length resolved to venture back.

It is said, that some years before his surrender he came to Calais with this intent, and desired one of the king of England’s 99messengers to take him into custody, as he wished to return and stand his trial. The messenger replied, that he could not possibly take charge of him, but advised him to signify his intention to the Secretary of State, and offered to carry his letter to the office. Wall was still very solicitous to go, though the sea was at that time so tempestuous that the ordinary packets did not venture out; and the messenger, whose dispatches would not admit of delay, had hired a vessel for himself: finding, however, that this could not be, he wrote as had been suggested; but when he came to subscribe his name, his heart failed him, his countenance became pale and livid, and in an agony of fear or of conscience he threw down the pen and rushed out of the room. The messenger put to sea; the vessel was wrecked in clearing out of the harbour, and not a soul on board escaped.

This extraordinary story has been confidently related with every circumstantial evidence; 100yet it seems to imply a consciousness of guilt, and a feeling of remorse, noways according with his after conduct. He came over to England about twelve months ago, and lived in London under a fictitious name: here also a circumstance look place which touched him to the heart. Some masons were employed about his house, and he took notice to one of them that the lad who worked with him appeared very sickly and delicate, and unfit for so laborious an employment. The man confessed that it was true, but said that he had no other means of supporting him, and that the poor lad had no other friend in the world, “For his father and mother,” said he, “are dead, and his only brother was flogged to death at Goree, by that barbarous villain Governor Wall.”

It has never been ascertained what were his motives for surrendering himself; the most probable cause which can be assigned is, that some property had devolved to him, of which he stood greatly in need, 101but which he could not claim till his outlawry had been reversed. He therefore voluntarily gave himself up, and was brought to trial. One of the persons whom he had summoned to give evidence in his favour dropped down dead on the way to the court; it was, however, known that his testimony would have borne against him. Witnesses appeared from the remotest parts of the island whom he had supposed dead. One man who had suffered under his barbarity and recovered, had been hanged for robbery but six months before, and expressed his regret at going to the gallows before Governor Wall, as the thing which most grieved him, “For,” said he, “I know he will come to the gallows at last.”

The question turned upon the point of law, whether the fact, for that was admitted, was to be considered as an execution, or as a murder. The evidence of a woman who appeared in his behalf, was that which weighed most heavily against 102him: his attempt to prove that a mutiny actually existed failed; and the jury pronounced him guilty. For this he was utterly unprepared; and, when he heard the verdict, clasped his hands in astonishment and agony. The Bench, as it is called, had no doubt whatever of his guilt, but they certainly thought it doubtful how the jury might decide; and as the case was so singular, after passing sentence in the customary form, they respited him, that the circumstances might be more fully considered.

The Governor was well connected, and had powerful friends: it is said also, that as the case turned upon a question of discipline, some persons high in the military department exerted themselves warmly in his favour. The length of time which had elapsed was no palliation, and it was of consequence that it should not be considered as such; but his self-surrender, it was urged, evidently implied that he believed himself justifiable in what he had 103done. On the other hand, the circumstances which had appeared on the trial were of the most aggravating nature; they had been detailed in all the newspapers, and women were selling the account about the streets at a half-penny each, vociferating aloud the most shocking parts, the better to attract notice. Various editions of the trial at length were published; and the publishers, most unpardonably, while the question of his life or death was still under the consideration of the privy council, stuck up their large notices all over the walls of London, with prints of the transaction, and “Cut his liver out,” the expression which he had used to the executioner, written in large letters above. The popular indignation had never before been so excited. On the days appointed for his execution (for he was repeatedly respited) all the streets leading to the prison were crowded by soldiers and sailors chiefly, every one of whom felt it as his own personal cause: and as the execution of 104the mutineers in the fleet was so recent, in which so little mercy had been shown, a feeling very generally prevailed among the lower classes, that this case was to decide whether or not there was law for the rich as well as for the poor. The deliberations of the privy council continued for so many days that it was evident great efforts were made to save his life; but there can be little doubt, that had these efforts succeeded, either a riot would have ensued, or a more dangerous and deeply-founded spirit of disaffection would have gone through the people.

Wall, meantime, was lying in the dungeon appointed for persons condemned to death, where, in strict observance of the letter of the law, he was allowed no other food than bread and water. Whether he felt compunction may be doubted:—we easily deceive ourselves:—form only was wanting to have rendered that a legal punishment which was now called murder, and he may have regarded himself as 105a disciplinarian, not a criminal; but as his hopes of pardon failed him, he was known to sit up in his bed during the greater part of the night, singing psalms. His offence was indeed heavy, but never did human being suffer more heavily! The dread of death, the sense of the popular hatred, for it was feared that the mob might prevent his execution and pull him to pieces; and the tormenting reflection that his own vain confidence had been the cause,—that he had voluntarily placed himself in this dreadful situation,—these formed a punishment sufficient, even if remorse were not superadded.

On the morning of his execution, the mob, as usual, assembled in prodigious numbers, filling the whole space before the prison, and all the wide avenues from whence the spot could be seen. Having repeatedly been disappointed of their revenge, they were still apprehensive of another respite, and their joy at seeing him appear upon the scaffold was so great, 106that they set up three huzzas,—an instance of ferocity which had never occurred before. The miserable man, quite overcome by this, begged the hangman to hasten his work. When he was turned off they began their huzzas again; but instead of proceeding to three distinct shouts, as usual, they stopped at the first. This conduct of the mob has been called inhuman and disgraceful; for my own part, I cannot but agree with those who regard it in a very different light. The revengeful joy which animated them, unchristian as that passion certainly is, and whatever may have been its excess, was surely founded upon humanity; and the sudden extinction of that joy, the feeling which at one moment struck so many thousands, stopped their acclamations at once, and awed them into a dead silence when they saw the object of their hatred in the act and agony of death, is surely as honourable to the popular character as any trait which I have seen 107recorded of any people in any age or country.

The body, according to custom, was suspended an hour: during this time the Irish basket-women who sold fruit under the gallows were drinking his damnation in mixture of gin and brimstone! The halter in which he suffered was cut into the smallest pieces possible, which were sold to the mob at a shilling each. According to the sentence, the body should have been dissected; it was just opened as a matter of form, and then given to his relations; for which indulgence they gave 100l. to one of the public hospitals. One of the printed trials contains his portrait as taken in the dungeon of the condemned; if it be true that an artist was actually sent to take his likeness under such dreadful circumstances, for the purpose of gain, this is the most disgraceful fact which has taken place during the whole transaction.

108A print has since been published called The Balance of Justice. It represents the mutineers hanging on one arm of a gallows, and Governor Wall on the other.

LETTER X.

Martial Laws of England.—Limited Service advised.—Hints for Military Reform.

The execution of Governor Wall is considered as a great triumph of justice. Nobody seems to recollect that he has been hanged, not for having flogged three men to death, but for an informality in the mode of doing it.—Yet this is the true state of the case. Had he called a drum-head court-martial, the same sentence might have been inflicted, and the same consequences have ensued, with perfect impunity to himself.

The martial laws of England are the most barbarous which at this day exist in Europe. The offender is sometimes sentenced 110to receive a thousand lashes;—a surgeon stands by to feel his pulse during the execution, and determine how long the flogging can be continued without killing him. When human nature can sustain no more, he is remanded to prison; his wound, for from the shoulders to the loins it leaves him one wound, is dressed, and as soon as it is sufficiently healed to be laid open again in the same manner, he is brought out to undergo the remainder of his sentence. And this is repeatedly and openly practised in a country where they read in their churches, and in their houses, that Bible, in their own language, which saith, “Forty stripes may the judge inflict upon the offender, and not exceed.”

All savages are cruel, and nations become humane only as they become civilized. Half a century ago, the most atrocious punishments were used in every part of Christendom;—such were the executions under Pombal in Portugal, the tortures inflicted upon Damiens in France; 111and the practice of opening men alive in England. Our own history is full of shocking examples, but our manners^[8] softened sooner than those of our neighbours. These barbarities originated in barbarous ages, and are easily accounted for; but how so cruel a system of martial law, which certainly cannot be traced back to any distant age of antiquity, could ever have been established is unaccountable; for when barbarians established barbarous laws, the soldiers were the only people who were free; in fact, they were the legislators, and of course would never make laws to enslave themselves.

Another grievous evil in their military system is, that there is no limited time of 112service. Hence arises the difficulty which the English find in recruiting their armies. The bounty money offered for a recruit during the war amounted sometimes to as much as twenty pieces of eight, a sum, burthensome indeed to the nation when paid to whole regiments, but little enough if it be considered as the price for which a man sells his liberty for life. There would be no lack of soldiers were they enlisted for seven years. Half the peasantry in the country would like to wear a fine coat from the age of eighteen till five-and-twenty, and to see the world at the king’s expense. At present, mechanics who have been thrown out of employ by the war, and run-away apprentices, enlist in their senses, but the far greater number of recruits enter under the influence of liquor.

It has been inferred, that old Homer lived in an age when morality was little understood, because he so often observes, that it is not right to do wrong. Whether 113or not the same judgement is to be passed upon the present age of England, posterity will decide; certain it is that her legislators seem not unfrequently to have forgotten the commonest truisms both of morals and politics. The love of a military life is so general, that it may almost be considered as one of the animal passions; yet such are the martial laws, and such the military system of England, that this passion seems almost annihilated in the country. It is true, that during the late war volunteer companies were raised in every part of the kingdom; but, in raising these, the whole influence of the landed and moneyed proprietors was exerted; it was considered as a test of loyalty; and the greater part of these volunteers consisted of men who had property at stake, and believed it to be in danger, and of their dependants; and the very ease with which these companies were raised, evinces how easy it would be to raise soldiers, if they 114who became soldiers were still to be considered as men, and as freemen.

The difficulty would be lessened if men were enlisted for a limited term of years instead of for life. Yet that this alteration alone is not sufficient, is proved by the state of their provincial troops, or militia as they are called. Here the men are bound to a seven-years service, and are not to be sent out of the kingdom; yet, unexceptionable as this may appear, the militia is not easily raised, nor without some degree of oppression. The men are chosen by ballot, and permitted to serve by substitute, or exempted upon paying a fine. On those who can afford either, it operates, therefore, as a tax by lottery; the poor man has no alternative, he must serve, and, in consequence, the poor man upon whom the lot falls considers himself as ruined: and ruined he is; for, upon the happiest termination of his term of service, if he return to his former place of abode, 115still willing, and still able, to resume his former occupation, he finds his place in society filled up. But seven years of military idleness usually incapacitate him for any other trade, and he who has once been a soldier is commonly for ever after unfit for every thing else.

The evil consequences of the idle hours which hang upon the soldiers’ hands are sufficiently understood, and their dress seems to have been made as liable to dirt as possible, that as much time as possible may be employed in cleaning it. This is one cause of the contempt which the sailors feel for them, who say that soldiers have nothing to do but to whiten their breeches with pipe-clay, and to make strumpets for the use of the navy. Would it not be well to follow the example of the Romans, and employ them in public works? This was done in Scotland, where they have cut roads through the wildest part of the country; and it is said that the soldiery in Ireland are now to be employed in the same 116manner. In England, where no such labour is necessary, they might be occupied in digging canals, or more permanently in bringing the waste^[9] lands into cultivation, which might the more conveniently be effected, as it is becoming the system to lodge the troops in barracks apart from the people, instead of quartering them in the towns. Military villages might be built in place of these huge and ugly buildings, and at far less expense; the adjoining lands cultivated by the men, who should, in consequence, receive higher pay, and the produce be appropriated to the military chest. Each hut should have its garden, which the tenant should cultivate for his own private amusement or profit. Under such a system the soldier might rear a family in time of peace, the wives of the soldiery would be neither less domestic 117nor less estimable than other women in their own rank of life, and the infants, who now die in a proportion which it is shocking to think of, would have the common chance for life.

But the sure and certain way to secure any nation for ever from alarm, as well as from danger, is to train every school-boy to the use of arms: boys would desire no better amusement, and thus, in the course of the next generation, every man would be a soldier. England might then defy, not France alone, but the whole continent leagued with France, even if the impassable gulph between this happy island and its enemy were filled up. This will be done sooner or later, for England must become an armed nation. How long it will be before her legislators will discover this, and how long when they have discovered it, before they will dare to act upon it, that is, before they will consent to part with the power of alarming 118the people, which they have found so convenient, it would be idle to conjecture. Individuals profit slowly by experience, associations still more slowly, and governments the most slowly of all associated bodies.

LETTER XI.

Shopmen, why preferred to Women in England.—Division of London into the East and West Ends.—Low State of domestic Architecture.—Burlington-House.

I have employed this morning in wandering about this huge metropolis with an English gentleman, well acquainted with the manners and customs of foreign countries, and therefore well qualified to point out to me what is peculiar in his own. Of the imposing splendour of the shops I have already spoken; but I have not told you that the finest gentlemen to be seen in the streets of London are the men who serve at the linen-drapers’ and mercers’. Early in the morning they are drest cap-a-pied, 120the hair feathered and frosted with a delicacy which no hat is to derange through the day; and as this is a leisure time with them, they are to be seen after breakfast at their respective shop-doors, paring their nails, and adjusting their cravats. That so many young men should be employed in London to recommend laces and muslins to the ladies, to assist them in the choice of a gown, to weigh out thread and to measure ribbons, excited my surprise; but my friend soon explained the reason. He told me, that in countries where women are the shopkeepers, shops are only kept for the convenience of the people, and not for their amusement. Persons there go into a shop because they want the article which is sold there, and in that case a woman answers all the purposes which are required; the shops themselves are mere repositories of goods, and the time of year of little importance to the receipts. But it is otherwise in London; luxury here fills every head with caprice, 121from the servant-maid to the peeress, and shops are become exhibitions of fashion. In the spring, when all persons of distinction are in town, the usual morning employment of the ladies is to go a-shopping, as it is called; that is, to see these curious exhibitions. This they do without actually wanting to purchase any thing, and they spend their money or not, according to the temptations which are held out to gratify and amuse. Now female shopkeepers, it is said, have not enough patience to indulge this idle and fastidious curiosity; whereas young men are more assiduous, more engaging, and not at all querulous about their loss of time.

It must be confessed, that these exhibitions are very entertaining, nor is there any thing wanting to set them off to the greatest advantage. Many of the windows are even glazed with large panes of plate glass, at a great expense; but this, I am told, is a refinement of a very late date; indeed glass windows were seldom used in 122shops before the present reign, and they who deal in woollen cloth have not yet universally come into the fashion.

London is more remarkable for the distribution of its inhabitants than any city on the continent. It is at once the greatest port in the kingdom, or in the world, a city of merchants and tradesmen, and the seat of government, where the men of rank and fashion are to be found; and though all these are united together by continuous streets, there is an imaginary line of demarkation which divides them from each other. A nobleman would not be found by any accident to live in that part which is properly called the City, unless he should be confined for treason or sedition in Newgate or the Tower. This is the Eastern side; and I observe, whenever a person says that he lives at the West End of the Town, there is some degree of consequence connected with the situation: For instance, my tailor lives at the West End of the Town, and consequently he is 123supposed to make my coat in a better style of fashion: and this opinion is carried so far among the ladies, that, if a cap was known to come from the City, it would be given to my lady’s woman, who would give it to the cook, and she perhaps would think it prudent not to enquire into its pedigree. A transit from the City to the West End of the Town is the last step of the successful trader, when he throws off his exuviæ and emerges from his chrysalis state into the butterfly world of high life. Here are the Hesperides whither the commercial adventurers repair, not to gather but to enjoy their golden fruits.

Yet this metropolis of fashion, this capital of the capital itself, has the most monotonous appearance imaginable.—The streets are perfectly parallel and uniformly extended brick walls, about forty feet high, with equally extended ranges of windows and doors, all precisely alike, and without any appearance of being distinct houses. You would rather suppose them to be hospitals, 124arsenals, or public granaries, were it not for their great extent. Here is a fashion, lately introduced from better climates, of making varandas;—varandas in a country where physicians recommend double doors and double windows as precautions against the intolerable cold! I even saw several instances of green penthouses, to protect the rooms from the heat or light of the sun, fixed against houses in a northern aspect. At this I expressed some surprise to my companion: he replied, that his countrymen were the most rational people in the world when they thought proper to use their understandings, but that when they lost sight of common sense they were more absurd than any others, and less dexterous in giving plausibility to nonsense. In confirmation of this opinion, he instanced another strange fashion which happened to present itself on the opposite side of the street; a brick wall up to the first story decorated with a range of Doric columns to imitate the façade of the Temple of 125Theseus at Athens, while the upper part of the house remained as naked as it could be left by the mason’s trowel.

After walking a considerable time in these streets, I enquired for the palaces of the nobility, and was told that their houses were such as I had seen, with a few exceptions, which were shut up from public view by high blank walls; but that none of them had any pretensions to architecture, except one in Piccadilly, called Burlington-House, which is inhabited by the Duke of Portland. Lord Burlington, who erected it, was a man whose whole desire and fortune were devoted to improve the national taste in architecture: and this building, though with many defects, is considered by good judges to be one of the best specimens of modern architecture in Europe, and even deserves to be ranked with the works of Palladio, whom Lord Burlington made the particular object of his imitation. W—— added, that this building, it is expected, will in a few 126years be taken down, to make room for streets. From the very great increase of ground-rent, it is supposed that the site of the house and garden would produce 8,000l. a-year. Every thing here is reduced to calculation. This sum will soon be considered as the actual rent; and then, in the true commercial spirit of the country, it will be put to sale. This has already been done in two or three instances; and in the course of half a century, it is expected that the bank will be the only building of consequence in this emporium of trade.

The merchants of this modern Tyre, are indeed princes in their wealth, and in their luxury; but it is to be wished that they had something more of the spirit of princely magnificence, and that when they build palaces they would cease to use the warehouse as their model.

LETTER XII.

Causes of the Change of Ministry not generally understood.—Catholic Emancipation.—The Change acceptable to the Nation.—State of Parties.—Strength of the new Administration.—Its good Effects.—Popularity of Mr Addington.

The change of ministry is considered as a national blessing. The system of terror, of alarm, and of espionage, has been laid aside, the most burthensome of the taxes repealed, and a sincere desire manifested on the part of the new minister to meet the wishes of the nation.

It must nevertheless be admitted, that, however unfortunately for their country, and for the general interests of Europe, the late administration may have employed 128their power, the motives which induced them to withdraw, and the manner in which they retired, are highly honourable to their personal characters. The immediate cause was this:—They had held out the promise of emancipation to the Irish Catholics as a means of reconciling them to the Union. While the two countries were governed by separate legislatures, it was very possible, if the catholics were admitted to their rights, that a majority in the Irish House might think proper to restore the old religion of the people, to which it is well known with what exemplary fidelity the great majority of the Irish nation still adhere. But when once the representatives of both countries should be united in one parliament, no such consequence could be apprehended; for, though all the Irish members should be catholics, they would still be a minority. The old ministry had thus represented the Union as a measure which would remove the objection to catholic emancipation, and pledged 129themselves to grant that emancipation, after it should have been effected—this act of justice being the price which they were to pay for it to the people of Ireland. But they had not calculated upon the king’s character, whose zeal, as the Defender of the Faith, makes it greatly to be lamented that he has not a better faith to defend. He, as head of the Church of England, conceives himself bound by his coronation oath to suffer no innovation in favour of popery, as these schismatics contemptuously call the religion of the Fathers and of the Apostles, and this scruple it was impossible to overcome. The bishops, who might have had some influence over him, were all, as may well be imagined, decidedly hostile to any measure of favour or justice to the true faith, and the ministry had no alternative but to break their pledged promise or to resign their offices. That this is the real state of the case, I have been assured on such authority that I cannot entertain the slightest doubt: it 130is, however, by no means generally believed to be so by the people; but I cannot find that they have any other reason for their disbelief, than a settled opinion that statesmen always consider their own private interest in preference to every thing else; in plain language, that there is no such virtue in existence as political honesty. And they persist in supposing that there is more in this resignation than has yet been made public, though the change is now of so long standing, and though they perceive that the late ministers have not accepted either titles or pensions, as has been usual on such occasions, and thus sufficiently proved that disinterestedness of which they will not believe them capable.

But it is commonly said, They went out because they could not decently make peace with Buonaparte—Wait a little while and you will see them in again. This is confuted by the conduct of the former cabinet, all the leading members of which, except Mr Pitt, have violently declared 131themselves against the peace. They cry out that it is the most foolish, mischievous, and dishonourable treaty that ever was concluded: that it cannot possibly be lasting, and that it will be the ruin of the nation. The nation, however, is very well persuaded that no better was to be had, very thankful for a respite from alarm, and a relief of taxation, and very well convinced, by its own disposition to maintain the peace, that it is in no danger of being broken.—And the nation is perfectly right. Exhausted as France and England both are, it is equally necessary to one country as to the other. France wants to make herself a commercial country, to raise a navy, and to train up sailors; England wants to recover from the expenses of a ten-years war, and they are miserable politicians who suppose that any new grounds of dispute can arise, important enough to overpower these considerations.

Pitt, on the other hand, defends the peace; and many persons suppose that he 132will soon make his appearance again in administration. This is not very likely, on account of the catholic question, to which he is as strongly pledged as the Grenville party; but the present difference between him and that party seems to show that the inflexibility of the former cabinet is not to be imputed to him. Peace, upon as good terms as the present, might, beyond all doubt, have been made at any time during the war; and as he is satisfied with it, it is reasonable to suppose that he would have made it sooner if he could. His opinion has all the weight that you would expect; and as the old opposition members are equally favourable to the measures of the new administration, the ministry may look upon themselves as secure. The war-faction can muster only a very small minority, and they are as thoroughly unpopular as the friends of peace and good order could wish them to be.

I know not how I can give you a higher opinion of the present Premier than by 133saying, that his enemies have nothing worse to object against him than that his father was a physician. Even in Spain we have never thought it necessary to examine the pedigree of a statesman, and in England such a cause of complaint is indeed ridiculous. They call him The Doctor on this account;—a minister of healing he has truly been; he has poured balm and oil into the wounds of the country, and the country is blessing him. The peace with France is regarded by the wiser persons with whom I have conversed as a trifling good, compared to the internal pacification which Mr Addington has effected. He immediately put a stop to the system of irritation; there was an end of suspicion, and alarm, and plots; conspiracies were no longer to be heard of, when spies were no longer paid for forming them. The distinction of parties had been as inveterately marked as that between new and old Christians a century ago in Spain, and it was as effectually removed by this change of ministry, 134as if an act of forgetfulness had been enforced by miracle. Parties are completely dislocated by the peace; it has shaken things like an earthquake, and they are not yet settled after the shock. I have heard it called the great political thaw,—happily in Spain we do not know what a great frost is sufficiently to understand the full force of the expression.

