Passages from the English Notebooks, Complete

LEAMINGTON

Lansdowne Cirrus, September 10th. – We have become quite weary of our small, mean, uncomfortable, and unbeautiful lodgings at Chorlton Road, with poor and scanty furniture within doors, and no better prospect from the parlor windows than a mud-puddle, larger than most English lakes, on a vacant building-lot opposite our house. The Exhibition, too, was fast becoming a bore; for you must really love a picture, in order to tolerate the sight of it many times. Moreover, the smoky and sooty air of that abominable Manchester affected my wife's throat disadvantageously; so, on a Tuesday morning, we struck our tent and set forth again, regretting to leave nothing except the kind disposition of Mrs. Honey, our housekeeper. I do not remember meeting with any other lodging-house keeper who did not grow hateful and fearful on short acquaintance; but I attribute this, not so much to the people themselves, as, primarily, to the unfair and ungenerous conduct of some of their English guests, who feel so sure of being cheated that they always behave as if in an enemy's country, and therefore they find it one.

The rain poured down upon us as we drove away in two cabs, laden with mountainous luggage to the London Road station; and the whole day was grim with cloud and moist with showers. We went by way of Birmingham, and stayed three hours at the great dreary station there, waiting for the train to Leamington, whither Fanny had gone forward the day before to secure lodgings for us (as she is English, and understands the matter) We all were tired and dull by the time we reached the Leamington station, where a note from Fanny gave us the address of our lodgings. Lansdowne Circus is really delightful after that ugly and grimy suburb of Manchester. Indeed, there could not possibly be a greater contrast than between Leamington and Manchester, – the latter built only for dirty uses, and scarcely intended as a habitation for man; the former so cleanly, so set out with shade trees, so regular in its streets, so neatly paved, its houses so prettily contrived and nicely stuccoed, that it does not look like a portion of the work-a-day world.

KENILWORTH

September 13th. – The weather was very uncertain through the last week, and yesterday morning, too, was misty and sunless; notwithstanding which we took the rail for Kenilworth before eleven. The distance from Leamington is less than five miles, and at the Kenilworth station we found a little bit of an omnibus, into which we packed ourselves, together with two ladies, one of whom, at least, was an American. I begin to agree partly with the English, that we are not a people of elegant manners. At all events there is sometimes a bare, hard, meagre sort of deportment, especially in our women, that has not its parallel elsewhere. But perhaps what sets off this kind of behavior, and brings it into alto relievo, is the fact of such uncultivated persons travelling abroad, and going to see sights that would not be interesting except to people of some education and refinement.

We saw but little of the village of Kenilworth, passing through it sidelong fashion, in the omnibus; but I learn that it has between three and four thousand inhabitants, and is of immemorial antiquity. We saw a few old, gabled, and timber-framed houses; but generally the town was of modern aspect, although less so in the immediate vicinity of the castle gate, across the road from which there was an inn, with bowling-greens, and a little bunch of houses and shops. Apart from the high road there is a gate-house, ancient, but in excellent repair, towered, turreted, and battlemented, and looking like a castle in itself. Until Cromwell's time, the entrance to the castle used to be beneath an arch that passed through this structure; but the gate-house being granted to one of the Parliament officers, he converted it into a residence, and apparently added on a couple of gables, which now look quite as venerable as the rest of the edifice. Admission within the outer grounds of the castle is now obtained through a little wicket close beside the gate-house, at which sat one or two old men, who touched their hats to us in humble willingness to accept a fee. One of them had guide-books for sale; and, finding that we were not to be bothered by a cicerone, we bought one of his books.