Thus much, however, may plainly be perceived. The whig party regard it as a triumph to have any other minister than Pitt, and their antagonists are equally glad to have any other minister than Fox. A still larger part of the people, connected with government by the numberless hooks and eyes of patronage and influence, are ready to support any minister whatsoever, in any measures whatsoever: and others more respectable, neither few in number, nor feeble in weight, act with the same blind acquiescence from a sense of duty. All these persons agree in supporting Mr Addington, who is attacked by none but 135the violent enemies of the popular cause, now, of course, the objects of popular hatred and obloquy themselves. Some people expect to see him take Fox into the administration, others think he will prefer Pitt; it is not very likely that he should venture to trust either, for he must know that if either should^[10] enter at the sleeve, he would get out at the collar.

To the eloquence of his predecessor, the present Premier makes no pretensions, and he is liked the better for it. The English say they have paid quite enough for fine speeches; he tells them a plain story, and gains credit by fair dealing. His enemies naturally depreciate his talents: as far as experience goes, it confutes them. He has shown talents enough to save the country from the Northern confederacy, the most serious danger to which it was exposed during the whole war; to make a peace which has satisfied all the reasonable 136part of the nation, and to restore unanimity at home, and that freedom of opinion which was almost abrogated. From all that I can learn, Mr Addington is likely long to retain his situation; and sure I am that were he to retire from it, he would take with him the regret and the blessings of the people.

LETTER XIII.

Dress of the English without Variety.—Coal-heavers.—Post-men.—Art of knocking at the Door.—Inscriptions over the Shops.—Exhibitions in the Shop-windows.—Chimney-sweepers.—May-day.—These Sports originally religious.

The dress of Englishmen wants that variety which renders the figures of our scenery so picturesque. You might think, from walking the streets of London, that there were no ministers of religion in the country; J— smiled at the remark, and told me that some of the dignified clergy wore silk aprons; but these are rarely seen, and they are more generally known by a 138huge and hideous wig, once considered to be as necessary a covering for a learned head as an ivy bush is for an owl, but which even physicians have now discarded, and left only to schoolmasters and doctors in divinity. There is, too, this remarkable difference between the costume of England and of Spain, that here the national dress is altogether devoid of grace, and it is only modern fashions which have improved it: in Spain, on the contrary, nothing can be more graceful than the dresses both of the clergy and peasantry, which have from time immemorial remained unchanged; while our better ranks clothe themselves in a worse taste, because they imitate the apery of other nations. What I say of their costume applies wholly to that of the men; the dress of English women is perfect, as far as it goes; it leaves nothing to be wished,—except that there should be a little more of it.

The most singular figures in the streets of this metropolis are the men who are employed 139in carrying the earth-coal, which they remove from the barge to the waggon, and again from the waggon to the house, upon their backs. The back of the coat, therefore, is as well quilted as the cotton breastplate of our soldiers in America in old times: and to protect it still more, the broad flap of the hat lies flat upon the shoulders. The head consequently seems to bend unusually forward, and the whole figure has the appearance of having been bowed beneath habitual burthens. The lower classes, with this exception, if they do not wear the cast clothes of the higher ranks, have them in the same form. The post-men all wear the royal livery, which is scarlet and gold; they hurry through the streets, and cross from side to side with indefatigable rapidity. The English doors have knockers instead of bells, and there is an advantage in this which you would not immediately perceive. The bell, by whomsoever it be pulled, must always give the same sound, 140but the knocker may be so handled as to explain who plays upon it, and accordingly it has its systematic set of signals. The post-man comes with two loud and rapid raps, such as no person but himself ever gives. One very loud one marks the news-man. A single knock of less vehemence denotes a servant or other messenger. Visitors give three or four. Footmen or coachmen always more than their masters; and the master of every family has usually his particular touch, which is immediately recognised.

Every shop has an inscription above it expressing the name of its owner, and that of his predecessor, if the business has been so long established as to derive a certain degree of respectability from time. Cheap Warehouse is sometimes added; and if the tradesman has the honour to serve any one of the royal family, this is also mentioned, and the royal arms in a style of expensive carving are affixed over the door. These inscriptions in large gilt letters, shaped 141with the greatest nicety, form a peculiar feature in the streets of London. In former times all the shops had large signs suspended before them, such as are still used at inns in the country; these have long since disappeared; but in a few instances, where the shop is of such long standing that it is still known by the name of its old insignia, a small picture still preserves the sign, placed instead of one of the window panes.

If I were to pass the remainder of my life in London, I think the shops would always continue to amuse me. Something extraordinary or beautiful is for ever to be seen in them. I saw, the other day, a sturgeon, above two varas in length, hanging at a fishmonger’s. In one window you see the most exquisite lamps of alabaster, to shed a pearly light in the bedchamber; or formed of cut glass to glitter like diamonds in the drawing-room; in another, a convex mirror reflects the whole picture of the street, with all its moving 142swarms, or you start from your own face magnified to the proportions of a giant’s. Here a painted piece of beef swings in a roaster to exhibit the machine which turns it; here you have a collection of worms from the human intestines, curiously bottled, and every bottle with a label stating to whom the worm belonged, and testifying that the party was relieved from it by virtue of the medicine which is sold within. At one door stands a little Scotchman taking snuff,—in one window a little gentleman with his coat puckered up in folds, and the folds filled with water to show that it is proof against wet. Here you have cages full of birds of every kind, and on the upper story live peacocks are spreading their fans; another window displays the rarest birds and beasts stuffed, and in glass cases; in another you have every sort of artificial fly for the angler, and another is full of busts painted to the life, with glass eyes, and dressed in full fashion to exhibit the wigs which are made 143within, in the very newest and most approved taste. And thus is there a perpetual exhibition of whatever is curious in nature or art, exquisite in workmanship, or singular in costume; and the display is perpetually varying as the ingenuity of trade, and the absurdity of fashion, are ever producing something new.

Yesterday, I was amused by a spectacle which you will think better adapted to wild African negroes than to so refined a people as the English. Three or four boys of different ages were dancing in the street; their clothes seemed as if they had been dragged through the chimney, as indeed had been the case, and these sooty habiliments were bedecked with pieces of foil, and with ribbons of all gay colours, flying like streamers in every direction as they whisked round. Their sooty faces were reddened with rose-pink, and in the middle of each cheek was a patch of gold leaf, the hair was frizzed out, and as white as powder could make it, and they wore an 144old hat cocked for the occasion, and in like manner ornamented with ribbons, and foil, and flowers. In this array were they dancing through the streets, clapping a wooden plate, frightening the horses by their noise, and still more by their strange appearance, and soliciting money from all whom they met.

The first days of May are the Saturnalia of these people,—a wretched class of men, who exist in no other country than England, and it is devoutly to be hoped, for the sake of humanity, will not long continue to exist there. The soot of the earth-coal, which, though formerly used by only the lower classes, is now the fuel of rich and poor alike, accumulates rapidly in the chimneys: and instead of removing it by firing a gun up, or dragging up a bush, as is sometimes practised in the country, and must have been in former times the custom every where, they send men up to sweep it away with a brush. These passages are not unfrequently so crooked and 145so narrow, that none but little children can crawl up them; and you may imagine that cruel threats and cruel usage must both be employed before a child can be forced to ascend places so dark, so frightful, and so dangerous.

No objects can be more deplorable than these poor children. You meet them with a brush in the hand, a bag upon the shoulders, and a sort of woollen cap, or rather bandage swathed round the head; their skin, and all their accoutrements, equally ingrained with soot, every part being black except the white of the eyes and the teeth, which the soot keeps beautifully clean. Their way of life produces another more remarkable and more melancholy effect; they are subject to a dangerous species of hydrocele, which is peculiar to them, and is therefore called the chimney-sweeper’s disease.

The festival of these poor people commences on May-day: it was perhaps the day of their patron saint, in times of yore, 146before the whole hierarchy of saints and angels were proscribed in England by the levelling spirit of a diabolical heresy. They go about in parties of four or five, in the grotesque manner which I have described. A more extraordinary figure is sometimes in company, whom they call Jack-in-the-Bush; as the name indicates, nothing but bush is to be seen, except the feet which dance under it. The man stands in a frame-work, which is supported upon his shoulders, and is completely covered with the boughs of a thick and short-branched shrub: the heat must be intolerable, but he gets paid for his day’s purgatory, and the English will do any thing for money. The savages of Virginia had such a personage in one of their religious dances, and indeed the custom is quite in savage taste.

May-day is one of the most general holydays in England. High poles, as tall as the mast of a merchant ship, are erected in every village, and hung with garlands 147composed of all field flowers, but chiefly of one which is called the cowslip: each has its King and Queen of the May chosen from among the children of the peasantry, who are tricked out as fantastically as the London chimney-sweepers; but health and cleanliness give them a very different appearance. Their table is spread under the May-pole; their playmates beg with a plate, as our children for the little altar which they have drest for their saint upon his festival, and all dance round the pole hand in hand.

Without doubt, these sports were once connected with religion. It is the peculiar character of the true religion to sanctify what is innocent, and make even merriment meritorious; and it is as peculiarly the character of Calvinism to divest piety of all cheerfulness, and cheerfulness of all piety, as if they could not co-exist; and to introduce a graceless and joyless system of manners suitable to a faith which makes 148the heresy of Manes appear reasonable. He admitted that the Evil Principle was weaker than the Good one, but in the mythology of Calvin there is no good one to be found.

LETTER XIV.

Description of the Inside, and of the Furniture, of an English House.

One of the peculiarities in this country is, that every body lives upon the ground floor, except the shopkeepers. The stable and coach-house either adjoin the house, or more frequently are detached from it, and the kitchen is either at the back of the house on the ground floor, or underground, which is usually the case in large towns, but never, as with us, above stairs. They wonder at our custom of living on the higher floors, and call it troublesome: I, on my part, cannot be reconciled to the inconvenience of living on a level with the street: the din is at your very ear, the window cannot be thrown open for the 150dust which showers in, and it is half darkened by blinds that the by-passers may not look in upon your privacy.

One room on the first floor is reserved for company, the rest are bed-rooms, for the beds, instead of standing in recesses, are placed in rooms as large as those in which we dwell. This occasions a great waste of space, the more remarkable, as ground is exceedingly valuable in the towns, and is rented by the square foot of front at a prodigious price. Nothing surprised me more at first, than the excellent workmanship of the doors and windows; no jarring with the wind, no currents of air, and the windows, which are all suspended by pulleys, rise with a touch. This is not entirely and exclusively owing to the skill of the English workmen, but in great measure also to the climate. When the wood has once been seasoned, neither the heat nor humidity of the atmosphere is ever sufficient to affect it materially. In good houses the doors have a 151strip of open brass work above the handle, that the servants may not soil them with their fingers.

An Englishman delights to show his wealth; every thing in his house, therefore, is expensive: a whole dwelling in our country is furnished at less cost than is bestowed here upon a single apartment. The description of our common sitting-room may be considered as a fair specimen. The whole floor is fitted with carpeting, not of the costliest kind, but both in texture and design far superior to what is usually seen in Spain. This remains down summer and winter, though in summer our matting would be far more suitable, if the fashion were once introduced. Before the fire is a small carpet of different fabric, and fleecy appearance, about two varas long, and not quite half as broad; a fashion of late years, which has become universal, because it is at once ornamental, comfortable, and useful, preserving the larger one, which would else 152soon be worn out in that particular part. Of the fire-places I have already spoken; here the frontal is marble, and above is a looking-glass the whole length of the mantle-piece, divided into three compartments by gilt pillars, which support a gilt architrave. On each side hang bell-ropes of coloured worsted, about the thickness of a man’s wrist, the work of Mrs J— and her sister, which suspend knobs of polished spar. The fender is remarkable; it consists of a crescent basket work of wire painted green, about a foot in height, topt with brass, and supporting seven brazen pillars of nearly the same height, which also are surmounted by a band of brass. This also is a late fashion, introduced in consequence of the numberless accidents occasioned by fire. Almost every newspaper contains an account that some woman has been burnt to death, and they are at last beginning to take some means of precaution.

The chairs and tables are of a wood 153brought from Honduras, which is in great request here, of a fine close grain, and a reddish brown colour, which becomes more beautiful as it grows darker with age. The history of this wood, of which all the finer articles of furniture exclusively are made, is rather singular. A West Indian captain, about a century ago, brought over some planks as ballast, and gave them to his brother, Dr Gibbons, a physician of great eminence, who was then building a house. The workmen, however, found the wood too hard for their tools, and it was thrown aside. Some time afterwards his wife wanted a box to hold candles, the doctor thought of the West Indian wood, and, in spite of the difficulty which was still found in working it, had the box made. He admired its colour and polish so much, that he had a bureau made of it also; and this was thought so beautiful, that it was shown to all his friends. Among others, the Duchess of Buckingham came to see it, and begged enough of 154the wood to make her a bureau also. From that moment the demand was so great, that it became a regular article of trade, and as long as the woods of Honduras last it is likely to continue so. There is reason to believe that the tree would grow in England, as there are some flourishing plants in the neighbourhood of London which have been raised from seed. Formerly the tables were made of the solid plank; but English ingenuity has now contrived to give the same appearance at a far less cost of materials, by facing common deal with a layer of the fine wood not half a barley-corn in thickness. To give you an idea of the curiosity with which all these things are executed, is impossible; nothing can be more perfect.

Our breakfast table is oval, large enough for eight or nine persons, yet supported upon one claw in the centre. This is the newest fashion, and fashions change so often in these things, as well as in every thing else, that it is easy to know how 155long it is since a house has been fitted up, by the shape of the furniture. An upholder just now advertises Commodes, Console-tables, Ottomans, Chaiselongès, and Chiffoniers;—what are all these? you ask. I asked the same question, and could find no person in the house who could answer me; but they are all articles of the newest fashion, and no doubt all will soon be thought indispensably necessary in every well-furnished house. Here is also a nest of tables for the ladies, consisting of four, one less than another, and each fitting into the one above it; you would take them for play-things, from their slenderness and size, if you did not see how useful they find them for their work. A harpsichord takes up the middle of one side of the room, and in the corners are screens to protect the face from the fire, of mahogany, with fans of green silk, which spread like a flower, and may be raised or lowered at pleasure. A book-case, standing on a chest of drawers, completes the heavy 156furniture; it has glazed doors, and curtains of green silk within.

But I should give you a very inadequate idea of an English room were I to stop here. Each window has blinds to prevent the by-passers from looking in; the plan is taken from the Venetian blinds, but made more expensive, as the bars are fitted into a frame and move in grooves. The shutters fit back by day, and are rendered ornamental by the gilt ring by which they are drawn open: at night you perceive that you are in a land of housebreakers by the contrivances for barring them, and the bells which are fixed on to alarm the family, in case the house should be attacked. On one side of the window the curtains hang in festoons, they are of rich printed cotton, lined with a plain colour and fringed, the quantity they contain is very great. Add to this a sconce of the most graceful form, with six prints in gilt frames, and you have the whole scene before you. Two of these are Noel’s views of Cadiz 157and Lisbon; the others are from English history, and represent the battles of the Boyne and of La Hogue, the death of General Wolfe at Quebec, and William Penn treating with the Indians for his province of Pennsylvania.

Let us proceed to the dining-room.—Here the table is circular, but divides in half to receive a middle part which lengthens it, and this is so contrived that it may be made to suit any number of persons from six to twenty. The side-board is a massier piece of furniture; formerly a single slab of marble was used for this purpose, but now this is become one of the handsomest and most expensive articles. The glasses are arranged on it ready for dinner, and the knives and forks in two little chests or cabinets, the spoons are be tween them in a sort of urn; every thing being made costly and ornamental.

The drawing-room differs chiefly from the breakfast parlour in having every thing more expensive, a carpet of richer fabric, 158sconces and mirrors more highly ornamented, and curtains of damask like the sofas and chairs. Two chandeliers with glass drops stand on the mantle-piece; but in these we excel the English; they have not the brilliancy of those from the royal fabric at St Ildefonso. In this room are the portraits of J— and his wife, by one of the best living artists, so admirably executed as to make me blush for the present state of the arts in Spain.

Having proceeded thus far, I will go through the house. J— took me into his kitchen one day to show me what is called the kitchen-range, which has been constructed upon the philosophical principles of Count Rumford, a German^[11] philosopher, the first person who has applied scientific discoveries to the ordinary purposes of life. The top of the fire is covered with an iron plate, so that the flame and 159smoke, instead of ascending, pass through bars on the one side, and there heat an iron front, against the which food may be roasted as well as by the fire itself; it passes on, heating stoves and boilers as it goes, and the smoke is not suffered to pass up the chimney till it can no longer be of any use. On the other side is an oven heated by the same fire, and vessels for boiling may be placed on the plate over the fire. The smoke finally sets a kind of wheel in motion in the chimney, which turns the spit. I could not but admire the comfort and cleanliness of every thing about the kitchen; a dresser as white as when the wood was new, the copper and tin vessels bright and burnished, the chain in which the spit plays, bright; the plates and dishes ranged in order along the shelves, and I could not but wish our dirty Domingo were here to take a lesson of English cleanliness. There is a back-kitchen in which all the dirty work is done, into which water is conveyed by pipes. 160The order and cleanliness of every thing made even this room cheerful, though under-ground, where the light enters only from an area, and the face of the sky is never seen.

And now for my own apartment, where I am now writing. It is on the second floor, the more, therefore, to my liking, as it is less noisy, and I breathe in a freer atmosphere. My bed, though neither covered with silk nor satin, has as much ornament as is suitable; silk or satin would not give that clean appearance which the English always require, and which I have already learnt to delight in. Hence, the damask curtains which were used in the last generation have given place to linens. These are full enough to hang in folds; by day they are gathered round the bed-posts, which are light pillars of mahogany supporting a frame-work, covered with the same furniture as the curtains; and valances are fastened round this frame, both withinside the curtains and without, and 161again round the sides of the bedstead. The blankets are of the natural colour of the wool, quite plain; the sheets plain also. I have never seen them flounced nor laced, nor ever seen a striped or coloured blanket. The counterpane is of all English manufactures the least tasteful; it is of white cotton, ornamented with cotton knots, in shapes as graceless as the cut box in a garden. My window-curtains are of the same pattern as the bed; a mahogany press holds my clothes, an oval looking-glass swung lengthways stands on the dressing-table. A compact kind of chest holds the bason, the soap, the toothbrush, and water-glass, each in a separate compartment; and a looking-glass, for the purpose of shaving at (for Englishmen usually shave themselves,) slips up and down behind, the water-jug and water-bottle stand below, and the whole shuts down a-top, and closes in front, like a cabinet. The room is carpeted; here I have my fire, my table, and my cassette; here I study, 162and here minute down every thing which I see or learn—how industriously you will perceive, and how faithfully, you who best know me, will best know.

My honoured father will say to all this, How many things are there here which I do not want?—But you, my dear mother,—I think I see you looking round the room while you say, How will Manuel like to leave these luxuries and return to Spain? How anxiously I wish to leave them, you will not easily conceive, as you have never felt that longing love for your own country, which absence from it renders a passion, and almost a disease. Fortunate as I am in having such rare advantages of society and friendship, and happy as I am in the satisfaction wherewith I reflect every night that no opportunity of enquiry or observation has been lost during the day, still my greatest pleasure is to think how fast the days and weeks are passing on, and that every day I am one day nearer the time of my return. I never longed half so earnestly 163to return from Alcalá, as I now do to enter my native place, to see the shield over the door-way, to hear the sound of our own water-wheel, of the bells of St Claras, of Domingo’s viola at evening, to fondle my own dogs, to hear my own language, to kneel at mass in the church where I was baptized, and to see once more around me the faces of all whom I have known from infancy, and of all whom I love best.

LETTER XV.

English Meals.—Clumsy Method of Butchery.—Lord Somerville.—Cruel Manner of killing certain Animals.—Luxuries of the Table.—Liquors.

The English do not eat beef-steaks for breakfast, as lying travellers have told us, nor can I find that it has ever been the custom. The breakfast-table is a cheerful sight in this country: porcelain of their own manufactory, which excels the Chinese in elegance of form and ornament, is ranged on a Japan waiter, also of the country fabric; for here they imitate every thing. The mistress sits at the head of the board, and opposite to her the boiling water smokes and sings in an urn of Etruscan shape. The coffee is contained 165in a smaller vase of the same shape, or in a larger kind of tea-pot, wherein the grain is suspended in a bag; but nothing is so detestable as an Englishman’s coffee. The washing of our after-dinner cups would make a mixture as good; the infusion is just strong enough to make the water brown and bitter. This is not occasioned by œconomy, though coffee is enormously dear, for the people are extravagant in the expences of the table: they know no better; and if you tell them how it ought to be made, they reply, that it must be very disagreeable, and even that if they could drink it so strong, it would prevent them from sleeping. There is besides an act of parliament to prevent the English from drinking good coffee: they are not permitted to roast it themselves, and of course all the fresh and finer flavour evaporates in the warehouse. They make amends however by the excellence of their tea, which is still very cheap, though the ministry, in violation 166of an explicit bargain, increased the tax upon it four fold, during the last war. This is made in a vessel of silver, or of a fine black porcelain: they do not use boiled milk with it, but cream in its fresh state, which renders it a very delightful beverage. They eat their bitter bread in various ways, either in thin slices, or toasted, or in small hot loaves, always with butter, which is the best thing in the country.

The dinner hour is usually five: the labouring part of the community dine at one, the highest ranks at six, seven, or even eight. The quantity of meat which they consume is astonishing! I verily believe that what is drest for one dinner here, would supply the same number of persons in Spain for a week, even if no fast-days intervened. Every where you find both meat and vegetables in the same crude and insipid state. The potatoe appears at table all the year round: indeed the poor subsist so generally upon this 167root, that it seems surprising how they could have lived before it was introduced from America. Beer is the common drink. They take less wine than we do at dinner, and more after it; but the custom of sitting for hours over the bottle, which was so prevalent of late years, has been gradually laid aside, as much from the gradual progress of the taxes as of good sense. Tea is served between seven and eight, in the same manner as at breakfast, except that we do not assemble round the table. Supper is rather a ceremony than a meal; but the hour afterwards, over our wine and water, or spirits, is the pleasantest in the day.

The old refinements of epicurean cruelty are no longer heard of, yet the lower classes are cruel from mere insensibility, and the higher ones, for want of thought, make no effort to amend them. The butchers and drovers in particular are a savage race. The sheep which I have met on their way to the slaughter-house, have 168frequently their faces smeared with their own blood, and accidents from over-driven oxen are very common. Cattle are slaughtered with the clumsiest barbarity: the butcher hammers away at the forehead of the beast; blow after blow raises a swelling which renders the following blows ineffectual, and the butchery is completed by cutting the throat. Great pains have been taken by a nobleman who has travelled in Spain, to introduce our humane method of piercing the spine; the effect has been little, and I have heard that the butchers have sometimes wantonly prolonged the sufferings of animals in his sight, for the pleasure of tormenting a humanity which they think ridiculous. Oysters are eaten alive here. You see women in the streets skinning eels while the creature writhes on the fork. They are thought delicacies here, and yet the English laugh at the French for eating frogs! Lobsters and crabs are boiled alive, and sometimes roasted! and carp, after having been scaled and gutted, 169will sometimes leap out of the stew-pan. If humanity is in better natures an instinct, no instinct is so easily deadened, and in the mass of mankind it seems not to exist.

Roast beef has been heard of wherever the English are known. I have more than once been asked at table my opinion of the roast beef of Old England, with a sort of smile, and in a tone as if the national honour were concerned in my reply. The loin of beef is always called Sir, which is the same as Señor.^[13] Neither drunkenness nor gluttony can fairly be imputed as national vices to this people, and yet perhaps there is no other country where so much nice and curious attention is paid to eating and drinking, nor where the pleasures of the table are thought of such serious importance, and gratified at so great an expense. All parts of the world are ransacked 170for an Englishman’s table. Turtle are brought alive from the West Indies, and their arrival is of so much consequence, that notices are immediately sent to the newspapers, particularly stating that they are in fine order, and lively. Whereever you dine since peace has been concluded, you see a Perigord pye. India supplies sauces and curry powder; they have hams from Portugal and Westphalia; reindeers’ tongues from Lapland; caviar from Russia; sausages from Bologna; maccaroni from Naples; oil from Florence; olives from France, Italy, or Spain, at choice; cheese from Parma and Switzerland. Fish come packed up in ice from Scotland for the London market, and the epicures here will not eat any mutton but what is killed in Wales. There is in this very morning’s newspaper, a notice from a shopkeeper in the Strand, offering to contract with any person who will send him game regularly from France, Norway, or Russia.

The choice of inferior liquors is great; 171but all are bad substitutes for the pure juice of the grape. You have tasted their beer in its best state, and cider you have drank in Biscay. They have a beverage made from the buds of the fir-tree and treacle; necessity taught the American settlers to brew this detestable mixture, which is introduced here as a luxury. Factitious waters are now also become fashionable; soda-water particularly, the fixed air of which hisses as it goes down your throat as cutting as a razor, and draws tears as it comes up through the nose as pungent as a pinch of snuff. The common water is abominable; it is either from a vapid canal in which all the rabble of the outskirts wash themselves in summer, or from the Thames, which receives all the filth of the city. It is truly disgraceful that such a city should be without an aqueduct. At great tables the wine stands in ice, and you keep your glass inverted in water. In nothing are they so curious as in their wines, though rather in the quality than the variety. They 172even send it abroad to be ripened by the motion of the ship, and by warmer climates; you see superior, London, picked, particular, East India Madeira advertised, every epithet of which must be paid for.

LETTER XVI.

Informers.—System upon which they act.—Anecdotes of their Rascality.—Evil of encouraging them.—English Character a Compound of Contradictions.

They talk here of our Holy Office as a disgrace to the Spanish nation, when their own government is ten times more inquisitorial, for the paltry purposes of revenue. Shortly after his last return from Spain, J— stept into a hosier’s to buy a pair of gloves; the day was warm, and he laid his hat upon the counter: a well-drest man came in after him for the same ostensible purpose, either learnt his name by enquiry, or followed him till he had discovered it, and the next day my friend was summoned before a magistrate to answer 174a charge for wearing his hat without a stamp. It was in vain he pleaded that the hat had been purchased abroad; he had been in England more than six weeks, and had not bought a stamp to put into it, and therefore was fined in the full penalty.

This species of espionage has within these few years become a regular trade; the laws are in some instances so perplexed, and in others so vexatious, that matter for prosecution is never wanting, and many of these familiars of the Tax Office are amassing fortunes by this infamous business. The most lucrative method of practice is as follows: A fellow surcharges half the people in the district; that is, he informs the tax-commissioners, that such persons have given in a false account of their window’s, dogs, horses, carriages, &c. an offence for which the tax is trebled, and half the surplus given to the informer. A day of appeal, however, is allowed for those who think they can justify themselves; but so many have been aggrieved, 175that when they appear together before the commissioners, there is not time to hear one in ten. Some of these persons live two, four, or six, leagues from the place of appeal: they go there a second, and perhaps a third time in the hope of redress; the informer takes care, by new surcharges, to keep up the crowd, and the injured persons find it at last less burthensome to pay the unjust fine, than to be repeatedly at the trouble and expense of seeking justice in vain.

There is nothing, however dishonourable or villanous, to which these wretches will not stoop. One of them, on his first settling in the province which he had chosen for the scene of his campaigns, was invited to dinner by a neighbouring gentleman, before his character was known; the next day he surcharged his host for another servant, because one of the men employed about his grounds had assisted in waiting at dinner. Another happening to lame his horse, borrowed one of a farmer 176to ride home: the farmer told him it was but an uneasy-going beast, as he was kept wholly for the cart, but rather than that the gentleman should be distressed he would put the saddle on him;—he was surcharged the next day for keeping a saddle-horse, as his reward. Can there be a more convincing proof of the excellent police of England, and, what is still better, of the admirable effect of well-executed laws upon the people, than that such pests of society as these walk abroad among the very people whom they oppress and insult, with perfect safety both by day and by night!

Government do not seem to be aware that when they offer premiums for treachery, they are corrupting the morals of the people, and thereby weakening their own security. There is reason sufficient for pardoning a criminal, who confesses his own guilt, and impeaches his accomplice; the course of law could not go on without it, and such men are already infamous. 177But no such plea can be alleged in this case: it is a miserable excuse for encouraging informers, to say, that the taxes are so clumsily laid on, that they can easily be eluded. A far worse instance of this pernicious practice occurs in the system of pressing men for the navy, which the English confess to be the opprobrium of their country, while they regret it as inevitable. In the proclamation issued upon these occasions, a reward is regularly offered to all persons who will give information where a sailor has hidden himself.

The whole system of England, from highest to lowest, is, and has been, one series of antagonisms; struggle—struggle—in every thing. Check and countercheck is the principle of their constitution, which is the result of centuries of contention between the Crown and the People. The struggle between the Clergy and the Lawyers unfettered their lands from feudal tenures. Their church is a half-and-half mixture of Catholicism and Puritanism. 178These contests being over, it is now a trial between the Government and the Subject, how the one can lay on taxes, and how the other can elude them.

This spirit of contradiction is the character of the nation. They love to be at war, but do not love to pay for their amusement; and now, that they are at peace, they begin to complain that the newspapers are not worth reading, and rail at the French as if they really wished to begin again. There is not a people upon the earth who have a truer love for their Royal Family than the English, yet they caricature them in the most open and insolent manner. They boast of the freedom of the press, yet as surely and systematically punish the author who publishes any thing obnoxious, and the bookseller who sells it, as we in our country should prevent the publication. They cry out against intolerance, and burn down the houses of those whom they regard as heretics. They love liberty; go to war with their neighbours, 179because they chose to become republicans, and insist upon the right of enslaving the negroes. They hate the French and ape all their fashions, ridicule their neologisms and then naturalize them, laugh at their inventions and then adopt them, cry out against their political measures and then imitate them; the levy in mass, the telegraph, and the income-tax are all from France. And the common people, not to be behind-hand with their betters in absurdity, boast as heartily of the roast beef of Old England, as if they were not obliged to be content themselves with bread and potatoes. Well may punch be the favourite liquor of the English,—it is a truly emblematic compound of contrarieties.

LETTER XVII.

The Word Home, said to be peculiar to the English.—Propriety of the Assertion questioned.—Comfort.—Curious Conveniences.—Pocket-fender.—Hunting-razors.

There are two words in their language on which these people pride themselves, and which they say cannot be translated. Home is the one, by which an Englishman means his house. As the meaning is precisely the same whether it be expressed by one word or by two, and the feeling associated therewith is the same also, the advantage seems wholly imaginary; for assuredly this meaning can be conveyed in any language without any possible ambiguity. In general, when a remark of this kind is made to me, if I do not perceive 181its truth, I rather attribute it to my own imperfect conception than to any fallacy in the assertion; but when this was said to me, I recollected the exquisite lines of Catullus, and asked if they were improved in the English translation:

We may with truth say that our word solar^[14] is untranslatable, for the English have not merely no equivalent term, but no feeling correspondent to it. That reverence for the seat of our ancestors, which with us is almost a religion, is wholly unknown here. But how can it be otherwise in a land where there is no pride of blood, and where men who would be puzzled to trace the 182place of their grandfather’s birth, are not unfrequently elevated to a level with the grandees!

The other word is comfort; it means all the enjoyments and privileges of home, or which, when abroad, makes us feel no want of home; and here I must confess that these proud islanders have reason for their pride. In their social intercourse and their modes of life they have enjoyments which we never dream of. Saints and philosophers teach us that they who have the fewest wants are the wisest and the happiest; but neither philosophers nor saints are in fashion in England. It is recorded of some old Eastern tyrant, that he offered a reward for the discovery of a new pleasure;—in like manner this nation offers a perpetual reward to those who will discover new wants for them, in the readiness wherewith they purchase any thing, if the seller will but assure them that it is exceedingly convenient. For instance, in 183the common act of drawing a cork, a common screw was thought perfectly sufficient for the purpose from the time when bottles were invented, till within the last twenty years. It was then found somewhat inconvenient to exert the arm, that the wine was spoilt by shaking, and that the neck of the bottle might come off: to prevent these evils and this danger, some ingenious fellow adapted the mechanical screw, and the cork was extracted by the simple operation of turning a lever. Well, this lasted for a generation, till another artificer discovered, with equal ingenuity, that it was exceedingly unpleasant to dirt the fingers by taking off the cork; a compound concave screw was therefore invented, first to draw the cork and then to discharge it, and the profits of this useful invention are secured to the inventor by a patent.—The royal arms are affixed to this Patent Compound Concave Corkscrew; and the inventor, in defiance to all future corkscrew-makers, has stamped upon it Ne plus ultra, signifying 184that the art of making corkscrews can be carried no further.—The tallow candles which they burn here frequently require snuffing; but the common implement for this purpose had served time out of mind, till within the present reign, the great epoch of the rise of manufactures, and the decline of every thing else; a machine was then invented to prevent the snuff from falling out upon the table; another inventor supplanted this by using a revolving tube or cylinder, which could never be so filled as to strain the spring; and now a still more ingenious mechanic proposes to make snuffers which shall, by their own act, snuff the candle whenever it is required, and to save all trouble whatever.—One sort of knife is used for fish, another for butter, a third for cheese. Penknives and scissars are not sufficient here; they have an instrument to make pens, and an instrument to clip the nails. They have a machine for slicing cucumbers; one instrument to pull on the shoe, 185another to pull on the boot, another to button the knees of the breeches. Pocket-toasting-forks have been invented, as if it were possible to want a toasting-fork in the pocket; and even this has been exceeded by the fertile genius of a celebrated projector, who ordered a pocket-fender for his own use, which was to cost 200l. The article was made, but as it did not please, payment was refused; an action was in consequence brought, and the workman said upon the trial that he was very sorry to disoblige so good a customer, and would willingly have taken the thing back, if there could be any chance of selling it, but that really nobody except the gentleman in question ever would want a pocket-fender. This same gentleman has contrived to have the whole set of fire-irons made hollow instead of solid; to be sure, the cost is more than twenty-fold, but what is that to the convenience of holding a few ounces in the hand, when you stir the fire, instead of a few pounds? This curious projector 186is said to have taken out above seventy patents for inventions equally ingenious, and equally useful; but a more extraordinary invention than any of his threescore and ten, is that of the hunting-razor, with which you may shave yourself while riding full gallop.

There is no end of these oddities; but the number of real conveniences which have been created by this indiscriminate demand for novelty is truly astonishing. These are the refinements of late years, the devices of a people made wanton by prosperity. It is not for such superfluities that the English are to be envied; it is for their domestic habits, and for that unrestrained intercourse of the sexes, which, instead of producing the consequences we should expect, gives birth not only to their greatest enjoyments, but also to their best virtues.

LETTER XVIII.

Drury-Lane Theatre.—The Winter’s Tale.—Kemble.—Mrs Siddons.—Don Juan.

There is nothing in a foreign land which a traveller is so little able to enjoy as the national theatre: though he may read the language with ease, and converse in it with little difficulty, still he cannot follow the progress of a story upon the stage, nor catch the jests, which set all around him in a roar, unless he has lived so long in the country, that his ear has become perfectly naturalized. Fully aware of this, I desired J— to take me there on some evening when the drama would be most intelligible to the sense of sight; and we went accordingly yesternight to see The Winter’s Tale, a play of the famous Shakespeare’s, 188which has been lately revived for the purpose of displaying to advantage their two most celebrated performers, Kemble, and his sister Mrs Siddons.

In the reigns of Elizabeth and James, the golden age of the English drama, London was not a tenth part of its present size, and it then contained seventeen theatres. At present there are but two. More would succeed, and indeed more are wanted, but these have obtained exclusive privileges. Old people say the acting was better in their younger days, because there were more schools for actors; and the theatres being smaller, the natural voice could be heard, and the natural expression of the features seen, and therefore rant and distortion were unnecessary. They, however, who remember no other generation of actors than the present, will not be persuaded that there has ever been one more perfect. Be this as it may, all are agreed that the drama itself has wofully degenerated, though it is the only species of 189literary labour which is well paid. They are agreed also as to the cause of this degeneracy, attributing it to the prodigious size of the theatres. The finer tones of passion cannot be discriminated, nor the finer movements of the countenance perceived from the front, hardly from the middle of the house. Authors, therefore, substitute what is here called broad farce for genuine comedy; their jests are made intelligible by grimace, or by that sort of mechanical wit which can be seen; comedy is made up of trick, and tragedy of processions, pageants, battles, and explosions.

The two theatres are near each other, and tolerably well situated for the more fashionable and more opulent parts of the town; but buildings of such magnitude might have been made ornamental to the metropolis, and both require a more open space before them. Soldiers were stationed at the doors; and as we drew near we were importuned by women with 190oranges, and by boys to purchase a bill of the play. We went into the pit that I might have a better view of the house, which was that called Drury-lane, from the place where it stands, the larger and more beautiful of the two. The price here is three shillings and sixpence, about sixteen reales. The benches are not divided into single seats, and men and women here and in all parts of the house sit promiscuously.

I had heard much of this theatre, and was prepared for wonder; still the size, the height, the beauty, the splendour, astonished me. Imagine a pit capable of holding a thousand persons, four tiers of boxes supported by pillars scarcely thicker than a man’s arm, and two galleries in front, the higher one at such a distance, that they who are in it must be content to see the show, without hoping to hear the dialogue; the colours blue and silver, and the whole illuminated with chandeliers of cut glass, not partially nor parsimoniously; 191every part as distinctly seen as if in the noon sunshine. After the first feeling of surprise and delight, I began to wish that a massier style of architecture had been adopted. The pillars, which are iron, are so slender as to give an idea of insecurity; their lightness is much admired, but it is disproportioned and out of place. There is a row of private boxes on each side of the pit, on a level with it; convenient they must doubtless be to those who occupy them, and profitable to the proprietors of the house; but they deform the theatre.

The people in the galleries were very noisy before the representation began, whistling and calling to the musicians; and they amused themselves by throwing orange-peel into the pit and upon the stage: after the curtain drew up they were sufficiently silent. The pit was soon filled; the lower side-boxes did not begin to fill till towards the middle of the first act, because that part of the audience is too fashionable to come in time; the back part 192of the front boxes not till the half play; they were then filled with a swarm of prostitutes, and of men who came to meet them. In the course of the evening there were two or three quarrels there which disturbed the performance, and perhaps ended in duels the next morning. The English say, and I believe they say truly, that they are the most moral people in Europe; but were they to be judged by their theatres,—I speak not of the representation, but of the manners which are exhibited by this part of the audience,—it would be thought that no people had so little sense of common decorum, or paid so little respect to public decency.

No prompter was to be seen; the actors were perfect, and stood in no need of his awkward presence. The story of the drama was, with a little assistance, easily intelligible to me; not, indeed, by the dialogue; for of that I found myself quite unable to understand any two sentences together, scarcely a single one: and when 193I looked afterwards at the printed play, I perceived that the difficulty lay in the peculiarity of Shakespeare’s language, which is so antiquated, and still more so perplexed, that few even of the English themselve can thoroughly understand their favourite author. The tale, however, is this. Polixenes, king of Bohemia, is visiting his friend Leontes, king of Sicily; he is about to take his departure; Leontes presses him to stay awhile longer, but in vain—urges the request with warmth, and is still refused; then sets his queen to persuade him; and, perceiving that she succeeds, is seized with sudden jealousy, which, in the progress of the scene, becomes so violent, that he orders one of his courtiers to murder Polixenes. This courtier acquaints Polixenes with his danger, and flies with him. Leontes throws the queen into prison, where she is delivered of a daughter; he orders the child to be burnt; his attendants remonstrate against this barbarous sentence, and he then sends one of them 194to carry it out of his dominions, and expose it in some wild place. He has sent messengers to Delphos to consult the oracle; but, instead of waiting for their return to confirm his suspicions or disprove them, he brings the queen to trial. During the trial the messengers arrive, the answer of the god is opened, and found to be that the queen is innocent, the child legitimate, and that Leontes will be without an heir, unless this which is lost shall be found. Even this fails to convince him; but immediately tidings come in that the prince, his only son, has died of anxiety for his mother: the queen at this faints, and is carried off; and her woman comes in presently to say that she is dead also.

The courtier meantime lands with the child upon the coast of Bohemia, and there leaves it: a bear pursues him across the stage, to the great delight of the audience, and eats him out of their sight; which is doubtless to their great disappointment. The ship is lost with all on board in a 195storm, and thus no clue is left for discovering the princess. Sixteen years are now supposed to elapse between the third and fourth acts: the lost child, Perdita, has grown up a beautiful shepherdess, and the son of Polixenes has promised marriage to her. He proceeds to espouse her at a sheep-shearing feast; where a pedlar, who picks pockets, excites much merriment. Polixenes, and Camillo the old courtier who had preserved his life, are present in disguise and prevent the contract. Camillo, longing to return to his own country, persuades the prince to fly with his beloved to Sicily: he then goes with the king in pursuit of them. The old shepherd, who has brought up Perdita as his own child, goes in company with her; he produces the things which he had found with her; she is thus discovered to be the lost daughter of Leontes, and the oracle is accomplished. But the greatest wonder is yet to come. As Leontes still continues to bewail the loss of his wife, Paulina, the 196queen’s woman, promises to show him a statue of her, painted to the life, the work of Julio Romano, that painter having flourished in the days when Bohemia was a maritime country, and when the kings thereof were used to consult the oracle of Apollo, being idolaters. This statue proves to be the queen herself, who begins to move to slow music, and comes down to her husband. And then to conclude the play, as it was the husband of this woman who has been eaten by the bear, old Camillo is given her that she may be no loser.

Far be it from me to judge of Shakespeare by these absurdities, which are all that I can understand of the play. While, however, the English tolerate such, and are pleased not merely in spite of them, but with them, it would become their travellers not to speak with quite so much contempt of the Spanish theatre. That Shakespeare was a great dramatist, notwithstanding his Winter’s Tale, I believe; just as I 197know Cervantes to have been a great man, though he wrote El Rufián Dichoso.

But you cannot imagine any thing more impressive than the finer parts of this representation; the workings of the king’s jealousy, the dignified grief and resentment of the queen, tempered with compassion for her husband’s phrensy; and the last scene in particular, which surpassed whatever I could have conceived of theatrical effect. The actress who personated the queen is acknowledged lo be perfect in her art: she stood leaning upon a pedestal with one arm, the other hanging down—the best Grecian sculptor could not have adjusted her drapery with more grace, nor have improved the attitude; and when she began to move, though this was what the spectators were impatiently expecting, it gave every person such a start of delight, as the dramatist himself would have wished, though the whole merit must be ascribed to the actress.

The regular entertainments on the English 198stage consist of a play of three or five acts, and an afterpiece of two; interludes are added only on benefit nights. The afterpiece this evening was Don Juan, our old story of the reprobate cavalier and the statue, here represented wholly in pantomime. Nothing could be more insipid than all the former part of this drama, nothing more dreadful, and indeed unfit for scenic representation, than the catastrophe: but either the furies of Æschylus were more terrible than European devils, or our Christian ladies are less easily frightened than the women of Greece, for this is a favourite spectacle everywhere. I know not whether the invention be originally ours or the Italians; be it whose it may, the story of the Statue is in a high style of fancy, truly fine and terrific. The sound of his marble footsteps upon the stage struck a dead silence through the house. It is to this machinery that the popularity of the piece is owing; and in spite of the dulness which precedes this incident, and 199the horror which follows it, I do not wonder that it is popular. Still it would be decorous in English writers to speak with a little less disrespect of the Spanish stage, and of the taste of a Spanish audience, while their own countrymen continue to represent and to delight in one of the most monstrous of all our dramas.

The representation began at seven; and the meals in London are so late, that even this is complained of as inconveniently early. We did not reach home till after midnight.

LETTER XIX.

English Church Service.—Banns of Marriage.—Inconvenience of having the Sermon a regular Part.—Sermons an Article of Trade.—Popular Preachers.—Private Chapels.