The ruins are perhaps two hundred yards from the gate-house and the road, and the space between is a pasture for sheep, which also browse in the inner court, and shelter themselves in the dungeons and state apartments of the castle. Goats would be fitter occupants, because they would climb to the tops of the crumbling towers, and nibble the weeds and shrubbery that grow there. The first part of the castle which we reach is called Caesar's Tower, being the oldest portion of the ruins, and still very stalwart and massive, and built of red freestone, like all the rest. Caesar's Tower being on the right, Leicester's Buildings, erected by the Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's favorite, are on the left; and between these two formerly stood other structures which have now as entirely disappeared as if they had never existed; and through the wide gap, thus opened, appears the grassy inner court, surrounded on three sides by half-fallen towers and shattered walls. Some of these were erected by John of Gaunt; and among these ruins is the Banqueting-Hall, – or rather was, – for it has now neither floor nor roof, but only the broken stone-work of some tall, arched windows, and the beautiful, old ivied arch of the entrance-way, now inaccessible from the ground. The ivy is very abundant about the ruins, and hangs its green curtains quite from top to bottom of some of the windows. There are likewise very large and aged trees within the castle, there being no roof nor pavement anywhere, except in some dungeon-like nooks; so that the trees having soil and air enough, and being sheltered from unfriendly blasts, can grow as if in a nursery. Hawthorn, however, next to ivy, is the great ornament and comforter of these desolate ruins. I have not seen so much nor such thriving hawthorn anywhere else, – in the court, high up on crumbly heights, on the sod that carpets roofless rooms, – everywhere, indeed, and now rejoicing in plentiful crops of red berries. The ivy is even more wonderfully luxuriant; its trunks being, in some places, two or three feet in diameter, and forming real buttresses against the walls, which are actually supported and vastly strengthened by this parasite, that clung to them at first only for its own convenience, and now holds them up, lest it should be ruined by their fall. Thus an abuse has strangely grown into a use, and I think we may sometimes see the same fact, morally, in English matters. There is something very curious in the close, firm grip which the ivy fixes upon the wall, closer and closer for centuries. Neither is it at all nice as to what it clutches, in its necessity for support. I saw in the outer court an old hawthorn-tree, to which a plant of ivy had married itself, and the ivy trunk and the hawthorn trunk were now absolutely incorporated, and in their close embrace you could not tell which was which.

At one end of the Banqueting-Hall, there are two large bay-windows, one of which looks into the inner court, and the other affords a view of the surrounding country. The former is called Queen Elizabeth's Dressing-room. Beyond the Banqueting-Hall is what is called the Strong Tower, up to the top of which we climbed principally by the aid of the stones that have tumbled down from it. A lady sat half-way down the crumbly descent, within the castle, on a camp-stool, and before an easel, sketching this tower, on the summit of which we sat. She said it was Amy Robsart's Tower; and within it, open to the day, and quite accessible, we saw a room that we were free to imagine had been occupied by her. I do not find that these associations of real scenes with fictitious events greatly heighten the charm of them.

By this time the sun had come out brightly, and with such warmth that we were glad to sit down in the shadow. Several sight-seers were now rambling about, and among them some school-boys, who kept scrambling up to points whither no other animal, except a goat, would have ventured. Their shouts and the sunshine made the old castle cheerful; and what with the ivy and the hawthorn, and the other old trees, it was very beautiful and picturesque. But a castle does not make nearly so interesting and impressive a ruin as an abbey, because the latter was built for beauty, and on a plan in which deep thought and feeling were involved; and having once been a grand and beautiful work, it continues grand and beautiful through all the successive stages of its decay. But a castle is rudely piled together for strength and other material conveniences; and, having served these ends, it has nothing left to fall back upon, but crumbles into shapeless masses, which are often as little picturesque as a pile of bricks. Without the ivy and the shrubbery, this huge Kenilworth would not be a pleasant object, except for one or two window-frames, with broken tracery, in the Banqueting-Hall…

We stayed from eleven till two, and identified the various parts of the castle as well as we could by the guide-book. The ruins are very extensive, though less so than I should have imagined, considering that seven acres were included within the castle wall. But a large part of the structures have been taken away to build houses in Kenilworth village and elsewhere, and much, too, to make roads with, and a good deal lies under the green turf in the court-yards, inner and outer. As we returned to the gate, my wife and U – went into the gate-house to see an old chimney-piece, and other antiquities, and J – and I proceeded a little way round the outer wall, and saw the remains of the moat, and Lin's Tower, – a real and shattered fabric of John of Gaunt.