The ceremonies of the English Church Service are soon described. Imagine a church with one altar covered with crimson velvet, the Creed and the Decalogue over it in golden letters, over these the Hebrew name of God, or the I.H.S. at the pleasure of the painter, and half a dozen winged heads about it, clumsily painted, or more clumsily carved: the nakedness of the other walls concealed by a gallery; an organ over the door, and below it, immediately fronting the priest, a clock. Here 201also in some conspicuous place is a tablet to record in what year the church was repaired or beautified, and to perpetuate the names of the church-wardens at that time in letters of gold. Another tablet enumerates, but in faded lettering, and less conspicuous situation, all the benefactors to the parish; that is, all who have left alms to the poor, or fees to the minister for an anniversary sermon. The gallery and the area of the church are divided into pews, as they are called, by handsome mahogany partitions, within which the rich sit on cushioned seats, and kneel on hassocks, while the poor stand in the aisle, and kneel upon the stones. These pews are usually freehold, attached to houses in the parish. In towns a rent is exacted for them; and in private chapels, of which I shall speak hereafter, the whole income is derived from them, as in a theatre. The reading-desk of the priest is under the pulpit, and under it that of the clerk; there are no other assistants except the sexton and his wife, 202who open the pews, and expect a fee for accommodating a stranger with a seat. The priest wears a surplice; the clerk is no otherwise distinguished from the laity than as he has a stronger voice than usual, reads worse than other people, that is, more like a boy at a village school, and more frequently speaks through the nose. The catholic church has no corresponding office; he is to the congregation what the leader of the band is to an orchestra.

Some part of the service is repeated by the clerk and the people after the priest; with others, as the psalms, and all the hymns, they proceed alternately verse by verse; the priest reads the scripture lessons and many of the prayers alone; he also reads the Litany, and the clerk and congregation make the petition at the end of every clause. There is nothing in the Liturgy to which a Catholic must necessarily object, except the absolution; and with respect to that, his objection would be to the sense in which it is taken, 203not to that which it was intended to convey. After the first lesson the organist relieves the priest by playing a tune, good or bad according to his own fancy. This is an interlude of modern interpolation, which would have shocked the Protestants in those days when their priests were more zealous and longer-winded. At the end of what is properly called the morning service, though on the Sunday it is but the first part of three, a portion of the Psalms in vile verse, is given out by the clerk, and sung by the whole congregation: the organ seems to have been introduced in all opulent churches to hide the hideous discord of so many untuned and unmusical voices, and overpower it by a louder strain. A second part follows, which is usually performed beside the altar, but this is at the option of the officiating priest; in this the congregation and their leader have little more to do than to cry Amen, except that they repeat the Nicene Creed; this part also is terminated by psalm-singing, 204during which the priest exchanges his white vestment for a black one, and ascends the pulpit. He begins with a short prayer, of which the form is left to himself; then proceeds to the sermon. In old times the sermon was a serious thing, both for the preacher and the hearers; the more, the better, was the maxim in the days of fanaticism, and when the sands of one hour were run out the people heard with pleasure the invitation of the preacher to take another glass with him. But times are changed; the hour-glass has disappeared, the patience of a congregation is now understood to last twenty minutes, and in this instance short measure is preferred. Immediately after the valediction the organ strikes up a loud peal, with much propriety, as it drowns the greetings and salutations which pass from one person to another. The Litany and the whole of the second part are omitted in the evening service.

Thus you perceive, that having apostatized and given up the essentials of religion, 205the schismatics have deprived divine service of its specific meaning and motive. It is no longer a sacrifice for the people. The congregation assemble to say prayers which might as well be said in their oratories, and to hear sermons which might more conveniently be read at home. Nothing is done which might not be done with the same propriety in a chamber as in a church, and by a layman as by a priest.

A curious legal form is observed in the midst of the service; the priest reads a list of all the persons in the parish who are about to be married. This is done three successive Sundays, that if any person should be acquainted with any existing impediment to the marriage, he may declare it in time. The better classes avoid this publicity by obtaining a license at easy expense. Those of high rank choose to be married at their own houses, a license for which can be obtained from only the primate. In Scotland, where the schismatics 206succeeded in abolishing all the decencies as well as the ornaments of religion, this is the universal practice; the sacrament of marriage may be celebrated in any place, and by any person, in that country, and the whole funeral ceremony there consists in digging a hole, and putting the body into it!

Of the service of this heretical church, such as it is, the sermon seems to be regarded as the most important part; children are required to remember the text, and it is as regular a thing for the English to praise the discourse when they are going out of church, as it is to talk of their health immediately before, and of the weather immediately afterwards. The founders of the schism did not foresee the inconvenience of always attaching this appendage to prayers and forms which the Fathers of the church indited and enacted under the grace of the Holy Spirit, and which even they had grace enough to leave uncorrupted, though not unmutilated. To 207go through these forms and offer up these petitions requires in the priest nothing more than the commonest learning; it is, indeed, one of the manifold excellencies of the true church, that the service can neither be made better nor worse by him who performs it. But here, where a main part consists of composition merely human, which is designed to edify and instruct the people, more knowledge and more talents are necessary than it is reasonable to expect in every priest, or indeed possible to find. You may suppose that this inconvenience is easily remedied, that only those persons would be licensed to preach whom the bishop had approved as well qualified, and that all others would be enjoined to read the discourses of those schismatical doctors whom their schismatical church had sanctioned. Something like this was at first intended, and a book of homilies set forth by authority. Happily these have become obsolete. I say happily, because, having been composed in the first years of the 208schism, they abound with calumnies against the faith. The people now expect original composition from their priests, let their ability be what it may; it would be regarded as a confession of incapacity to take a book into the pulpit; and you may well suppose, if we in Spain have more preachers than are good, what it must be in a country where every priest is one.

The sermon is read, not recited, nor delivered extemporaneously; which is one main difference between the regular English clergy and the sectarians. It has become a branch of trade to supply the priests with discourses, and sermons may be bespoken upon any subject, at prices proportioned to the degree of merit required, which is according to the rank of the congregation to whom they are to be addressed. One clergyman of Cambridge has assisted his weaker brethren, by publishing outlines which they may fill up, and which he calls skeletons of sermons; another of higher 209rank, to accommodate them still further, prints discourses at full, in the written alphabet, so as to appear like manuscript to such of the congregation as may chance to see them. The manuscripts of a deceased clergyman are often advertised for sale, and it is usually added to the notice, that they are warranted original; that is, that no other copies have been sold, which might betray the secret. These shifts, however, are not resorted to by the more respectable clergy; it is not uncommon for these to enter into a commercial treaty with their friends of the profession, and exchange their compositions. But even with this reinforcement, the regular stock is usually but scanty; and if the memory of the parishioners be good enough to last two years, or perhaps half the time, they recognise their old acquaintance at their regular return.

If, however, this custom be burthensome to one part of the clergy, they who have enough talents to support more vanity 210fail not to profit by it, and London is never without a certain number of popular preachers. I am not now speaking of those who are popular among the sectarians, or because they introduce sectarian doctrines into the church; but of that specific character among the regular English clergy, which is here denominated a popular preacher. You may well imagine, that, as the tree is known by its fruits, I have not a Luis de Granada, nor an Antonio Vieyra, to describe. Thread-bare garments of religious poverty, eyes weakened by incessant tears of contrition, or of pious love, and cheeks withered by fasting and penitence, would have few charms for that part of the congregation for whom the popular preacher of London curls his forelock, studies gestures at his looking-glass, takes lessons from some stage-player in his chamber, and displays his white hand and white handkerchief in the pulpit. The discourse is in character with the orator; nothing to rouse a slumbering conscience, 211nothing to alarm the soul at a sense of its danger, no difficulties expounded to confirm the wavering, no mighty truths enforced to rejoice the faithful,—to look for theology here would be^[15] seeking pears from the elm;—only a little smooth morality, such as Turk, Jew, or Infidel, may listen to without offence, sparkling with metaphors and similes, and rounded off with a text of scripture, a scrap of poetry, or, better than either, a quotation from Ossian.—To have a clergy exempt from the frailties of human nature is impossible; but the true church has effectually secured hers from the vanities of the world: we may sometimes have to grieve, because the wolf has put on the shepherd’s cloak, but never can have need to blush at seeing the monkey in it.

These gentlemen have two ends in view, the main one is to make a fortune by marriage,—one of the evils this of a married 212clergy. It was formerly a doubt whether the red coat or the black one, the soldier or the priest, had the best chance with the ladies; if on the one side there was valour, there was learning on the other; but since volunteering has made scarlet so common, black carries the day;—cedunt arma togæ. The customs of England do not exclude the clergyman from any species of amusement; the popular preacher is to be seen at the theatre, and at the horse-race, bearing his part at the concert and the ball, making his court to old ladies at the card-table, and to young ones at the harpsichord: and in this way, if he does but steer clear of any flagrant crime or irregularity, (which is not always the case; for this order, in the heretical hierarchy, has had more than one Lucifer,) he generally succeeds in finding some widow, or waning spinster, with weightier charms than youth and beauty.

His other object is to obtain what is called a lectureship, in some wealthy parish; 213that is, to preach an evening sermon on Sundays, at a later hour than the regular service, for which the parishioners pay by subscription. As this is an addition to the established service, at the choice of the people, and supported by them at a voluntary expense, the appointment is in their hands as a thing distinct from the cure; it is decided by votes, and the election usually produces a contest, which is carried on with the same ardour, and leaves behind it the same sort of dissension among friends and neighbours, as a contested election for parliament. But the height of the popular preacher’s ambition is to obtain a chapel of his own, in which he rents out pews and single seats by the year; and here he does not trust wholly to his own oratorical accomplishments; he will have a finer-tuned organ than his neighbour, singers better trained, double doors, and stoves of the newest construction, to keep it comfortably warm. I met one of these chapel-proprietors in company; self-complacency, 214good humour, and habitual assentation to every body he met with, had wrinkled his face into a perpetual smile. He said he had lately been expending all his ready money in religious purposes; this he afterwards explained as meaning that he had been fitting up his chapel; “and I shall think myself very badly off,” he added, “if it does not bring me in fifty per cent.”

LETTER XX.

Irreverence of the English towards the Virgin Mary and the Saints.—Want of Ceremonies in their Church.—Festival Dainties.—Traces of Catholicism in their Language and Oaths.—Disbelief of Purgatory.—Fatal Consequences of this Error.—Supposed Advantages of the Schism examined.—Clergy not so numerous as formerly.

The religion of the English approaches more nearly than I had supposed, in its doctrines, to the true faith; so nearly indeed, in some instances, that it would puzzle these heretics to explain the difference, or to account for it where it exists. With respect to the holiest sacrament, they admit that the body and blood of 216Christ is verily and indeed taken, and yet they deny the real presence. They give absolution regularly in their church service, upon a public and general confession, which is equivalent to no confession at all. They accredit the miracles of the first two or three centuries, and no others; as if miracles were not just as well authenticated, and just as necessary, in succeeding ages, or, as if it were possible to say. Thus far shalt thou believe, and no further. They profess to believe in the communion of saints, though in fact they believe not in the saints; and they say that the Holy Catholic Church subsisted in the Waldenses and Albigenses, for to these miserable wretches they trace the origin of the great schism. It is as extraordinary as it is lamentable, to see how they have reduced every thing to a mere caput mortuum.

One of the things which most indicates their blindness, is their total want of all reverence for Mary, the most pure. Believing 217her to be indeed the immaculate mother of God, they honour her with no festivals, no service, not a single prayer; nor have they the slightest feeling of adoration or love for a being so infinitely lovely and adorable. The most obscure saint in the calendar has more respect in Spain, than is shown here to the most holy Virgin! St Joseph is never mentioned, nor thought of; they scarcely seem to know that such a person ever existed. The Apostles are just so far noticed that no business is transacted at the public offices upon their festivals, and this is all; no procession is made, nobody goes to church; in fact, nobody remembers that the day is a festival, except the clerks, who find it a holyday; for these words are not synonymous in England. Holyday means nothing more here than a day of cessation from business, and a school-boy’s vacation. The very meaning of the word is forgotten.

Nothing can be conceived more cold 218and unimpassioned and uninteresting than all the forms of this false Church. No vestments except the surplice and the cassock, the one all white, the other all black, to which the Bishops add nothing but lawn sleeves. Only a single altar, and that almost naked, without one taper, and without the great and adorable Mystery. Rarely a picture, no images, the few which the persecutors left in the niches of the old cathedrals are mutilated; no lamps, no crucifix, not even a cross to be seen. If it were not for the Creed and the Ten Commandments which are usually written over the altar, one of these heretical places of worship might as soon be taken for a mosque as for a church. The service is equally bald; no genuflections, no crossings, no incense, no elevation; and their music, when they have any, is so monstrous, that it seems as if the Father of Heresy had perverted their ears as well as their hearts.

219The Church festivals, however, are not entirely unobserved; though the English will not pray, they will eat; and, accordingly, they have particular dainties for all the great holydays. On Shrove Tuesday they eat what they call pancakes, which are a sort of wafer fried or made smaller and thicker with currants or apples, in which case they are called fritters. For Mid Lent Sunday they have huge plum-cakes, crusted with sugar like snow; for Good Friday, hot bunns marked with a cross for breakfast; the only relic of religion remaining among all their customs. These bunns will keep for ever without becoming mouldy, by virtue of the holy sign impressed upon them. I have also been credibly informed, that in the province of Herefordshire a pious woman annually makes two upon this day, the crumbs of which are a sovereign remedy for diarrhœa. People come far and near for this precious medicine, which has never been known to fail; yet even miracles produce no effect. 220On the feast of St Michael the Archangel, every body must eat goose for dinner; and on the Nativity, turkey, with what they call Christmas pies. They have the cakes again on the festival of the Kings.

Some traces of Catholicism may occasionally be observed in their language. Their words Christmas and Candlemas show that there was once a time when they were in the right way. The five wounds are corrupted into a passionate exclamation, of which, they who use it know not the awful meaning. There is another instance so shocking as well as ridiculous that I almost tremble to write it. The word for swine in this language differs little in its pronunciation from the word Pix; it is well known how infamous these people have at all times been for the practice of swearing: they have retained an oath by this sacred vessel, and yet so completely forgotten even the meaning of the word, that they say, Please the Pigs, instead of the Pix. They also still preserve 221in their oaths the names of some Pagan Divinities whom their fathers worshipped, and of whom perhaps no other traces remain. The Deuce is one, the Lord-Harry another: there is also the Living Jingo, Gor, and Goles. The Pagan Goths had no such idols; so probably these were adored by the Celtic inhabitants of the island.

With us every thing is calculated to remind us of religion. We cannot go abroad without seeing some representation of Purgatory, some cross which marks a station, an image of Mary the most pure, or a crucifix,—without meeting priest, or monk, or friar, a brotherhood busy in their work of charity, or the most holy Sacrament under its canopy borne to redeem and sanctify the dying sinner. In your chamber the bells of the church or convent reach your ear, or the voice of one begging alms for the souls, or the chaunt of the priests in procession. Your babe’s first plaything is his nurse’s rosary. 222The festivals of the Church cannot pass unnoticed, because they regulate the economy of your table; and they cannot be neglected without reproof from the confessor, who is as a father to every individual in the family. There is nothing of all this in England. The clergy here are as little distinguished from the laity in their dress as in their lives; they are confined to black, indeed, but with no distinction of make, and black is a fashionable colour; the only difference is, that they wear no tail, though their heads are ornamented with as much care as if they had never been exhorted to renounce the vanities of the world. Here are no vespers to unite a whole kingdom at one time in one feeling of devotion; if the bells are heard, it is because bell-ringing is the popular music. As for Purgatory, it is well known that all the heretics reject it: by some inconceivable absurdity they believe that sin may deserve eternal punishment, and yet cannot deserve any thing short thereof,—as if there 223were no degrees of criminality. In like manner they deny all degrees of merit, confining the benefit of every man’s good works to himself; confounding thus all distinctions of piety; or, to speak more truly, denying that there is any merit in good works; that is, that good works can be good; and thus they take away all motive for goodness.

Oh how fatal is this error to the living and to the dead! An Englishman has as little to do with religion in his death as in his life. No tapers are lighted, no altar prepared, no sacrifice performed, no confession made, no absolution given, no unction administered; the priest rarely attends; it is sufficient to have the doctor and the nurse by the sick bed; so the body be attended, the soul may shift for itself. Every thing ends with the funeral; they think prayers for the dead of no avail: and in this, alas! they are unwittingly right, for it is to be feared their dead are in the place from whence there is no redemption.

224All the ties which connect us with the World of Spirits are cut off by this tremendous heresy. If prayers for the dead were of no further avail than as the consolation of the living, their advantage would even then he incalculable; for, what consolation can be equal to the belief that we are by our own earnest expressions of piety alleviating the sufferings of our departed friends, and accelerating the commencement of their eternal happiness! Such a belief rouses us from the languor of sorrow to the performance of this active duty, the performance of which brings with it its own reward: we know that they for whom we mourn and intercede are sensible of these proofs of love, and that from every separate prayer thus directed they derive more real and inestimable benefit, than any services, however essential, could possibly impart to the living. And what a motive is this for us to train up our children in the ways of righteousness, that they in their turn may intercede 225for us when we stand most in need of intercession! Alas! the accursed Luther and his accomplices seem to have barred up every avenue to Heaven.

They, however, boast of the advantages obtained by the Schism, which they think proper to call the Reformation. The three points on which they especially congratulate themselves are, the privilege of having the Scriptures in their own tongue; of the cup for the congregation, and of the marriage of the clergy. As for the first, it is altogether imaginary: the church does not prohibit its members from translating the Bible, it only enjoins that they translate from the approved version of the Vulgate, lest any errors should creep in from ignorance of the sacred language, or misconception, or misrepresentation; and the wisdom of this injunction has been sufficiently evinced. The privilege of the cup might be thought of little importance to a people who think so lightly of the Eucharist; but as they have preserved so 226few sacraments, they are right to make the most of what they have. The marriage of the clergy has the effect of introducing poverty among them, and rendering it, instead of a voluntary virtue, the punishment of an heretical custom. Most of the inferior clergy are miserably poor: nothing, indeed, can be conceived more deplorable than the situation of those among them who have large families. They are debarred by their profession from adding to their scanty stipends by any kind of labour; and the people, knowing nothing of religious poverty, regard poverty at all times more as a crime than a misfortune, and would despise an apostle if he came to them in rags.

During the last generation, it was the ambition of those persons in the lower ranks of society who were just above the peasantry, to make one of their sons a clergyman, if they fancied he had a talent for learning. But times have changed, and the situation of a clergyman who has 227no family interest is too unpromising to be any longer an object of envy. They who would have adventured in the church formerly, now become commercial adventurers: in consequence, commerce is now far more overstocked with adventurers than ever the church has been, and men are starving as clerks instead of as curates. I have heard that the master of one of the free grammar-schools, who, twenty years ago, used to be seeking what they call curacies for his scholars, and had always many more expectants than he could supply with churches, has now applications for five curates, and cannot find one to accept the situation. On the contrary, a person in this great city advertised lately for a clerk; the salary was by no means large, nor was the situation in other respects particularly desirable, yet he had no fewer than ninety applicants.

LETTER XXI.

Show of Tulips.—Florists.—Passion for Rarities in England.—Queen Anne’s Farthings.—Male Tortoise-shell Cat.—Collectors.—The King of Collectors.

Yesterday I went to see a show of tulips, as it is called, about three miles from town. The bed in which they were arranged, each in its separate pot, was not less than fifty varas in length, covered with a linen awning the whole way, and with linen curtains at the sides, to be let down if the wind should be violent, or the rain beat in. The first sight of this long gallery of flowers was singular and striking; and faint as the odour of the tulip is, the many thousands which were here collected 229together, formed a very perceptible and sweet fragrance. The few persons present were brother florists, or amateurs of the science, and the exhibitor himself was a character quite new to me. Never before had I seen such perfect and complete enjoyment as this man took in his tulips; he did not seem to have a single wish, or thought, or idea beyond them; his whole business from one end of the year to the other was to nurse them up, and here they were in full bloom and beauty. The price of one, he told us, was twenty guineas, another only ten; some were forty, fifty, as high as a hundred; there was one on which no price could be set,—he did not know its value,—indeed it was invaluable. We saw Julius Cæsar, and the Great Mogul, and Bonaparte, and St George, and the Duke of Marlborough. “This,” said he, “is poor Louis XVI.;—here’s Pompey;—that’s Washington; he’s a grand fellow!” and he looked up in our faces with a feeling so simple, and so serious, 230that it was evident his praise was solely designed for the flower. I ventured to admire one, and, as you may suppose, only betrayed my ignorance; it was a vulgar flower, and had no name; they told me it was streaky, by which term they meant that it was veined with colours which spread into the white part of the leaf, and faded away;—the very thing for which I had admired it. It seems, the perfection of a tulip consists in its form; the lips of the cup should just incline inwards, and just be tipt with a colour which does not diffuse itself. When I knew their standard of perfection, I began to see with the eyes of a connoisseur, and certainly discovered beauties which would never have been perceptible to me in my state of ignorance.

He and his man, he told us, sat up alternately to watch the garden; yet, notwithstanding their vigilance, some thieves had got in a few nights before:—“The fools!” said he, “they took about fifty yards of the cloth before they were disturbed, 231but never touched one of the tulips.” His man appeared to be as devoutly attached to the pursuit as himself. I never saw such complete happiness, as both these men felt in beholding the perfections of their year’s labour, such sober and deep delight as was manifest in every word and gesture.—Never let me be told again that the pursuit of happiness is vain.

The tulip mania of the Dutch never raged in England, whatever you might imagine from this specimen; yet I have heard of one old gentleman who never was half a dozen leagues from his birth-place during his whole life, except once, when he went to Holland to purchase roots. There may be amateurs enough to make it not an expensive pursuit for the florist; and perhaps the number of persons, who, like us, give a shilling to see the exhibition, may be sufficient to pay for the awning; but I should think it can never be pursued for profit. The carnation, the ranunculus, and the auricula, have each their 232devotees, who have meetings to exhibit their choice specimens, and prizes for the most beautiful. These bring those flowers to a wonderful perfection, yet this perfection is less wonderful than the pains by which it is procured. Akin to the florists are the Columbarians or pigeon-fanciers, and the butterfly-breeders or Aurelians.—Even as any thing may become the object of superstition, an onion or a crocodile, an ape or an ape’s tooth, so also any thing does for a pursuit; and all that is to be regretted is, that the ordinary pursuits of mankind are not as innocent as that of these experimental Minorites or Minims.

There is, perhaps, no country in which the passion for collecting rarities is so prevalent as in England. The wealth of the kingdom, the rapidity with which intelligence is circulated, and the facility with which things are conveyed from one end of the island to the other, are instrumental causes; but the main cause must be the oddity of the people themselves. 233There is a popular notion which has originated, Heaven knows how, that, a Queen Anne’s farthing (the smallest coin they have) is worth 500l.; and some little while ago, an advertisement appeared in the newspapers offering one for sale at this price. This at once excited the hopes of every body who possessed one of these coins, for there are really so many in existence that the fictitious value is little or nothing. Other farthings were speedily announced to be sold by private contract,—go where you would, this was the topic of conversation. The strange part of the story is to come. A man was brought before the magistrates charged by a soldier with having assaulted him on the highway, and robbed him of eight pounds, some silver, and a Queen Anne’s farthing. The man protested his innocence, and brought sufficient proof of it. Upon further investigation it was discovered that some pettifogging lawyer, as ignorant as he was villainous, had suborned the soldier 234to bring this false accusation against an innocent man, in the hopes of hanging him, and getting possession of the farthing. Unbelievable as you may think this, I have the most positive testimony of its truth.

Another vulgar notion is, that there is no such thing as a male tortoise-shell-coloured cat. Some fortunate person, however, has just given notice that he is in possession of such a curiosity, and offers to treat with the virtuosos for the sale of this rara avis, as he literally calls it. They call the male cats in this country Thomas, and the male asses either Edward or John. I cannot learn the reason of this strange custom.

The passion for old china is confined to old women, and indeed is almost extinct. Medals are in less request since science has become fashionable; or perhaps the pursuit is too expensive; or it requires more knowledge than can be acquired easily enough by those who wish for the 235reputation of knowledge without the trouble of acquiring it. Minerals are now the most common objects of pursuit; engraved portraits form another, since a clergyman some forty years ago published a biographical account of all persons whose likenesses had been engraved in England. This is a mischievous taste, for you rarely or never meet an old book here with the author’s head in it; all are mutilated by the collectors; and I have heard that still more mischievous collections of engraved title-pages have been begun. The book-collectors are of a higher order,—not that their pursuit necessarily implies knowledge; it is the love of possessing rarities, or the pleasure of pursuit, which in most cases actuates them;—one person who had spent many years in collecting large paper copies, having obtained nearly all which had ever been thus printed, sold the whole collection for the sake of beginning to collect them again. I shall bring home an English bookseller’s catalogue as 236a curiosity: every thing is specified that can tempt these curious purchasers: the name of the printer, if he be at all famous; even the binder, for in this art they certainly are unrivalled. The size of the margin is of great importance. I could not conceive what was meant by a tall copy, till this was explained to me. If the leaves of an old book have never been cut smooth its value is greatly enhanced; but if it should happen that they have never been cut open, the copy becomes inestimable.

The good which these collectors do is, that they preserve volumes which would otherwise perish; and this out-balances the evil which they have done in increasing the price of old books ten and twenty fold. One person will collect English poetry, another Italian, a third classics, a fourth romances; for the wiser sort go upon the maxim of having something of every thing, and every thing of something. They are in general sufficiently 237liberal in permitting men of letters to make use of their collections: which are not only more complete in their kind than could be found in the public libraries of England, but are more particularly useful in a country where the public libraries are rendered almost useless by absurd restrictions and bad management, and where there are no convents. The want of convents is, if only in this respect, a national misfortune.

The species of minor collectors are very numerous. Some ten years ago many tradesmen issued copper money of their own, which they called tokens, and which bore the arms of their respective towns, or their own heads, or any device which pleased them. How worthless these pieces must in general have been, you may judge, when I tell you that their current value was less than two quartos. They became very numerous; and as soon as it was difficult to form a complete collection,—for while it was easy nobody thought it 238worth while,—the collectors began the pursuit. The very worst soon became the most valuable, precisely because no person had ever preserved them for their beauty. Will you believe me when I tell you that a series of engravings of these worthless coins was actually begun, and that a cabinet of them sold for not less than fifty pieces of eight? When the last new copper currency was issued, a shopkeeper in the country sent for a hundred pounds worth from the mint, on purpose that he might choose out a good specimen for himself. Some few geniuses have struck out paths for themselves; one admits no work into his library if it extends beyond a single volume; one is employed in collecting play-bills, another in collecting tea-pots, another in hunting for visiting cards, another in forming a list of remarkable surnames, another more amusingly in getting specimens of every kind of wig that has been worn within the memory of man. But the King of Collectors is a gentleman in one 239of the provinces, who with great pains and expense procures the halters which have been used at executions: these he arranges round his museum in chronological order, labelling each with the name of the criminal to whom it belonged, the history of his offence, and the time and place of his execution. In the true spirit of virtù, he ought to hang himself, and leave his own halter to complete the collection.

You will not wonder if mean vices should sometimes be found connected with such mean pursuits. The collectors are said to acknowledge only nine commandments of the ten, rejecting the eighth.^[16] At the sale of a virtuoso’s effects, a single shell was purchased at a very 240high price; the buyer held it up to the company: “There are but two specimens of this shell,” said he, “known to be in existence, and I have the other;”—and he set his foot upon it and crushed it to pieces.

LETTER XXII.

English Coins.—Paper Currency.—Frequent Executions for Forgery.—Dr Dodd.—Opinion that Prevention is the End of Punishment.—This End not answered by the Frequency of Executions.—Plan for the Prevention of Forgery rejected by the Bank.

English money is calculated in pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings; four farthings making one penny, twelve pence one shilling, twenty shillings one pound. Four shillings and sixpence is the value of the peso-duro at par. It is in one respect better than our money, because it is the same over the whole kingdom.

As the value of money has gradually lessened, the smallest denominations of coin have every where disappeared. The 242farthing is rarely seen; and as the penny, which was formerly an imaginary coin, has within these few years been issued, it will soon entirely disappear, just as the mite or half farthing has disappeared before it. A coin of new denomination always raises the price of those things which are just below its value; the seller finding it profitable as well as convenient to avoid fractions. The penny is a handsome piece of money, though of uncomfortable weight, being exactly an English ounce; so that in receiving change you have frequently a quarter of a pound of copper to carry in your pocket:—the legend is indented on a raised rim; and by this means both the legend and the stamp are less liable to be effaced. For the same reason a slight concavity is given to the half-penny. In other respects these pieces are alike, bearing the king’s head on one side, and on the other a figure of Britannia sitting on the shore, and holding out an olive branch.

243The silver coins are four: the crown, which is five shillings, and the half-crown, the shilling, and the sixpence or half-shilling. The silver groat, which is four pence, and silver penny, were once current; but though these, with the silver three pence and half-groat, are still coined, they never get into circulation. Those which get abroad are given to children, and laid by for their rarity. The crown piece in like manner, when met with, is usually laid aside; it is the size of our dollar, and has, like it, on one side the head of the sovereign, on the other the arms of the kingdom; but the die, though far from good, is better than ours. Nothing, however, can be so bad as the other silver coins; that is, all which are in use. The sixpence, though it should happen not to be a counterfeit, is not worth one-fourth of its nominal value; it is a thin piece of crooked silver, which seldom bears the slightest remains of any impress. The shillings also are worn perfectly smooth, 244though not otherwise defaced; they are worth about half their current value. The coiners are not contented with cent. per cent. profit for issuing good silver, for which the public would be much indebted to them whatever the government might be, silver being inconveniently scarce; they pour out base money in abundance, and it requires more circumspection than I can boast to avoid the loss which is thus occasioned. The half-crown approaches nearer its due weight; and it is more frequently possible to trace upon it the head of Charles II., or James, of William, or Queen Anne, the earliest and latest princes whose silver is in general circulation.

A new coinage of silver has been wanted and called for time out of mind. The exceeding difficulty attending the measure still prevents it. For, if the old silver were permitted to be current only for a week after the new was issued, all the new would be ground smooth and re-issued in the same state as the old, as indeed has been 245done with all the silver of the two last reigns. And if any temporary medium were substituted till the old money could be called in, that also would be immediately counterfeited. You can have no conception of the ingenuity, the activity, and the indefatigable watchfulness of roguery in England.

There are three gold coins: the guinea, which is twenty-one shillings, its half, and its third. The difference between the pound and guinea is absurd, and occasioned some trouble at first to a foreigner when accounts were calculated in the one and paid in the other; but paper has now become so general that this is hardly to be complained of. Compared to the piece of eight, the guinea is a mean and diminutive coin. There are five-guinea pieces in existence, which are only to be seen in the cabinets of the curious. The seven-shilling piece was first coined during the present reign, and circulated but a few years ago: there were such struck during the American 246war, and never issued. I know not why. One of these I have seen, which had never been milled: the obverse was a lion standing upon the crown, in this respect handsomer than the present piece, which has the crown and nothing else; indeed the die was in every respect better. Both the current gold and copper are almost exclusively of the present reign. It may be remarked, that the newest gold is in the worst taste; armorial bearings appear best upon a shield; they have discarded the shield, and tied them round with the garter. Medallie, that is, historical money, has often been recommended; but it implies too much love for the arts, and too much attention to posterity, to be adopted here. There has not been a good coin struck in England since the days of Oliver Cromwell.

There was no paper in circulation of less than five pounds value till the stoppage of the Bank during the late war. Bills of one and two pounds were then issued, and 247these have almost superseded guineas. Upon the policy or impolicy of continuing this paper money after the immediate urgency has ceased, volumes and volumes have been written. On one side it is asserted, that the great increase of the circulating medium, by lessening the value of money raises the price of provisions, and thus virtually operates as a heavy tax upon all persons who do not immediately profit by the banking trade. On the other hand, the conveniences were detailed more speciously than truly, and one advocate even went so far as to entitle his pamphlet, “Guineas an Incumbrance.” Setting the political advantages or disadvantages aside, as a subject upon which I am not qualified to offer an opinion, I can plainly see that every person dislikes these small notes; they are less convenient than guineas in the purse, and more liable to accidents. You are also always in danger of receiving forged ones; and if you do, the loss lies at your own door, for the Bank refuses to 248indemnify the holder. This injustice the directors can safely commit: they know their own strength with government, and care little for the people; but the country bankers, whose credit depends upon fair dealing, pay their forged notes, and therefore provincial bills are always preferred in the country to those of the Bank of England. The inconvenience in travelling is excessive: you receive nothing but these bills; and if you carry them a stage beyond their sphere of circulation they become useless.

The frequent executions for forgery in England are justly considered by the humane and thinking part of the people as repugnant to justice, shocking to humanity, and disgraceful to the nation. Death has been the uniform punishment in every case, though it is scarcely possible to conceive a crime capable of so many modifications of guilt in the criminal. The most powerful intercessions have been made for mercy, and the most powerful 249arguments urged in vain; no instance has ever yet been known of pardon. A Doctor of Divinity was executed for it in the early part of the present reign, who, though led by prodigality to the commission of the deed for which he suffered, was the most useful as well as the most popular of all their preachers. Any regard to his clerical character was, as you may well suppose, out of the question in this land of schism; yet earnest entreaties were made in his behalf. The famous Dr Johnson, of whom the English boast as the great ornament of his age, and as one of the best and wisest men whom their country has ever produced, and of whose piety it will be sufficient praise to say that he was almost a Catholic,—he strenuously exerted himself to procure the pardon of this unfortunate man, on the ground that the punishment exceeded the measure of the offence, and that the life of the offender might usefully be passed in retirement and penitence. Thousands who had 250been benefited by his preaching petitioned that mercy might be shown him, and the Queen herself interceded, but in vain. During the interval between his trial and his execution he wrote a long poem entitled Prison Thoughts; a far more extraordinary effort of mind than the poem of Villon, composed under similar circumstances, for which, in an age of less humanity, the life of the author was spared. Had the punishment of Dr Dodd been proportioned to his offence, he would have been no object of pity; but when he suffered the same death as a felon or a murderer, compassion overpowered the sense of his guilt, and the people universally regarded him as the victim of a law inordinately rigorous. It was long believed that his life had been preserved by connivance of the executioner; that a waxen figure had been buried in his stead, and that he had been conveyed over to the continent.

More persons have suffered for this offence since the law has been enacted than 251for any other crime. In all other cases palliative circumstances are allowed their due weight; this alone is the sin for which there is no remission. No allowance is made for the pressure of want, for the temptation which the facility of the fraud holds out, nor for the difference between offences against natural or against political law. More merciless than Draco, or than those inquisitors who are never mentioned in this country without an abhorrent expression of real or affected humanity, the commercial legislators of England are satisfied with nothing but the life of the offender who sins against the Bank, which is their Holy of Holies. They sacrificed for this offence one of the ablest engravers in the kingdom, the inventor of the dotted or chalk engraving. A mechanic has lately suffered who had made a machine to go without horses, and proved its success by travelling in it himself about forty leagues. A man of respectable family and unblemished conduct has just been executed 252in Ireland, because, when reduced by unavoidable misfortunes to the utmost distress, he committed a forgery to relieve his family from absolute want.

There is an easy and effectual mode of preventing the repetition of this offence, by amputating the thumb; it seems one of the few crimes for which mutilation would be a fit punishment. But it is a part of the English system to colonize with criminals. It is not the best mode of colonizing; nor, having adopted it, do they manage it in the best manner. Of all crimes, there should seem to be none for which change of climate is so effectual a cure as for forgery; and as there is none which involves in itself so little moral depravity, nor which is so frequently committed, it is evident that these needless executions deprive New South Wales of those who would be its most useful members, men of ingenuity, less depraved, and better educated in general, than any other convicts.

253I have seen it recorded of some English judge, that when he was about to sentence a man to death for horse-stealing, the man observed it was hard he should lose his life for only stealing a horse; to which the judge replied, “You are not to be hanged for stealing a horse, but in order that horses may not be stolen.” The reply was as unphilosophical as unfeeling; but it is the fashion among the English to assert that prevention is the end of punishment, and to disclaim any principle of vengeance, though vengeance is the foundation of all penal law, divine and human. Proceeding upon this fallacious principle, they necessarily make no attempt at proportioning the punishment to the offence; and offences are punished, not according to the degree of moral guilt which they indicate in the offender, but according to the facility with which they can be committed, and to their supposed danger in consequence to the community. But even upon this principle it is no longer possible to 254justify the frequent executions for forgery; the end of prevention is not answered, and assuredly the experiment has been tried sufficiently long, and sufficiently often.

In other cases, offences are held more venial as the temptation thereunto is stronger, man being frail by nature; in this the punishment is made heavier in proportion to the strength of the temptation. Surely, it is the duty of the Bank Directors to render the commission of forgery as difficult as possible. This is not effected by adopting private marks in their bills, which, as they are meant to be private, can never enable the public to be upon their guard. Such means may render it impossible that a false bill should pass undiscovered at the bank, but do not in the slightest degree impede its general circulation. What is required is something so obvious that a common and uninstructed eye shall immediately perceive it; and nothing seems so likely to effect 255this as a plan which they are said to have rejected,—that in every bill there should be two engravings, the one in copper, the other in wood, each executed by the best artists in his respective branch. It is obvious that few persons would be able to imitate either, and highly improbable that any single one could execute both, or that two persons sufficiently skilful should combine together. As it now is, the engraving is such as may be copied by the clumsiest apprentice to the trade. The additional expense which this plan would cost the bank would be considerably less than what it now expends in hanging men for an offence, which could not be so frequent if it was not so easy. The bank directors say the Pater-noster in their own language, but they seem to forget that one of the petitions which He who best knew the heart of man enjoined us to make is, that we may not be led into temptation.

LETTER XXIII.

Westminster Abbey.—Legend of its Consecration.—Its single Altar in bad Taste.—Gothic or English Architecture.—Monuments.— Banks the Sculptor.—Wax-work.—Henry the Seventh’s Chapel.—Mischievous Propensity of the People to mutilate the Monuments.

All persons who come to London, from whatever part of the world they may, whether English or foreigners, go to see Westminster Abbey, the place of interment of all illustrious men; kings, admirals, statesmen, poets, philosophers, and divines, even stage-players and musicians. There is perhaps no other temple in the world where such practical testimony is borne to the truth, that “Death levels all distinctions, except those of desert.”

257They continue to call this church an Abbey, just as they continue to profess their belief in the most holy Sacrament. Originally it was the second religious establishment in the island; and, since Glastonbury has been desecrated and destroyed, is now the first. Lucius, the first Christian king of the Britons, founded it, to be the burial-place of himself and his successors. During the persecution of Diocletian, it was converted into a temple of Apollo, which Sebert, king of the East Saxons, demolished, and built a church to the honour of God and St Peter in its stead. The place where it stands was then called Thorney, and is said in a charter of king Edgar’s to have been a dreadful place; not so much, it is supposed, on account of its rudeness, as because the wicked spirits who were there worshipped had dominion there. St Augustine, the apostle of the Saxons, had baptized Sebert and his queen Ethelgoda; and, being unable to remain with them himself, consigned the care of 258his converts to St Mellitus, a Roman abbot, whom pope St Gregory the Great had sent to his assistance, and whom he consecrated bishop of London. This holy bishop was to consecrate the new building; but on the night before the ceremony was to be performed, a fisherman, as he was about to cast his nets in the river, which runs within a stone’s throw of the Abbey, was called to by one upon the opposite bank, who desired to cross in his boat. The fisherman accordingly wafted him over, little knowing, sinful man, how highly he was favoured, for this was the blessed apostle St Peter. As soon as the saint landed he entered the church, and immediately a light brighter than the midday sun illuminated it, and the fisherman, almost bereft of his senses by fear, saw a multitude of angels enter, and heard heavenly music within, and perceived odours far more delicious than any earthly fragrance. In this state of terror St Peter found him when he came out of the church, 259and cheered him, and desired to be taken back in the boat. When they were in the middle of the river, the saint told him to cast his net. He did so, and the draught of fish was prodigious. Among them was one large salmon: St Peter bade him take this to St Mellitus, and keep the rest as his fare, and added that he and his children after him should always be prosperous in their employment, provided that they paid scrupulously the tithe of what they took, and never attempted to fish upon the Sabbath day. He bade him likewise tell the bishop all that he had seen, and that St Peter himself had consecrated the church, and promised often to visit it, and to be present there at the prayers of the faithful. In the morning, as St Mellitus was going in procession to perform the ceremony, the fisherman met him, presented the fish, and delivered the message. The appearance of the church as soon as the doors were opened fully verified his story. The pavement was marked with Greek and 260Latin letters; the walls anointed in twelve places with holy oil; the twelve tapers upon twelve crosses still burning, and the aspersions not yet dry. That further testimony might not be wanting, the fisherman described the person whom he had seen to St Mellitus, and the description perfectly agreed with the authentic picture of the apostle at Rome.

I need not tell you that this miracle is suppressed by the heretical historians who have written concerning this building. It is their custom either to speak of such things with a sarcasm, or to omit them altogether, taking it for granted, that whatever they in their wisdom do not believe, must be false; as if it were not of importance to know what has been believed, whether it be true or not, and as if individual opinion was to be the standard of truth.

During the ravages of the Danes the abbey fell to decay. King St Edward the Confessor rebuilt it upon a singular occasion. This pious prince had made a 261vow to God during his exile, that if ever he should be restored to the kingdom of his forefathers, he would make a pilgrimage to Rome, and return his thanks at the throne of St Peter. His subjects besought him not to leave them in performance of this vow, but to beg a dispensation from it; and this the pope granted on condition that he should build a new monastery to St Peter’s honour, or rebuild an old one. At the same time it was revealed to a holy man, that it was God’s pleasure to have the abbey at Westminster rebuilt. The king obeyed this divine intimation, and gave the full tithe of all his possessions to the work. The tomb of this third founder still remains: having been a king, he escaped some of the insults which were committed against the other English saints at the time of the schism; and though his shrine was plundered, his body was suffered to remain in peace. But though the monument was thus spared from the general destruction, it has been defaced by that spirit of barbarous 262curiosity, or wanton mischief, for which these people are so remarkable.

The high altar is of Grecian architecture. I ought to observe that in these reformed churches, there is but one altar; and if it had not been for an archbishop whose head they cut off because they thought him too superstitious, they would have been without any altar at all. The mixture of these discordant styles of architecture has the worst effect imaginable; and what is still more extraordinary, this mark of bad taste is the production of one of the ablest architects that England ever produced, the celebrated Sir Christopher Wren. But in his time it was so much the fashion to speak with contempt of whatever was Gothic, and to despise the architecture of their forefathers, that, if the nation could have afforded money enough to have replaced these edifices, there would not now have been one remaining in the kingdom.—Luckily the national wealth was at that 263time employed in preserving the balance of power and extending commerce, and this evil was avoided. Since that age, however, the English have learned better than to treat the Gothic with contempt; they have now discovered in it so much elegance and beauty, that they are endeavouring to change the barbarous name, and, with feeling partiality to themselves, claim the invention for their own countrymen: it is therefore become here an established article of Antiquarian faith to believe that this architecture is of native growth, and accordingly it is denominated English architecture in all the publications of the Antiquarian Society. This point I am neither bound to believe, nor disposed at present to discuss.

This Abbey is a curious repository of tombs, in which the progress of sculpture during eight centuries may be traced. Here may be seen the rude Saxon monument; the Gothic in all its stages, from 264its first rudiments to that perfection of florid beauty which it had attained at the Schism, and the monstrous combinations which prevailed in the time of Elizabeth, equally a heretic in her heterogeneous taste and her execrable religion. After the great rebellion, the change which had taken place in society became as manifest in the number as in the style of these memorials. In the early ages of Christianity, only saints and kings, and the founders of churches were thought worthy of interment within the walls of the house of God; nobles were satisfied with a place in the Galilee, and the people never thought of monuments: it was enough for them to rest in consecrated ground; and so their names were written in the Book of Life, it mattered not how soon they were forgotten upon earth. The privilege of burial within the church was gradually conceded to rank and to literature; still, however, they who had no pretensions to be remembered by posterity were content to be forgotten. 265The process may satisfactorily be traced in the church whereof I am now writing, and thus far it had reached at the time of the Great Rebellion; during that struggle, few monuments were erected; they who would have been entitled to them were mostly on the unsuccessful side, and the conquerors had no respect for churches; instead of erecting new tombs, their delight was to deface the old. After the Restoration the triumph of wealth began. The iron age of England was over, and the golden one commenced. An English author has written an ingenious book, to show that the true order of the four ages is precisely the reverse of that in which the poets have arranged them: the age in which riches are paramount to every thing may well be denominated the golden, but it remains to be proved whether such an age of gold be the best in the series. With the Restoration, however, that golden age began. Money was the passport to distinction during life, and they who enjoyed this distinction 266were determined to be remembered after death, as long as inscriptions in marble could secure remembrance. The church walls were then lined with tablets; and vain as the hope of thus perpetuating an ignoble name may appear, it has succeeded better than you would imagine; for every county, city, and almost every town in England has its particular history, and the epitaphs in the churches and church-yards form no inconsiderable part of their contents.