The omnibus now drove up, and one of the old men at the gate came hobbling up to open the door, and was rewarded with a sixpence, and we drove down to the King's Head… We then walked out and bought prints of the castle, and inquired our way to the church and to the ruins of the Priory. The latter, so far as we could discover them, are very few and uninteresting; and the church, though it has a venerable exterior, and an aged spire, has been so modernized within, and in so plain a fashion, as to have lost what beauty it may once have had. There were a few brasses and mural monuments, one of which was a marble group of a dying woman and her family by Westmacott. The sexton was a cheerful little man, but knew very little about his church, and nothing of the remains of the Priory. The day was spent very pleasantly amid this beautiful green English scenery, these fine old Warwickshire trees, and broad, gently swelling fields.

LIVERPOOL

September 17th. – I took the train for Rugby, and thence to Liverpool. The most noticeable character at Mrs. Blodgett's now is Mr. T – , a Yankee, who has seen the world, and gathered much information and experience already, though still a young man, – a handsome man, with black curly hair, a dark, intelligent, bright face, and rather cold blue eyes, but a very pleasant air and address. His observing faculties are very strongly developed in his forehead, and his reflective ones seem to be adequate to making some, if not the deepest, use of what he sees. He has voyaged and travelled almost all over the world, and has recently published a book of his peregrinations, which has been well received. He is of exceeding fluent talk, though rather too much inclined to unfold the secret springs of action in Louis Napoleon, and other potentates, and to tell of revolutions that are coming at some unlooked-for moment, but soon. Still I believe in his wisdom and foresight about as much as in any other man's. There are no such things. He is a merchant, and meditates settling in London, and making a colossal fortune there during the next ten or twenty years; that being the period during which London is to hold the exchanges of the world, and to continue its metropolis. After that, New York is to be the world's queen city.

There is likewise here a young American, named A – , who has been at a German University, and favors us with descriptions of his student life there, which seems chiefly to have consisted in drinking beer and fighting duels. He shows a cut on his nose as a trophy of these combats. He has with him a dog of St. Bernard, who is a much more remarkable character than himself, – an immense dog, a noble and gentle creature; and really it touches my heart that his master is going to take him from his native snow-mountain to a Southern plantation to die. Mr. A – says that there are now but five of these dogs extant at the convent; there having, within two or three years, been a disease among them, with which this dog also has suffered. His master has a certificate of his genuineness, and of himself being the rightful purchaser; and he says that as he descended the mountain, every peasant along the road stopped him, and would have compelled him to give up the dog had he not produced this proof of property. The neighboring mountaineers are very jealous of the breed being taken away, considering them of such importance to their own safety. This huge animal, the very biggest dog I ever saw, though only eleven months old, and not so high by two or three inches as he will be, allows Mr. – to play with him, and take him on his shoulders (he weighs, at least, a hundred pounds), like any lapdog.

LEAMINGTON

Lansdowne Circus, October 10th. – I returned hither from Liverpool last week, and have spent the time idly since then, reposing myself after the four years of unnatural restraint in the Consulate. Being already pretty well acquainted with the neighborhood of Leamington, I have little or nothing to record about the prettiest, cheerfullest, cleanest of English towns.