The numerous piles of marble which deface the Abbey are crowded together, without any reference to the style of the building or the situation in which they are placed; except two which flank the entrance of the choir, and are made ornamental by a similarity of form and size, which has not confined the artist in varying the design of each. One bears the great name of Newton: he is represented reclining upon a sarcophagus; above him is Astronomy seated in an attitude of meditation 267on a celestial globe. This globe, which certainly occupies so large a space as to give an idea of weight in the upper part of the monument, seems principally placed there to show the track of the comet which appeared, according to Newton’s calculation, in the year 1680. On a tablet in the side of the sarcophagus is an emblematic representation, in relief, of some of the purposes to which he applied his philosophy. The inscription concludes curiously thus,

The corresponding monument is in memory of the Earl of Stanhope, as eminent a warrior and statesman as Newton had been a philosopher. He is represented in Roman armour, reposing on a sarcophagus also, and under a tent; on the top of which a figure of Pallas seems at once to protect him, and point him out as worthy of admiration. Both these were designed by 268an English artist, and executed by Michael Rysbrack.

England has produced few good sculptors; it would not be incorrect if I should say none, with the exception of Mr Banks, a living artist, whose best works are not by any means estimated according to their merit. I saw at his house a female figure of Victory designed for the tomb of a naval officer who fell in battle, as admirably executed as any thing which has been produced since the revival of the art. There were also two busts there, the one of Mr Hastings, late viceroy of India, the other of the celebrated usurper Oliver Cromwell, which would have done honour to the best age of sculpture. Most of the monuments in this church are wholly worthless in design and execution, and the few which have any merit are the work of foreigners.

One of the vergers went round with us; a man whose lank stature and solemn deportment would have suited the church in its best days. When first I saw him in the 269shadow he looked like one of the Gothic figures affixed to a pillar; and when he began to move, I could have fancied that an embalmed corpse had risen from its cemetery to say mass in one of the chauntries. He led us with much civility and solemnity to Edward the Confessor’s chapel, and showed us there the tomb of that holy king; the chairs in which the king and queen are crowned; the famous coronation stone, brought hither from Scotland, and once regarded as the Palladium of the royal line; and in the same chapel certain waxen figures as large as life, and in full dress. You have heard J— mention the representation of the Nativity at Belem; and exclaim against the degenerate taste of the Portuguese, in erecting a puppet-show among the tombs of their kings. It was not without satisfaction that I reminded him of this on my return from Westminster Abbey, and told him I had seen the wax-work.

The most interesting part of the edifice 270is the chapel built by Henry VII. and called by his name. At the upper end is the bronze tomb of the founder, surrounded by a Gothic screen, which was once richly ornamented with statues in its various niches and recesses, but most of these have been destroyed. The whole is the work of Torregiano, an Italian artist, who broke Michel Angelo’s nose, and died in Spain under a charge of heresy. Since the reign of Elizabeth, no monument has been erected to any of the English sovereigns: a proof of the coldness which their baneful heresy has produced in the national feeling. A plain marble pavement covers the royal dead in this splendid chapel, erected by one of their ancestors. No one was here to be interred who was not of the royal family: Cromwell, however, the great usurper, whose name is held in higher estimation abroad than it seems to be in his own country, was deposited here with more than royal pomp. It was easier to dispossess him from the grave than from 271the throne; his bones were dug up by order of Charles II. and gibbeted: poor vengeance for a father dethroned and decapitated, for his own defeat at Worcester, and for twelve years of exile! The body of Blake, which had been laid with merited honours in the same vault, was also removed, and turned into the church-yard: if the removal was thought necessary, English gratitude should at least have raised a monument over the man who had raised the English name higher than ever admiral before him.

One thing struck me, in viewing this church, as very remarkable. The monuments which are within reach of a walking-stick are all more or less injured, by that barbarous habit which Englishmen have of seeing by the sense of touch, if I may so express myself. They can never look at any thing without having it in the hand, nor show it to another person without touching it with a stick, if it is within reach; I have even noticed in several collections 272of pictures exposed for sale, a large printed inscription requesting the connoisseurs not to touch them. Besides this odd habit, which is universal, there is prevalent among these people a sort of mischievous manual wit, by which mile-stones are commonly defaced, directing-posts broken, and the parapets of bridges thrown into the river. Their dislike to a passage in a book is often shewn by tearing the leaf, or scrawling over the page, which differs from them in political opinion. Here is a monument to a Major André, who was hanged by Washington as a spy: the story was related in relief: it had not been erected a month before some person struck off Washington’s head by way of retaliation; somebody of different sentiments requited this by knocking off the head of the major: so the two principal figures in the composition are both headless! From such depredations you might naturally suppose that no care is taken of the church, that stalls are set up in it, that old women 273sell gingerbread nuts there, and porters make it a thoroughfare, as is done in Hamburgh. On the contrary, no person is admitted to see the Abbey for less than two shillings; and this money, which is collected by twopences and sixpences, makes part of the revenue of the subordinate priests in this reformed church. There is a strange mixture of greatness and littleness in every thing in this country: for this, however, there is some excuse to be offered; from the mischief which is even now committed, it is evident that, were the public indiscriminately admitted, every thing valuable in the church would soon be destroyed.

LETTER XXIV.

Complexion of the English contradictory to their historical Theories.—Christian Names, and their Diminutives.—System of Surnames.—Names of the Months and Days.—Friday the unlucky Day.—St Valentine.—Relics of Catholicism.

The prevalence of dark hair and dark complexions among the English is a remarkable fact in opposition to all established theories respecting the peoplers of the Island. We know that the Celts were light or red-haired, with blue eyes, by the evidence of history; and their descendants in Wales, and Ireland, and Scotland, still continue so. The Saxons, and Angles, and Danes, were of the same complexion. 275How is it then that the dark eyes and dark hair of the south should predominate? Could the Roman breed have been so generally extended, or, did the Spanish colony spread further than has been supposed? Climate will not account for the fact; there is not sun enough to ripen a grape; and if the climate could have darkened the Danes and Saxons, it would also have affected the Welsh; but they retain the marked character of their ancestors.

The proper names afford no clue; they are mostly indigenous, and the greater number of local derivation. Of the baptismal names the main proportion are Saxon and Norman; John, Thomas, and James, are the only common apostolical ones; others indeed occur, but it is rather unusual to meet with them. The Old Testament has furnished a few; Hagiology still fewer. Among the men, William and John predominate; Mary and Anne, among the women. In the northern provinces I am told that the Catholic names 276Agnes and Agatha are still frequent; and, what is more extraordinary, our Spanish Isabel, instead of Elizabeth.

Even these little things are affected by revolutions of state and the change of manners, as the storm which wrecks an Armada turns the village weathercock. Thus the partisans of the Stuarts preferred the names of James and Charles for their sons; and in the democratic families you now find young Alfreds and Hampdens, Algernons and Washingtons, growing up. Grace and Prudence were common in old times among the English ladies; I would not be taken literally when I say that they are no longer to be found among them, and that Honour and Faith, Hope and Charity, have disappeared as well. The continental wars introduced Eugene, and Ferdinand, and Frederick, into the parish registers; and since the accession of the present family you meet with Georges, Carolines, and Charlottes, Augustuses and Augustas. The prevailing appetite for novels has had 277a very general effect. The manufacturers of these precious commodities, as their delicate ears could bear none but vocal terminations, either rejected the plain names of their aunts and grandmothers, or clipped or stretched them till they were shaped into something like sentimental euphony. Under their improving hands, Lucy was extended to Louisa, Mary to Marianne, Harriet to Henrietta, and Elizabeth cut shorter into Eliza. Their readers followed their example when they signed their names, and christened their children. Bridget and Joan, and Dorothy and Alice, have been discarded; and while the more fantastic went abroad for Cecilia, Amelia, and Wilhelmina, they of a better taste recurred to their own history for such sweet names as Emma and Emmeline.

The manner in which the English abbreviate their baptismal names is unaccountably irregular. If a boy be christened John, his mother calls him Jacky, and his father Jack; William in like manner 278becomes Billy or Bill; and Edward, Neddy or Ned, Teddy or Ted, according to the gender of the person speaking: a whimsical rule not to be paralleled in any other language. Mary is changed into Molly and Polly; Elizabeth into Bessy, Bess, Betty, Tetty, Betsy, and Tetsy; Margaret into Madge, Peggy, and Meggy; all which in vulgar language are clipt of their final vowel, and shortened into monosyllables. Perhaps these last instances explain the origin of these anomalous mutations. Pega and Tetta are old English names long since disused, and only to be found in hagiological history; it is evident that these must have been the originals of the diminutives Peggy, and Tetty or Tetsy, which never by any process of capricious alteration can be formed from Margaret and Elizabeth. The probable solution is, in each case, that some person formerly bore both names, who signed with the first, and was called at home by the second,—thus the diminutive of one 279became associated with the other: in the next generation one may have been dropt, yet the familiar diminutive preserved; and this would go on like other family names, in all the subsequent branchings from the original stock. In like manner, Jacques would be the root of Jack; Theodore or Thaddeus, of Teddy; Apollonia of Polly; and Beatrice of Betty. A copious nomenclature might explain the whole.

During the late war it became a fashion to call infants after the successful admirals,—though it would have been more in character to have named ships after them: the next generation will have Hoods and Nelsons in abundance, who will never set foot in the navy. Sometimes an irreverent species of wit, if wit it may be called, has been indulged upon this subject; a man whose name is Ball has christened his three sons, Pistol, Musket, and Cannon. I have heard of another, who, having an illegitimate boy, baptized him Nebuchadnezzar, because, according to a mode of 280speaking here, he was to be sent to grass, that is, nursed by a poor woman in the country.

The system of proper names is simple and convenient. There are no patronymics, the surname never changes, and the wife loses hers for that of her husband. This custom has but lately established itself in Wales, where the people are still in a state of comparative barbarism. There the son of John Thomas used to be Thomas Johns, and his son again John Thomas; but this has given way to the English mode, which renders it easy to trace a descent. The names in general, like the language, though infinitely less barbarous than the German, are sufficiently uncouth to a southern eye, and sufficiently cacophonous to a southern ear.

The months are called after the Latin as with us, and differ rather less from the original, as only the terminations are altered. But the days of the week keep the names given them by the Saxon Pagans: Lunes 281is Monday or the day of the Moon; Martes, Tuesday or Tuisco’s day; Miércoles, Wednesday or Woden’s day; Jueves, Thursday or Thor’s day; Viernes, Friday or Frea’s day; Sábado, Saturday or Surtur’s day; Domingo, Sunday or the day of the Sun. Saturday indeed is usually deduced from Dies Saturni; but it is not likely that this Roman deity should have maintained his post singly, when all the rest of his fellows were displaced.

Friday, instead of Tuesday, is the unlucky day of the English, who are just as superstitious as we are, though in a different way. It is the common day of execution, except in cases of murder; when, as the sentence is by law to be executed the day after it is pronounced, it is always passed on Saturday, that the criminal may have the Sabbath to make his peace with Heaven. I could remark more freely upon the inhumanity of allowing so short a respite, did I not remember the worse inhumanity of withholding the sacrament from 282wretches in this dreadful situation. No person here is ever married on a Friday; nor will the sailors, if they can possibly avoid it, put to sea upon that day: these follies are contagious; and the captains, as well as the crew, will rather lose a fair wind than begin the voyage so unluckily. Sailors, we know, are every where superstitious, and well may they be so.

If it rains on St Swithin’s, they fancy it will rain every day for the next forty days. On St Valentine’s it is believed that the birds choose their mates; and the first person you see in the morning is to be your lover, whom they call a Valentine, after the saint. Among the many odd things which I shall take home, is one of the pieces of cut paper which they send about on this day, with verses in the middle, usually acrostics, to accord with the hearts, and darts, and billing doves represented all round, either in colours or by the scissars. How a saint and a bishop came to be the national Cupid, Heaven 283knows! Even one of their own poets has thought it extraordinary.

The heretics, you see, need not ridicule us for bleeding our horses on St Stephen’s, and grafting our trees on the day of the Annunciation.

Many other traces of the old religion remain in the calendar, and indeed every where, but all to as little purpose. Christmas, Candlemas, Lady-day, Michaelmas; they are become mere words, and the primary signification utterly out of mind. In the map you see St Alban’s, St Neot’s, St Columb’s, &c. The churches all over the country are dedicated to saints whose legends are quite forgotten, even upon the 284spot. You find a statue of King Charles in the place of Charing-Cross, one of the bridges is called Black-Friars, one of the streets the Minories. There is a place called the Sanctuary, a Pater-Noster-Row, and an Ave-Maria-Lane. Every where I find these vestiges of Catholicism, which give to a Catholic a feeling of deeper melancholy, than the scholar feels amid the ruins of Rome or Athens.

LETTER XXV.

Vermin imported from all Parts.—Fox-Hunting.—Shooting.—Destruction of the Game.—Rural Sports.

The king of England has a regular bug-destroyer in his household! a relic no doubt of dirtier times; for the English are a truly clean people, and have an abhorrence of all vermin. This loathsome insect seems to have been imported from France. An English traveller of the early part of the seventeenth century calls it the French punaise; which should imply either that the bug was unknown in his time, or had been so newly imported as to be still regarded as a Frenchman. It is still confined to large cities, and is called in the country, where it is known only by name, 286the London bug; a proof of foreign extraction.

It seems to be the curse of this country to catch vermin from all others: the Hessian fly devours their turnips; an insect from America has fastened upon the apple-trees, and is destroying them; it travels onward about a league in a year, and no means have yet been discovered of checking its progress. The cockroach of the West Indies infests all houses near the river in London, and all sea-port towns; and the Norway rats have fairly extirpated the aboriginal ones, and taken possession of the land by right of conquest. As they came in about the same time as the reigning family, the partisans of the Stuarts used to call them Hanoverians. They multiply prodigiously, and their boldness and ferocity almost surpass belief: I have been told of men from whose heads they have sucked the powder and pomatum during their sleep, and of children whom they have attacked in the night and mangled. 287If the animals of the North should migrate, like their country barbarians, in successive shoals, each shoal fiercer than the last, it is the hamsters’ turn to come after the rats, and the people of England must take care of themselves. An invasion by rafts and gun-boats would be less dangerous.

A lady of J—’s acquaintance was exceedingly desirous, when she was in Andalusia, to bring a few live locusts home with her, that she might introduce such beautiful creatures into England. Certainly, had she succeeded, she ought to have applied to the board of agriculture for a reward.

Foxes are imported from France in time of peace, and turned loose upon the south coast to keep up the breed for hunting. There is certainly no race of people, not even the hunting tribes of savages, who delight so passionately as the English in this sport. The fox-hunter of the last generation was a character as utterly unlike any other in society, and as totally absorbed 288in his own pursuits, as the alchemist. His whole thoughts were respecting his hounds and horses; his whole anxiety, that the weather might be favourable for the sport; his whole conversation was of the kennel and stable, and of the history of his chases. One of the last of this species, who died not many years ago, finding himself seriously ill, rode off to the nearest town, and bade the waiter of the inn bring him in some oysters and porter, and go for a physician. When the physician arrived he said to him, “Doctor, I am devilish ill,—and you must cure me by next month, that I may be ready for foxhunting.” This, however, was beyond the doctor’s power. One of his acquaintance called in upon him some little time after, and asked what was his complaint. “They tell me,” said he, “’tis a dyspepsy. I don’t know what that is, but some damn’d thing or other, I suppose!”—a definition of which every sick man will feel the force.

But this race is extinct, or exists only 289in a few families, in which the passion has so long been handed down from father to son, that it is become a sort of hereditary disease. The great alteration in society which has taken place during the present reign, tends to make men more like one another. The agriculturist has caught the spirit of commerce; the merchant is educated like the nobleman; the sea-officer has the polish of high life; and London is now so often visited, that the manners of the metropolis are to be found in every country gentleman’s house. But though hunting has ceased to be the exclusive business of any person’s life, except a huntsman’s, it is still pursued with an ardour and desperate perseverance beyond even that of savages: the prey is their object, for which they set their snares or lie patiently in wait:—here the pleasure is in the pursuit. It is no uncommon thing to read in the newspapers of a chase of ten or twelve leagues,—remember, all this at full speed, and without intermission,—dogs, men, 290and horses equally eager and equally delighted, though not equally fatigued. Facts are recorded in the annals of sporting, how the hunted animal, unable to escape, has sprung from a precipice, and some of the hounds have followed it; and of a stag, which, after one of these unmerciful pursuits, returned to its own lair, and, leaping a high boundary with its last effort, dropped down dead,—the only hound which had kept up with it to the last, dying in like manner by its side. The present king, who is remarkably fond of the sport, once followed a deer till the creature died with pure fatigue.

This was the only English custom which William of Nassau thoroughly and heartily adopted, as if he had been an Englishman himself. He was as passionately addicted to it as his present successor, and rode as boldly, making it a point of honour never to be outdone in any leap, however perilous. A certain Mr Cherry, who was devoted to the exiled family, took occasion 291of this, to form perhaps the most pardonable design which ever was laid against a king’s life. He regularly joined the royal hounds, put himself foremost, and took the most desperate leaps, in the hope that William might break his neck in following him. One day, however, he accomplished one so imminently hazardous, that the king, when he came to the spot, shook his head and drew back.

Shooting is pursued with the same zeal. Many a man, who, if a walk of three leagues were proposed to him, would shrink from it as an exertion beyond his strength, will walk from sun-rise till a late dinner hour, with a gun upon his shoulder, over heath and mountain, never thinking of distance, and never feeling fatigue. A game book, as it is called, is one of the regular publications, wherein the sportsman may keep an account of all the game he kills, the time when, the place where, and chronicle the whole history of his campaigns! The preservation of the game becomes 292necessarily an object of peculiar interest to the gentry, and the laws upon this subject are enforced with a rigour unknown in any other part of Europe. In spite of this, it becomes scarcer every year: poaching, that is, killing game without a privilege so to do, is made a trade: the stage-coaches carry it from all parts of the kingdom to the metropolis for sale, and the larders of all the great inns are regularly supplied; they who would eagerly punish the poacher, never failing to encourage him by purchasing from his employers. Another cause of destruction arises from the resentment of the farmers, who think that, as the animals are fed upon their grounds, it is hard that they should be denied the privilege of profiting by them. At a public meeting of the gentry in one of the northern provinces, a hamper came directed to the president, containing two thousand partridges’ eggs carefully packed. Some species by these continual persecutions have been quite rooted out, others 293are nearly extinct, and others only to be found in remote parts of the island. Sportsmen lament this, and naturalists lament it also with better reason.

One of the most costly works which I shall bring home is a complete treatise upon rural sports, with the most beautiful decorations that I have ever seen: it contains all possible information upon the subject, the best instructions, and annals of these sciences, as they may be termed in England. I have purchased it as an exquisite specimen of English arts, and excellently characteristic of the country, more especially as being the work of a clergyman. He might have seen in his Bible that the mighty hunters there are not mentioned as examples; and that, when Christ called the fishermen, he bade them leave the pursuit, for from thenceforth they should catch men.

LETTER XXVI.

Poor-Laws.—Work-Houses.—Sufferings of the Poor from the Climate.—Dangerous State of England during the Scarcity.—The Poor not bettered by the Progress of Civilization.

With us charity is a religious duty, with the English it is an affair of law. We support the poor by alms; in England a tax is levied to keep them from starving, and, enormous as the amount of this tax is, it is scarcely sufficient for the purpose. This evil began immediately upon the dissolution of the monasteries. They who were accustomed to receive food at the convent door, where they could ask it without shame because it was given as an act of piety, had then none to look up to for bread. A system of parish taxation 295was soon therefore established, and new laws from time to time enacted to redress new grievances, the evil still outgrowing the remedy, till the poor-laws have become the disgrace of the statutes, and it is supposed that at this day a tenth part of the whole population of England receive regular parish pay.

The disposal of this money is vested in certain officers called overseers. The office is so troublesome that the gentry rarely or never undertake it, and it usually devolves upon people rather below the middle rank, who are rigidly parsimonious in the distribution of their trust. If they were uniformly thus frugal of the parish purse, it would be laudable, or at least excusable; but where their own enjoyments are concerned, they are inexcusably lavish of the money collected for better purposes. On every pretext of parish business, however slight, a dinner is ordered for the officers. While they indulge themselves they deal hardly by the poor, and give reluctantly 296what they cannot withhold. The beadsman at the convent door receives a blessing with his pittance, but the poor man here is made to feel his poverty as a reproach; his scanty relief is bestowed ungraciously, and ungraciously received; there is neither charity in him that gives, nor gratitude in him that takes. Nor is this the worst evil: as each parish is bound to provide for its own poor, an endless source of oppression and litigation arises from the necessity of keeping out all persons likely to become chargeable. We talk of the liberty of the English, and they talk of their own liberty; but there is no liberty in England for the poor. They are no longer sold with the soil, it is true; but they cannot quit the soil, if there be any probability or suspicion that age or infirmity may disable them. If in such a case they endeavour to remove to some situation where they hope more easily to maintain themselves, where work is more plentiful, or provisions cheaper, the overseers 297are alarmed; the intruder is apprehended as if he were a criminal, and sent back to his own parish. Wherever a pauper dies, that parish must be at the cost of his funeral: instances therefore have not been wanting, of wretches in the last stage of disease having been hurried away in an open cart upon straw, and dying upon the road. Nay, even women in the very pains of labour have been driven out, and have perished by the way-side, because the birth-place of the child would be its parish. Such acts do not pass without reprehension; but no adequate punishment can be inflicted, and the root of the evil lies in the laws.

The principle upon which the poor-laws seem to have been framed is this: The price of labour is conceived to be adequate to the support of the labourer. If the season be unusually hard, or his family larger than he can maintain, the parish then assists him; rather affording a specific relief, than raising the price of labour, because 298if wages were increased, it would injure the main part of the labouring poor instead of benefiting them: a fact, however mortifying to the national character, sufficiently proved by experience. They would spend more money at the alehouse, working less and drinking more, till the habits of idleness and drunkenness strengthening each other, would reduce them to a state of helpless and burthensome poverty. Parish pay, therefore, is a means devised for increasing the wages of those persons only to whom the increase is really advantageous, and at times only when it is really necessary.

Plausible as this may at first appear, it is fallacious, as all reasonings will be found which assume for their basis the depravity of human nature. The industrious by this plan are made to suffer for the spendthrift. They are prevented from laying by the surplus of their earnings for the support of their declining years, lest others not so provident should squander it. But 299the consequence is, that the parish is at last obliged to support both; for, if the labourer in the prime of his youth and strength cannot earn more than his subsistence, he must necessarily in his old age earn less.

When the poor are incapable of contributing any longer to their own support, they are removed to what is called the workhouse. I cannot express to you the feeling of hopelessness and dread with which all the decent poor look on to this wretched termination of a life of labour. To this place all vagrants are sent for punishment; unmarried women with child go here to be delivered; and poor orphans and base-born children are brought up here till they are of age to be apprenticed off; the other inmates are those unhappy people who are utterly helpless, parish idiots and madmen, the blind and the palsied, and the old who are fairly worn out. It is not in the nature of things that the superintendants of such institutions as these should be gentle-hearted, 300when the superintendance is undertaken merely for the sake of the salary; and, in this country, religion is out of the question. There are always enough competitors for the management, among those people who can get no better situation; but, whatever kindliness of disposition they may bring with them to the task, it is soon perverted by the perpetual sight of depravity and of suffering. The management of children who grow up without one natural affection—where there is none to love them, and consequently none whom they can love—would alone be sufficient to sour a happier disposition than is usually brought to the government of a workhouse.

To this society of wretchedness the labouring poor of England look on, as their last resting-place on this side the grave; and rather than enter abodes so miserable, they endure the severest privations as long as it is possible to exist. A feeling of honest pride makes them shrink from 301a place where guilt and poverty are confounded; and it is heart-breaking for those who have reared a family of their own, to be subjected in their old age to the harsh and unfeeling authority of persons younger than themselves, neither better born nor better bred. They dread also the disrespectful and careless funeral which public charity, or rather law, bestows; and many a wretch denies himself the few sordid comforts within his reach, that he may hoard up enough to purchase a more decent burial, a better shroud, or a firmer coffin, than the parish will afford.

The wealth of this nation is their own boast, and the envy of all the rest of Europe; yet in no other country is there so much poverty—nor is poverty any where else attended with such actual suffering. Poor as our own country is, the poor Spaniard has resources and comforts which are denied to the Englishman: above all, he enjoys a climate which rarely or never subjects him to physical suffering. Perhaps 302the pain—the positive bodily pain which the poor here endure from cold, may be esteemed the worst evil of their poverty. Coal is every where dear, except in the neighbourhood of the collieries; and especially so in London, where the number of the poor is of course greatest. You see women raking the ashes in the streets, for the sake of the half-burnt cinders. What a picture does one of their houses present in the depth of winter! the old cowering over a few embers—the children shivering in rags, pale and livid—all the activity and joyousness natural to their time of life chilled within them.—The numbers who perish from diseases produced by exposure to cold and rain, by unwholesome food, and by the want of enough even of that, would startle as well as shock you. Of the children of the poor, hardly one-third are reared.

During the late war the internal peace of the country was twice endangered by scarcities. Many riots broke out, though 303fewer than were apprehended, and though the people on the whole behaved with exemplary patience. Nor were the rich deficient in charity. There is no country in the world where money is so willingly given for public purposes of acknowledged utility. Subscriptions were raised in all parts, and associations formed, to supply the distressed with food, either gratuitously, or at a cheaper rate than the market price. But though the danger was felt and confessed, and though the military force of London was called out to quell an incipient insurrection, no measures have been taken to prevent a return of the evil. With all its boasted wealth and prosperity, England is at the mercy of the seasons. One unfavourable harvest occasions dearth: and what the consequences of famine would be in a country where the poor are already so numerous and so wretched, is a question which the boldest statesman dares not ask himself. When volunteer forces were raised 304over the kingdom, the poor were excluded; it was not thought safe to trust them with arms. But the peasantry are, and ought to be, the strength of every country; and woe to that country where the peasantry and the poor are the same!

Many causes have contributed to the rapid increase of this evil. The ruinous wars of the present reign, and the oppressive system of taxation pursued by the late premier, are among the principal. But the manufacturing system is the main cause; it is the inevitable tendency of that system to multiply the number of the poor, and to make them vicious, diseased, and miserable.

To answer the question concerning the comparative advantages of the savage and social states, as Rousseau has done, is to commit high treason against human nature, and blasphemy against Omniscient Goodness; but they who say that society ought to stop where it is, and that it has 305no further amelioration to expect, do not less blaspheme the one, and betray the other. The improvements of society never reach the poor: they have been stationary, while the higher classes were progressive. The gentry of the land are better lodged, better accommodated, better educated than their ancestors; the poor man lives in as poor a dwelling as his forefathers when they were slaves of the soil, works as hard, is worse fed, and not better taught. His situation, therefore, is relatively worse. There is, indeed, no insuperable bar to his rising into a higher order—his children may be tradesmen, merchants, or even nobles—but this political advantage is no amendment of his actual state. The best conceivable state for man is that wherein he has the full enjoyment of all his powers, bodily and intellectual. This is the lot of the higher classes in Europe; the poor enjoys neither—the savage only the former. If, therefore, religion 306were out of the question, it had been happier for the poor man to have been born among savages, than in a civilized country, where he is in fact the victim of civilization.

LETTER XXVII.

Saint Paul’s.—Anecdote of a female Esquimaux.—Defect of Grecian Architecture in cold Climates.—Nakedness of the Church.—Monuments.—Pictures offered by Sir Joshua Reynolds, &c., and refused.— Ascent.—View from the Summit.

The cathedral church of St Paul’s is not more celebrated than it deserves to be. No other nation in modern times has reared so magnificent a monument of piety. I never behold it without regretting that such a church should be appropriated to heretical worship;—that, like a whited sepulchre, there should be death within.

In the court before the grand entrance stands a statue of Queen Anne, instead of a cross; a figure as ill-executed as it is ill-placed, which has provoked some epigrams 308even in this country, indifferent as the taste in sculpture is here, and little as is the sense of religious decorum. On entering the church I was impressed by its magnitude. A fine anecdote is related of the effect this produced upon a female Esquimaux:—quite overpowered with wonder when she stood under the dome, she leaned upon her conductor, as if sinking under the strong feeling of awe, and fearfully asked him, “Did man make it? or was it put here?” My own sensations were of the same character, yet it was wonder at human power unmingled with any other kind of awe; not that feeling which a temple should inspire; not so much a sense that the building in which I stood was peculiarly suitable for worship, as that it could be suitable for nothing else. Gothic architecture produces the effect of sublimity, though always without simplicity, and often without magnitude; so perhaps does the Saracenic; if the Grecian ever produce the same effect it is by magnitude 309alone. But the architecture of the ancients is altered, and materially injured by the alteration, when adapted to cold climates, where it is necessary when the light is admitted to exclude the air: the windows have always a littleness, always appear misplaced; they are holes cut in the wall: not, as in the Gothic, natural and essential parts of the general structure.

The air in all the English churches which I have yet entered is damp, cold, confined, and unwholesome, as if the graves beneath tainted it. No better proof can be required of the wisdom of enjoining incense. I have complained that the area in their ordinary churches is crowded; but the opposite fault is perceivable in this great cathedral. The choir is but a very small part of the church; service was going on there, being hurried over as usual in week-days, and attended only by two or three old women, whose piety deserved to meet with better instructors. The vergers, however, paid so much respect to 310this service, such as it is, that they would not show us the church till it was over. There are no chapels, no other altar than that in the choir;—for what then can the heretics have erected so huge an edifice? It is as purposeless as the Pyramids.

Here are suspended all the flags which were taken in the naval victories of the late war. I do not think that the natural feeling which arose within me at seeing the Spanish colours among them influences me, when I say that they do not ornament the church, and that, even if they did, the church is not the place for them. They might be appropriate offerings in a temple of Mars; but certainly there is nothing in the revealed will of God which teaches us that he should be better pleased with the blood of man in battle, than with that of bulls and of goats in sacrifice. The palace, the houses of legislature, the admiralty, and the tower where the regalia are deposited, should be decorated with these trophies; so also should Greenwich be, the noble 311asylum for their old seamen; and even in the church a flag might perhaps fitly be hung over the tomb of him who won it and fell in the victory. Monuments are erecting here to all the naval captains who fell in these actions; some of them are not finished; those which are do little honour to the artists of England. The artists know not what to do with their villainous costume, and, to avoid uniforms in marble, make their unhappy statues half naked. One of these represents the dying captain as falling into Neptune’s arms;—a dreadful situation for a dying captain it would be—he would certainly take the old sea-god for the devil, and the trident for the pitchfork with which he tosses about souls in the fire. Will sculptors never perceive the absurdity of allegorizing in stone!

There are but few of these monuments as yet, because the English never thought of making St Paul’s the mausoleum of their great men, till they had crowded Westminster Abbey with the illustrious 312and the obscure indiscriminately. They now seem to have discovered the nakedness of this huge edifice, and to vote parliamentary monuments to every sea captain who falls in battle, for the sake of filling it as fast as possible. This is making the honour too common. It is only the name of the commander in chief which is always necessarily connected with that of the victory; he, therefore, is the only individual to whom a national monument ought to be erected. If he survives the action, and it be thought expedient, as I willingly allow it to be, that every victory should have its monument, let it be, like the stone at Thermopylæ, inscribed to the memory of all who fell. The commander in chief may deserve a separate commemoration: the responsibility of the engagement rests upon him; and to him the merit of the victory, as far as professional skill is entitled to it, will, whether justly or not, be attributed, though assuredly in most cases with the strictest justice. But 313whatever may have been the merit of the subordinate officers, the rank which they hold is not sufficiently conspicuous. The historian will mention them, but the reader will not remember them because they are mentioned but once, and it is only to those who are remembered that statues should be voted; only to those who live in the hearts and in the mouths of the people. “Who is this?” is a question which will be asked at every statue; but if after the verger has named the person represented it is still necessary to ask, “Who is he?” the statue is misplaced in a national mausoleum.

These monuments are too few as yet to produce any other general effect than a wish that there were more; and the nakedness of these wide walls without altar, chapel, confessional, picture, or offering, is striking and dolorous as you may suppose. Yet if such honours were awarded without any immediate political motive, there are many for whom they might justly 314be claimed; for Cook for instance, the first navigator, without reproach; for Bruce, the most intrepid and successful of modern travellers; for lady Wortley Montague, the best of all letter-writers, and the benefactress of Europe. “I,” said W., who was with me, “should demand one for Sir Walter Raleigh; and even you, Spaniard as you are, would not, I think, contest the claim; it should be for introducing tobacco into Christendom, for which he deserves a statue of pipe-makers’ clay.”

Some five-and-twenty or thirty years ago the best English artists offered to paint pictures and give them to this cathedral;—England had never greater painters to boast of than at that time. The thing, however, was not so easy as you might imagine, and it was necessary to obtain the consent of the bishop, the chapter, the lord mayor, and the king. The king loves the arts, and willingly consented; the lord mayor and the chapter made no objection; but 315the bishop positively refused; for no other reason, it is said, than because the first application had not been made to him. Perhaps some puritanical feeling may have been mingled with this despicable pride, some leven of the old Iconoclastic and Lutheran barbarism; but as long as the names of Barry and of Sir Joshua Reynolds are remembered in this country, and remembered they will be as long as the works and the fame of a painter can endure, so long will the provoking absurdity of this refusal be execrated.^[17]

The monuments and the body of the 316church may be seen gratuitously; a price is required for admittance to any thing above stairs, and for fourpenny, sixpenny, and shilling fees we were admitted to see the curiosities of the building;—a model something differing from the present structure, and the work of the same great architect; a geometrical staircase, at the top of which the door closes with a tremendous sound; the clock, whose huge bell in a calm day, when what little wind is stirring is from the east, may be heard 317five leagues over the plain at Windsor; and a whispering gallery, the great amusement of children and wonder of women, and which is indeed at first sufficiently startling. It is just below the dome; and when I was on the one side and my guide on the other, the whole breadth of the dome being between us, he shut-to the door, and the sound was like a peal of thunder rolling among the mountains.—The scratch of a pin against the wall, and the lowest whisper, were distinctly heard across. The inside of the cupola is covered with pictures by a certain Sir James Thornhill: they are too high to be seen distinctly from any place except the gallery immediately under them, and if there were nothing else to repay the fatigue of the ascent it would be labour in vain.

Much as I had been impressed by the size of the building on first entering it, my sense of its magnitude was heightened by the prodigious length of the passages which we traversed, and the seeming endlessness 318of the steps we mounted. We kept close to our conductor with a sense of danger: that it is dangerous to do otherwise was exemplified not long since by a person who lost himself here, and remained two days and nights in this dismal solitude. At length he reached one of the towers in the front; to make himself heard was impossible; he tied his handkerchief to his stick, and hung it out as a signal of distress, which at last was seen from below, and he was rescued. The best plan in such cases would be to stop the clock, if the way to it could be found.

In all other towers which I had ever ascended, the ascent was fatiguing, but no ways frightful. Stone steps winding round and round a stone pillar from the bottom up to the top, with just room to admit you between the pillar and the wall, make the limbs ache and the head giddy, but there is nothing to give a sense of danger. Here was a totally different scene: the ascent was up the cupola, by stair-cases 319and stages of wood, which had all the seeming insecurity of scaffolding. Projecting beams hung with cobwebs and black with dust, the depth below, the extent of the gloomy dome within which we were enclosed, and the light which just served to show all this, sometimes dawning before us, sometimes fading away behind, now slanting from one side, and now leaving us almost in utter darkness: of such materials you may conceive how terrifying a scene may be formed, and you know how delightful it is to contemplate images of terror with a sense of security.

Having at last reached the summit of the dome, I was contented. The way up to the cross was by a ladder; and as we could already see as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing above to reward me for a longer and more laborious ascent. The old bird’s-eye views which are now disused because they are out of fashion, were of more use than any thing which supplies their place: half plain, half picture, they gave an idea of the place which they represented 320more accurately than pictures, and more vividly than plans. I would have climbed St Paul’s, if it had been only to see London thus mapped below me, and though there had been nothing beautiful or sublime in the view: few objects, however, are so sublime, if by sublimity we understand that which completely fills the imagination to the utmost measure of its powers, as the view of a huge city thus seen at once:—house-roofs, the chimneys of which formed so many turrets; towers and steeples; the trees and gardens of the inns of court and the distant squares forming so many green spots in the map; Westminster Abbey on the one hand with Westminster Hall, an object scarcely less conspicuous; on the other the Monument, a prodigious column worthy of a happier occasion and a less lying inscription; the Tower and the masts of the shipping rising behind it; the river with its three bridges and all its boats and barges; the streets immediately within view blackened with moving swarms of men and lines of carriages. To the 321north were Hampstead and Highgate on their eminences, southward the Surrey hills. Where the city ended it was impossible to distinguish: it would have been more beautiful if, as at Madrid, the capital had been circumscribed within walls, and the open country had commenced immediately without its limits. In every direction the lines of houses ran out as far as the eye could follow them, only the patches of green were more frequently interspersed towards the extremity of the prospect, as the lines diverged further from each other. It was a sight which awed me and made me melancholy. I was looking down upon the habitations of a million of human beings; upon the single spot whereon were crowded together more wealth, more splendour, more ingenuity, more worldly wisdom, and, alas! more worldly blindness, poverty, depravity, dishonesty, and wretchedness, than upon any other spot in the whole habitable earth.

LETTER XXVIII.

State of the English Catholics.—Their prudent Silence in the Days of Jacobitism.—The Church of England jealous of the Dissenters.—Riots in 1780.—Effects of the French Revolution.—The Re-establishment of the Monastic Orders in England.—Number of Nunneries and Catholic Seminaries.—The Poor easily converted.—Catholic Writers.—Dr Geddes.

The situation of the Catholics in England is far more favourable at present than it has been at any period since the unfortunate expulsion of James II. There is an opinion prevalent among freethinkers and schismatics that intolerance is bad policy, and that religious principles hostile to an establishment will die away if they are 323not persecuted. These reasoners have forgotten that Christianity was rooted up in Japan, and that heresy was extirpated from Spain, by fire. The impolicy is in half measures.

So long as the Stuarts laid claim to the crown, the Catholics were jealously regarded as a party connected with them; and even the large class of Jacobites, as they were called, who adhered to the old family merely from a principle of loyalty, being obstinate heretics, looked suspiciously upon their Catholic coadjutors as men whose motives were different, though they were engaged in the same cause. These men would never have attempted to restore the Stuarts, if they had not believed that the Protestant church establishment would remain undisturbed, they believed this firmly—believed that a Catholic king would reign over a nation of schismatics, and make no attempt at converting them; so ignorant were they of the principles of Catholicism. But no sooner 324had the Pretender ceased to be formidable than the Catholics were forgotten, or considered only as a religious sect of less consequence in the state, and therefore less obnoxious than any other, because neither numerous nor noisy. In fact the persecuting laws, though never enforced, were still in existence; and the Catholics themselves, as they had not forgotten their bloody effects in former times, prudently persevered in silence.

Fortunately for them, as soon as they had ceased to be objects of suspicion, the Presbyterians became so. This body of dissenters had been uniformly attached to the Hanoverian succession; but when that house was firmly established, and all danger from the Stuarts over, the old feelings began to revive, both on the part of the Crown and of the Nonconformists. What they call the connection between civil and religious freedom, or, as their antagonists say, between schism and rebellion, made the court jealous of their numbers and of 325their principles. The clergy too, being no longer in danger from those whom they had dispossessed, began to fear those who would dispossess them; they laid aside their controversy with the Catholics, and directed their harangues and writings against greater schismatics than themselves. During such disputes our brethren had nothing to do but quietly look on, and rejoice that the kingdom of Beelzebub was divided against itself.

It is true, a violent insurrection broke out against them in the year 1780; but this was the work of the lowest rabble, led on by a madman. It did not originate in any previous feelings, for probably nine-tenths of the mob had never heard of popery till they rioted to suppress it, and it left no rankling behind: on the contrary, as the Catholics had been wantonly and cruelly attacked, a sentiment of compassion for them was excited in the more respectable part of the community.

The French Revolution materially assisted 326the true religion. The English clergy, trembling for their own benefices, welcomed the emigrant priests as brethren, and, forgetting all their former ravings about Antichrist, and Babylon, and the Scarlet Whore, lamented the downfall of religion in France. An outcry was raised against the more daring heretics at home, and the tide of popular fury let loose upon them. While this dread of atheism prevailed, the Catholic priests obtained access every where; and the university of Oxford even supplied them with books from its own press. These noble confessors did not let the happy opportunity pass by unimproved; they sowed the seeds abundantly, and saw the first fruits of the harvest. But the most important advantage which has ever been obtained for the true religion since its subversion, is the re-establishment of the monastic orders in this island, from whence they had so long been proscribed. This great object has been effected with admirable prudence. A few nuns 327who had escaped from the atheistical persecution in France were permitted to live together, according to their former mode of life. It would have been cruel to have separated them, and their establishment was connived at as trifling in itself, and which would die a natural death with its members. But the Catholic families, rejoicing in this manifest interposition of Providence, made use of the opportunity, and found no difficulty in introducing novices. Thus is good always educed from evil; the irruption of the barbarous nations led to their conversion; the overthrow of the Greek empire occasioned the revival of letters in Europe; and the persecution of Catholicism in France has been the cause of its establishment in England: the storm which threatened to pluck up this Tree of Life by its roots has only scattered abroad its seed. Not only have many conversions been effected, but even in many instances the children of Protestants have been inspired with such holy zeal, 328that, heroically abandoning the world, in spite of all the efforts of their deluded parents, they have entered and professed. Some of the wiser heretics have seen to what these beginnings will lead; but the answer to their representations has been, the vows may be taken at pleasure, and broken at pleasure, for by the law of England such vows are not binding. As if any law could take away the moral obligation of a vow, and neutralise perjury! May we not indulge a hope that this blindness is the work of God?

There are at this time five Catholic colleges in England and two in Scotland, besides twelve schools and academies for the instruction of boys: eleven schools for females, besides what separate ones are kept by the English Benedictine nuns from Dunkirk; the nuns of the Ancient English Community of Brussels; the nuns from Bruges; the nuns from Liege; the Augustinian nuns from Louvain; the English Benedictine nuns from Cambray; 329the Benedictine nuns from Ghent; those of the same order from Montargis; and the Dominican nuns from Brussels: in all these communities the rules of the respective orders are observed, and novices are admitted; they are convents as well as schools. The Poor Clares have four establishments, in which only novices are received, not scholars; the Teresians three; the Benedictine nuns one. Convents of monks are not so numerous; and indeed in the present state of things secular clergy are better labourers in the vineyard; the Carthusians, however, have an establishment in the full rigour of their rule. Who could have hoped to live to see these things in England!

The greater number of converts are made among the poor, who are always more easily converted than the rich, because their inheritance is not in this world, and they enjoy so little happiness here that they are more disposed to think seriously of securing it for hereafter. It is no difficult 330thing to make them set their hearts and their hopes upon heaven. Their own clergy neglect them; and when they behold any one solicitous for their salvation without any interested motive, an act of love towards them is so unexpected and so unusual, that their gratitude prepares the way for truth. The charity also which our holy religion so particularly enjoins produces its good effect even on earth; proselytes always abound in the neighbourhood of a wealthy Catholic family. Were the seminaries as active as they were in the days of persecution, and as liberally supplied with means, it would not be absurd to hope for the conversion of this island, so long lost to the church.