On Saturday we took the rail for Coventry, about a half-hour's travel distant. I had been there before, more than two years ago… No doubt I described it on my first visit; and it is not remarkable enough to be worth two descriptions, – a large town of crooked and irregular streets and lanes, not looking nearly so ancient as it is, because of new brick and stuccoed fronts which have been plastered over its antiquity; although still there are interspersed the peaked gables of old-fashioned, timber-built houses; or an archway of worn stone, which, if you pass through it, shows like an avenue from the present to the past; for just in the rear of the new-fangled aspect lurks the old arrangement of court-yards, and rustiness, and grimness, that would not be suspected from the exterior.

Right across the narrow street stands St. Michael's Church with its tall, tall tower and spire. The body of the church has been almost entirely recased with stone since I was here before; but the tower still retains its antiquity, and is decorated with statues that look down from their lofty niches seemingly in good preservation. The tower and spire are most stately and beautiful, the whole church very noble. We went in, and found that the vulgar plaster of Cromwell's time has been scraped from the pillars and arches, leaving them all as fresh and splendid as if just made.

We looked also into Trinity Church, which stands close by St. Michael's, separated only, I think, by the churchyard. We also visited St. John's Church, which is very venerable as regards its exterior, the stone being worn and smoothed – if not roughened, rather – by centuries of storm and fitful weather. This wear and tear, however, has almost ceased to be a charm to my mind, comparatively to what it was when I first began to see old buildings. Within, the church is spoiled by wooden galleries, built across the beautiful pointed arches.

We saw nothing else particularly worthy of remark except Ford's Hospital, in Grey Friars' Street. It has an Elizabethan front of timber and plaster, facing on the street, with two or three peaked gables in a row, beneath which is a low, arched entrance, giving admission into a small paved quadrangle, open to the sky above, but surrounded by the walls, lozenge-paned windows, and gables of the Hospital. The quadrangle is but a few paces in width, and perhaps twenty in length; and, through a half-closed doorway, at the farther end, there was a glimpse into a garden. Just within the entrance, through an open door, we saw the neat and comfortable apartment of the Matron of the Hospital; and, along the quadrangle, on each side, there were three or four doors, through which we glanced into little rooms, each containing a fireplace, a bed, a chair or two, – a little, homely, domestic scene, with one old woman in the midst of it; one old woman in each room. They are destitute widows, who have their lodging and home here, – a small room for each one to sleep, cook, and be at home in, – and three and sixpence a week to feed and clothe themselves with, – a cloak being the only garment bestowed on them. When one of the sisterhood dies each old woman has to pay twopence towards the funeral; and so they slowly starve and wither out of life, and claim each their twopence contribution in turn. I am afraid they have a very dismal time.

There is an old man's hospital in another part of the town, on a similar plan. A collection of sombre and lifelike tales might be written on the idea of giving the experiences of these Hospitallers, male and female; and they might be supposed to be written by the Matron of one, who had acquired literary taste and practice as a governess, – and by the Master of the other, a retired school-usher.

It was market-day in Coventry, and far adown the street leading from it there were booths and stalls, and apples, pears, toys, books, among which I saw my Twice-Told Tales, with an awful portrait of myself as frontispiece, – and various country produce, offered for sale by men, women, and girls. The scene looked lively, but had not much vivacity in it.

October 27th. – The autumn has advanced progressively, and is now fairly established, though still there is much green foliage, in spite of many brown trees, and an enormous quantity of withered leaves, too damp to rustle, strewing the paths, – whence, however, they are continually swept up and carried off in wheelbarrows, either for neatness or for the agricultural worth, as manure, of even a withered leaf. The pastures look just as green as ever, – a deep, bright verdure, that seems almost sunshine in itself, however sombre the sky may be. The little plats of grass and flowers, in front of our circle of houses, might still do credit to an American midsummer; for I have seen beautiful roses here within a day or two; and dahlias, asters, and such autumnal flowers, are plentiful; and I have no doubt that the old year's flowers will bloom till those of the new year appear. Really, the English winter is not so terrible as ours.