Another circumstance greatly in favour of the true religion is, that there is no longer any difficulty or danger in publishing Catholic writings. They were formerly proscribed and hunted out as vigilantly as prohibited books in our own country; but now the press is open to them, and able 331defenders of the truth have appeared. This also has been managed skilfully. To have openly attacked the heretical establishment might have attracted too much notice, and perhaps have excited alarm; nor indeed would the heretics have perused a work avowedly written with such a design. Accordingly the form of history has been used, a study of which the English are particularly fond. An excellent life of Cardinal Pole has been written, which exposes the enormities of Henry VIII. and the character of the wretched Anna Boleyn. Another writer, in a history of Henry II. has vindicated the memory of that blessed Saint Thomas of Canterbury, who is so vilified by all the English historians; and Bishop Milner, still more lately, in a work upon antiquities, has ventured to defend those excellent prelates who attempted, under Philip and Mary, to save their country from the abyss of heresy.

A division for a short time among the Catholics themselves was occasioned by 332Dr Geddes, a priest of great learning, but of the most irascible disposition and perverse mind. This man began to translate the scriptures anew; and, as he avowed opinions destructive of their authority, as well as of revealed religion, his bishop very properly interfered, forbade him to proceed, and on his persisting suspended him for contumacy. He obstinately went on, and lived to publish two volumes of the text and a third of notes: the notes consist wholly of verbal criticism, and explain nothing, and the language of the translation is such as almost to justify a suspicion that he intended to debase the holy writings, and render them odious. As long as he lived he found a patron in Lord Petre; but his books are now selling at their just value, that is, as waste paper; and if his name was not inserted in the Index Expurgatorius it would be forgotten.

Pope and Dryden, the two greatest English poets, were both Catholics, though the latter had been educated in the schism.

LETTER XXIX.

Number of Sects in England, all appealing to the Scriptures.—Puritans.—Nonjurors.—Rise of Socinianism, and its probable Downfall.

The heretical sects in this country are so numerous, that an explanatory dictionary of their names has been published. They form a curious list! Arminians, Socinians, Baxterians, Presbyterians, New Americans, Sabellians, Lutherans, Moravians, Swedenborgians, Athanasians, Episcopalians, Arians, Sabbatarians, Trinitarians, Unitarians, Millenarians, Necessarians, Sublapsarians, Supralapsarians, Antinomians, Hutchinsonians, Sandemonians, Muggletonians, Baptists, Anabaptists, Pædobaptists, Methodists, Papists, Universalists, Calvinists, 334Materialists, Destructionists, Brownists, Independants, Protestants, Hugonots, Nonjurors, Seceders, Hernhutters, Dunkers, Jumpers, Shakers, and Quakers, &c. &c. &c.^[18] A precious nomenclature! only to 335be paralleled by the catalogue of the Philistines in Sanson Nazarenzo,^[19] or the muster-roll of Anna de Santiago’s Devils,^[19] under Aquias, Brum, and Acatu, lieutenant-generals to Lucifer himself.

This endless confusion arises from the want of some surer standard of faith than Reason and the Scriptures, to one or both of which all the schismatics appeal, making it their boast that they allow no other authority. Reason and the Scriptures! Even one of their own bishops calls Reason a box of quicksilver, and says that it is like a pigeon’s neck, or a shot-silk, appearing one colour to me, and another to you who stand in a different light.

336And for the Scriptures, well have they been likened to a nose of wax, which every finger and thumb may tweak to the fashion of their own fancy. You may well suppose how perversely those heretics will wrest the spirit, who have not scrupled to corrupt the letter of the Gospel. In many editions of the English Bible ye has been substituted for we; Acts, vi. 3. the Presbyterians having bribed the printer thus to favour their heresy. Were you to hear the stress which some of these Puritans lay upon the necessity of perusing the Scriptures, you might suppose they had adopted the Jewish notion, that the first thing which God himself does every morning is to read three hours in the Bible.

You said to me, Examine into the opinions of the different heretics, and you will be in no danger of heresy; and you requested me to send you full accounts of all that I should see, learn, and think during this enquiry, as the main confession you should require. The result will prove 337that your confidence was not misplaced; that nothing could leach me so feelingly the blessing of health, as a course of studies in an infirmary.

Many of the names of this hydra brood need no explanation; the others I shall explain as I understand them, and those which are left untouched you may consider as too insignificant in their numbers, or in their points of difference, to require more than the mere insertion of their titles in the classification of heresies. The Dunkers and Sandemonians, the Baxterians and Muggletonians, may be left in obscurity with the Tascadrogiti and Ascodrogiti, the Perliconasati of old, the Passalaronciti, and Artotyriti, of whom St Jerome might well say, Magis portenta quam nomina.

Some of these sects differ from the establishment in discipline only, others both in doctrine and discipline; they are either political, or fanatical, or both. In all cases it may be remarked, that the dissenting 338ministers, as they are called, are more zealous than the regular clergy, because they either choose their profession for conscience sake, or take it up as a trade, influenced either by enthusiasm or knavery, which are so near akin and so much alike, that it is generally difficult, and sometimes impossible, to distinguish one from the other.

When the schism was fairly established in this island by the accursed Elizabeth, all sorts of heresies sprung up like weeds in a neglected field. The new establishment paid its court to the new head of the church by the most slavish doctrines; the more abject, the more were they unlike the principles of the Catholic religion, and also to the political tenets of the Nonconformists. The consequence was, a strict union between the clergy and the crown; while, on the other hand, all the fanatics, however at variance in other points, were connected by their common hatred of this double tyranny. Elizabeth kept them 339down by the Inquisition: she martyred the Catholic teachers, and put the Puritans to a slower death, by throwing them into dungeons, and leaving them to rot there amid their own excrement. They strengthened during the reign of her timorous successor, and overthrew the monarchy and hierarchy together under Charles, the martyr of the English schismatical church. Then they quarrelled among themselves; and one party, disappointed of effecting its own establishment, brought back Charles II., who ruled them with a rod of iron. A little prudence in James would have restored England to the bosom of the church; but he offended the clergy by his precipitance, forced them to coalesce with the Dissenters, and lost his crown. His father’s fate was before his eyes, and he feared to lose his head also; but had he been bold enough to set it at stake, and been as willing to be a martyr as he was to be a confessor, a bloodier civil war might have been excited in England than in Ireland; England 340might have been his by conquest as well as by birth, and the religion of the conqueror imposed upon the people.

This revolution occasioned a new schism. From the time of their first establishment the clergy had been preaching the doctrines of absolute power and passive obedience; that kings govern by a right divine, and, therefore, are not amenable to man for their conduct. These principles had taken deep root in consequence of the general fear and hatred against the Calvinists. No inconsiderable portion of the clergy, therefore, however heartily they dreaded the restoration of what they called Popery by James, could not in conscience assent to the accession of William: indeed, the more sincerely they had deprecated the former danger, the less could they reconcile their really tender consciences to the Revolution. They therefore resigned, or rather were displaced from, their sees and benefices, and lingered about half a century as a distinct 341sect, under the title of Nonjurors. These men were less dangerous to the new government than they who, having the same opinions without the same integrity, took the oaths of allegiance, and washed them down with secret bumpers to King James. But great part of the clergy sincerely acquiesced in the Whig principles; and this number was continually increasing as long as such principles were the fashion of the court. Of this the government were well aware: they let the malcontents^[20] alone, knowing that where the carcase is there will the crows be gathered together; and in this case it so happened that the common frailty and the common sense of mankind coincided.

I have related in my last how the Dissenters, from the republican tendency of their principles, became again obnoxious to government during the present reign; 342the ascendancy of the old high church and tory party, and the advantages which have resulted to the true religion. Their internal state has undergone as great a change. One part of them has insensibly lapsed into Socinianism, a heresy, till of late years, almost unknown in England; and into this party all the indifferentists from other sects, who do not choose, for political motives, to join the establishment, naturally fall. The establishment itself furnishes a supply by the falling off of those of its members, who, in the progress of enquiry, discover that the church of England is neither one thing nor another; that in matters of religion all must rest upon faith, or upon reason; and have unhappily preferred the sandy foundation of human wit. Crede ut intelligas, noli intelligere ut credas, is the wise precept of St Augustine; but these heretics have discarded the fathers as well as the saints! These become Socinians; and though many of them do not stop here in the career 343of unbelief, they still frequent the meeting-houses, and are numbered among the sect. With these all the hydra brood of Arianism and Pelagianism, and all the anti-calvinist Dissenters have united; each preserving its own peculiar tenets, but all agreeing in their abhorrence of Calvinism, their love of unbounded freedom of opinion, and in consequence their hostility to any church establishment. All, however, by this union, and still more by the medley of doctrines which are preached as the pulpit happens to be filled by a minister of one persuasion or the other, are insensibly modified and assimilated to each other; and this assimilation will probably become complete, as the older members, who were more rigidly trained in the orthodoxy of heterodoxy, drop off. A body will remain respectable for riches, numbers, erudition, and talents, but without zeal and without generosity; and they will fall asunder at no very remote period, because they 344do not afford their ministers stipends sufficient for the decencies of life. The church must be kept together by a golden chain; and this, which is typically true of the true church, is literally applicable to every false one. These sectarians call themselves the enlightened part of the Dissenters; but the children of Mammon are wiser in their generation than such children of light.

From this party, therefore, the church of England has nothing to fear, though of late years its hostility has been erringly directed against them. They are rather its allies than its enemies, an advanced guard who have pitched their camp upon the very frontiers of infidelity, and exert themselves in combating the unbelievers on one hand, and the Calvinists on the other. They have the fate of Servetus for their warning, which the followers of Calvin justify, and are ready to make their precedent. Should these sworn foes to 345the establishment succeed in overthrowing it, a burnt-offering of anti-trinitarians would be the first illumination for the victory.

LETTER XXX.

Watering Places.—Taste for the Picturesque.—Encomiendas.

The English migrate as regularly as rooks. Home-sickness is a disease which has no existence in a certain state of civilization or of luxury, and instead of it these islanders are subject to periodical fits, of what I shall beg leave to call oikophobia, a disorder with which physicians are perfectly well acquainted though it may not yet have been catalogued in the nomenclature of nosology.

In old times, that is to say, two generations ago, mineral springs were the only places of resort. Now the Nereids have as many votaries as the Naiads, and the tribes of wealth and fashion swarm down 347to the sea coast as punctually as the land crabs in the West Indies march the same way. These people, who have unquestionably the best houses of any people in Europe, and more conveniences about them to render home comfortable, crowd themselves into the narrow apartments and dark streets of a little country town, just at that time of the year when instinct seems to make us, like the lark, desirous of as much sky-room as possible. The price they pay for these lodgings is exorbitant; the more expensive the place, the more numerous are the visitors; for the pride of wealth is as ostentatious in this country as ever the pride of birth has been elsewhere. In their haunts, however, these visitors are capricious; they frequent a coast some seasons in succession, like herrings, and then desert it for some other, with as little apparent motive as the fish have for varying their track. It is fashion which influences them, not the beauty of the place, not the desirableness of the 348accommodations, not the convenience of the shore for their ostensible purpose, bathing. Wherever one of the queen-bees of fashion alights, a whole swarm follows her. They go into the country for the sake of seeing company, not for retirement; and in all this there is more reason than you perhaps have yet imagined.

The fact is, that in these heretical countries parents have but one way of disposing of their daughters, and in that way it becomes less and less easy to dispose of them every year, because the modes of living become continually more expensive, the number of adventurers in every profession yearly increases, and of course every adventurer’s chance of success is proportionately diminished. They who have daughters take them to these public places to look for husbands; and there is no indelicacy in this, because others who have no such motive for frequenting them go likewise, in consequence of the fashion,—or 349of habits which they have acquired in their younger days. This is so general, that health has almost ceased to be the pretext. Physicians, indeed, still send those who have more complaints than they can cure, or so few that they can discover none, to some of the fashionable spas, which are supposed to be medicinal because they are nauseous; they still send the paralytic to find relief at Bath or to look for it, and the consumptive to die at the Hot-wells: yet even to these places more persons go in quest of pleasure than of relief, and the parades and pump-rooms there exhibit something more like the Dance of Death than has ever perhaps been represented elsewhere in real life.

There is another way of passing the summer which is equally, if not more, fashionable. Within the last thirty years a taste for the picturesque has sprung up,—and a course of summer travelling is now looked upon to be as essential as ever a course of spring physic was in old 350times. While one of the flocks of fashion migrates to the sea-coast, another flies off to the mountains of Wales, to the lakes in the northern provinces, or to Scotland; some to mineralogize, some to botanize, some to take views of the country,—all to study the picturesque, a new science for which a new language has been formed, and for which the English have discovered a new sense in themselves, which assuredly was not possessed by their fathers. This is one of the customs to which it suits a stranger to conform. My business is to see the country,—and, to confess the truth, I have myself caught something of this passion for the picturesque, from conversation, from books, and still more from the beautiful landscapes in water colours, in which the English excel all other nations.

To the lakes then I am preparing to set out. D. will be my companion. We go by way of Oxford, Birmingham, and Liverpool, and return by York and Cambridge, 351designing to travel by stage over the less interesting provinces, and, when we reach the land of lakes, to go on foot, in true picturesque costume, with a knapsack slung over the shoulder.—I am smiling at the elevation of yours, and the astonishment in your arched brows. Even so:—it is the custom in England. Young Englishmen have discovered that they can walk as well as the well-girt Greeks in the days of old, and they have taught me the use of my legs.

I have packed up a box of encomiendas to go during my absence by the Sally, the captain of which has promised to deposit it safely with our friend Baltazar. One case of razors is for my father; they are of the very best fabric; my friend Benito has never wielded such instruments since first he took man by the nose. I have added a case of lancets for Benito himself at his own request, and in addition the newest instrument for drawing teeth, remembering the last grinder which he dislocated 352for me, and obeying the precept of returning good for evil. The cost stands over to my own charity score, and I shall account for it with my confessor. Padre Antonio will admit it as alms, it being manifestly designed to save my neighbours from the pains of purgatory upon earth. The lamp is infinitely superior to any thing you have ever seen in our own country,—but England is the land of ingenuity. I have written such particular instructions that there can be no difficulty in using it. The smaller parcel is Dona Isabel’s commission. If she ask how I like the English ladies, say to her, in the words of the Romance,

The case of sweetmeats is Mrs J—’s present to my mother. There is also a hamper 353of cheese, the choicest which could be procured. One, with the other case of razors, you will send to Padre Antonio, and tell him that in this land of heresy I shall be as mindful of my faith as of my friends.

LETTER XXXI.

Journey to Oxford.—Stage-Coach Travelling and Company.

The stage-coach in which we had taken our places was to start at six. We met at the inn, and saw our trunks safely stowed in the boot, as they call a great receptacle for baggage, under the coachman’s feet: this is a necessary precaution for travellers in a place where rogues of every description swarm, and in a case where neglect would be as mischievous as knavery.—There were two other passengers, who, with ourselves, filled the coach. The one was evidently a member of the university; the other a fat vulgar woman who had stored herself with cakes, oranges and cordials 355for the journey. She had with her a large bundle which she would not trust in the boot, and which was too big to go in the seat, so she carried it upon her lap. A man and woman, who had accompanied her to the inn, stood by the coach till it set off; relations they seemed to be, by the familiar manner in which they spoke of those to whom she was returning, sending their love to one, and requesting to hear of another, and repeating ‘Be sure you let us know you are got safe,’ till the very last minute. The machine started within a few minutes of the time appointed; the coachman smacked his whip, as if proud of his dexterity, and we rattled over the stones with a fearful velocity, for he was driving four horses. In Piccadilly he stopped at another inn, where all the western stages call as they enter or go out of town: here we took in another cargo of parcels, two passengers mounted the roof, and we once more proceeded.

We left town by the great western road, 356the same way which I had entered. It was a great relief when we exchanged the violent jolting over the stones for steady motion on a gravel road; but the paved ways were met with again in all the little towns and townlets;^[22] and as these for a considerable distance almost join each other, it was a full hour before we felt ourselves fairly in the country. Several stages passed us within a few miles of London, on their way up: they had been travelling all night; yet such are their regularity and emulation, that though they had come about thirty leagues, and stopped at different places, not one was more than ten minutes distance apart from another.

Englishmen are not very social to strangers. Our fellow-traveller composed himself to sleep in the corner of the coach; but women are more communicative, and the good lady gave us her whole history before we arrived at the end of the first 357stage;—how she had been to see her sister who lived in the Borough, and was now returning home; that she had been to both the play-houses; Astley’s Amphitheatre, and the Royal Circus; had seen the crown and the lions at the Tower, and the elephants at Exeter ’Change; and that on the night of the illumination she had been out till half after two o’clock, but never could get within sight of M. Otto’s house. I found that it raised me considerably in her estimation when I assured her that I had been more fortunate, and had actually seen it. She then execrated all who did not like the peace, told me what the price of bread had been during the war and how it had fallen, expressed a hope that Hollands and French brandy would fall also; spoke with complacency of Bonniprat, as she called him, and asked whether we loved him as well in our country as the people in England loved King George. On my telling her that I was a Spaniard, not a Frenchman, she accommodated her conversation 358accordingly, said it was a good thing to be at peace with Spain, because Spanish annatto and jar raisins came from that country, and enquired how Spanish liquorice was made, and if the people wer’n’t papists and never read in the Bible. You must not blame me for boasting of a lady’s favours, if I say my answers were so satisfactory that I was pressed to partake of her cakes and oranges.

We breakfasted at Slough, the second stage; a little town which seems to be chiefly supported by its inns. The room into which we were shown was not so well furnished as those which were reserved for travellers in chaises; in other respects we were quite as well served, and perhaps more expeditiously. The breakfast service was on the table and the kettle boiling. When we paid the reckoning, the woman’s share was divided among us; it is the custom in stage-coaches, that if there be but one woman in company the other passengers pay for her at the inns.

359We saw Windsor distinctly on the left, standing on a little eminence, a flag upon the tower indicating that the royal family were there. Almost under it were the pinnacles of Eton college, where most of the young nobility are educated immediately under the sovereign’s eye. An inn was pointed out to me by the road side, where a whole party, many years ago, were poisoned, by eating food which had been prepared in a copper vessel. The country is flat, or little diversified with risings, beautifully verdant, though with far more uncultivated ground than you would suppose could possibly be permitted so near to such a metropolis. The frequent towns, the number of houses by the road side, and the apparent comfort and cleanliness of all, the travellers whom we met, and the gentlemen’s seats, as they are called, in sight, every one of which was mentioned in my Book of the Roads, kept my attention perpetually alive. All the houses are of brick; and I did not see 360one which appeared to be above half a century old.

We crossed the Thames over Maidenhead-bridge, so called from the near town, where a head of one of the eleven thousand virgins was once venerated. Here the river is rather beautiful than majestic; indeed nothing larger than barges navigate it above London. The bridge is a handsome stone pile, and the prospect on either hand delightful; but chiefly up the river, where many fine seats are situated on the left bank, amid hanging woods. As the day was very fine, D. proposed that we should mount the roof; to which I assented, not without some little secret perturbation; and, to confess the truth, for a few minutes I repented my temerity. We sate upon the bare roof, immediately in front, our feet resting upon a narrow shelf which was fastened behind the coachman’s seat, and being further or closer as the body of the coach was jolted, sometimes it swung from under us, and at others squeezed the 361foot back. There was only a low iron rail on each side to secure us, or rather to hold by, for otherwise it was no security. At first it was fearful to look down over the driver upon four horses going with such rapidity, or upon the rapid motion of the wheels immediately below us: but I soon lost all sense of danger, or, to speak more truly, found that no danger existed except in imagination; for if I sate freely, and feared nothing, there was in reality nothing to fear.

The Oxford road branches off here from the great Western one, in a northerly direction. A piece of waste which we crossed, called Maidenhead Thicket, (though now not woodland as the name implies,) was formerly infamous for robberies: and our coachman observed that it would recover its old reputation, as soon as the soldiers and sailors were paid off. I have heard apprehensions of this kind very generally expressed. The soldiers have little or no money when they are discharged, and the 362sailors soon squander what they may have. There will of course be many who cannot find employment, and some who will not seek it. Indeed the sailors talk with the greatest composure of land-privateering, as they call highway robbery: and it must be confessed, that their habits of privateering by sea are very well adapted to remove all scruples concerning meum and tuum.

At Henley we came in sight of the Thames again,—still the same quiet and beautiful stream: the view as we descended a long hill was exceedingly fine: the river was winding below, a fine stone bridge across it, and a large and handsome town immediately on the other side; a town, indeed, considerably larger than any which we had passed. These stage-coaches are admirably managed: relays of horses are ready at every post: as soon as the coach drives up they are brought out, and we are scarcely detained ten minutes. The coachman seems to know every body along the 363road; he drops a parcel at one door, nods to a woman at another, delivers a message at a third, and stops at a fourth to receive a glass of spirits or a cup of ale, which has been filled for him as soon as the sound of his wheels was beard. In fact, he lives upon the road, and is at home when upon his coach-box.

The country improved after we left Henley; it became more broken with hills, better cultivated, and better wooded. It is impossible not to like the villas, so much opulence, and so much ornament is visible about them; but it is also impossible not to wish that the domestic architecture of England were in a better taste. Dinner was ready for us at Nettlebed: it was a very good one; nor was there any thing to complain of, except the strange custom of calling for wine which you know to be bad, and paying an extravagant price for what you would rather not drink. The coachman left us here, and received from each person a shilling as a gratuity, which he 364had well deserved. We now resumed our places in the inside: dinner had made our male companion better acquainted with us, and he became conversable. When he knew what countryman I was, he made many enquiries respecting Salamanca, the only one of our universities with which the English seem to be acquainted, and which, I believe, they know only from Gil Blas. I do not think he had ever before heard of Alcala; but he listened very attentively to what I told him, and politely offered me his services in Oxford, telling us he was a fellow of Lincoln, and insisting that we should breakfast with him the following morning.

At Nettlebed we passed over what is said to be the highest ground in England, I know not with what truth, but certainly with little apparent probability. We could have ascended little upon the whole since we had left London, and were travelling upon level ground. About five o’clock we came in sight of Oxford, and I resumed 365my place on the roof. This was by no means the best approach to the city, yet I never beheld any thing more impressive, more in character, more what it should be, than these pinnacles and spires, and towers, and domes, rising amid thick groves. It stands on a plain, and the road in the immediate vicinity is through open corn fields. We entered by a stately bridge over the Cherwell: Magdalen tower, than which nothing can be more beautiful, stands at the end, and we looked down upon the shady walks of Magdalen college. The coach drove half way up the High-street, and stopped at the Angel-inn.