October 30th. – Wednesday was one of the most beautiful of all days, and gilded almost throughout with the precious English sunshine, – the most delightful sunshine ever made, both for its positive fine qualities and because we seldom get it without too great an admixture of water. We made no use of this lovely day, except to walk to an Arboretum and Pinetum on the outskirts of the town. U – and Mrs. Shepard made an excursion to Guy's Cliff.

[Here comes in the visit to Leicester's Hospital and Redfern's Shop, and

St. Mary's Church, printed in Our Old Home. – ED.]

From Redfern's we went back to the market-place, expecting to find J – at the Museum, but the keeper said he had gone away. We went into this museum, which contains the collections in Natural History, etc., of a county society. It is very well arranged, and is rich in specimens of ornithology, among which was an albatross, huge beyond imagination. I do not think that Coleridge could have known the size of the fowl when he caused it to be hung round the neck of his Ancient Mariner. There were a great many humming-birds from various parts of the world, and some of their breasts actually gleamed and shone as with the brightest lustre of sunset. Also, many strange fishes, and a huge pike taken from the river Avon, and so long that I wonder how he could turn himself about in such a little river as the Avon is near Warwick. A great curiosity was a bunch of skeleton leaves and flowers, prepared by a young lady, and preserving all the most delicate fibres of the plant, looking like inconceivably fine lace-work, white as snow, while the substance was quite taken away. In another room there were minerals, shells, and a splendid collection of fossils, among which were remains of antediluvian creatures, several feet long. In still another room, we saw some historical curiosities, – the most interesting of which were two locks of reddish-brown hair, one from the head and one from the beard of Edward IV. They were fastened to a manuscript letter which authenticates the hair as having been taken from King Edward's tomb in 1739. Near these relics was a seal of the great Earl of Warwick, the mighty kingmaker; also a sword from Bosworth Field, smaller and shorter than those now in use; for, indeed, swords seem to have increased in length, weight, and formidable aspect, now that the weapon has almost ceased to be used in actual warfare. The short Roman sword was probably more murderous than any weapon of the same species, except the bowie-knife. Here, too, were Parliamentary cannon-balls, etc…

[The visit to Whitnash intervenes here. – ED.]

LONDON

24 Great Russell Street, November 10th. – We have been thinking and negotiating about taking lodgings in London lately, and this morning we left Leamington and reached London with no other misadventure than that of leaving the great bulk of our luggage behind us, – the van which we hired to take it to the railway station having broken down under its prodigious weight, in the middle of the street. On our journey we saw nothing particularly worthy of note, – but everywhere the immortal verdure of England, scarcely less perfect than in June, so far as the fields are concerned, though the foliage of the trees presents pretty much the same hues as those of our own forests, after the gayety and gorgeousness have departed from them.

Our lodgings are in close vicinity to the British Museum, which is the great advantage we took them for.

I felt restless and uncomfortable, and soon strolled forth, without any definite object, and walked as far as Charing Cross. Very dull and dreary the city looked, and not in the least lively, even where the throng was thickest and most brisk. As I trudged along, my reflection was, that never was there a dingier, uglier, less picturesque city than London; and that it is really wonderful that so much brick and stone, for centuries together, should have been built up with so poor a result. Yet these old names of the city – Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, the Strand-used to throw a glory over these homely precincts when I first saw them, and still do so in a less degree. Where Farrington Street opens upon Fleet Street, moreover, I had a glimpse of St. Paul's, along Ludgate Street, in the gathering dimness, and felt as if I saw an old friend. In that neighborhood – speaking of old friends – I met Mr. Parker of Boston, who told me sad news of a friend whom I love as much as if I had known him for a lifetime, though he is, indeed, but of two or three years' standing. He said that my friend's bankruptcy is in to-day's Gazette. Of all men on earth, I had rather this misfortune should have happened to any other; but I hope and think he has sturdiness and buoyancy enough to rise up beneath it. I cannot conceive of his face otherwise than with a glow on it, like that of the sun at noonday.