St. Mary’s, Lambeth—Temple—St. Paul’s—Tunnel.

Time never need hang heavily on one’s hands in London. A stroll in the Parks is an unfailing resource in fair weather: when it was wet, I used to take refuge under cover of some exhibition. The National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, and the Vernon Gallery, gratuitously opened to the public, in Marlborough House, were quite a resource; although the annual show of pictures in the former was nothing extraordinary. The portrait of Dr. Wiseman was displayed there, and a sight of it cured me of all curiosity to see more of him. Its coarse and sensual effect afforded a very striking contrast to the refined and intellectual head of the Bishop of London, which was hung vis-à-vis, perhaps not without design. But of pictures I do not propose to speak particularly.

In the cool of a charming May morning I sauntered forth, and crossed Westminster Bridge. It was too late for the full enjoyment of Wordsworth’s emotions, on that thoroughfare, for already the city was astir; and yet there was enough in the scene it commanded to make one stop a few moments and conjure up the imagery of his inimitable sonnet:—

So I passed on to Lambeth, and came by Bishop’s Walk, under the walls of the Archbishop’s gardens, to Morning Prayer at St. Mary’s. It was here, under the shadow of this Church, that the poor Queen of James, the Runagate, stood shivering on a stormy night, with her unfortunate little babe packed up in a basket, awaiting a start to France. Had the baby only cried, how different might have been the history of the British Crown and nation! A great many Scotchmen would have lived quietly through the greater part of the succeeding century, who (as the baby slept soundly) were only born to be hanged, shot, and beheaded; and then, in all probability, we should have had no Waverley novels! However, I now found the Church a ruin; only its tower standing, and a bit of the chancel, while the rebuilding was going bravely on. But I am glad to say that the daily service was not therefore interrupted. The chancel was roughly boarded up, and protected from the weather, and there a good congregation was at prayer when I entered, two curates officiating. I was rejoiced to worship there, in such a primitive way. The bones of the brave old primate Bancroft, and of good Archbishop Tenison were beneath us as we knelt; and the meek Secker reposes hard by.

After breakfast, at the Rectory, in a room overlooking the archiepiscopal grounds, I went to the river, and hunted up one of those deposed and antiquated things—a wherry, resolved to go by water, in the old fashioned way, from Lambeth to the Temple. Now, then, I was legitimately afloat upon “the silent highway,” only that the hideous little steamers would destroy my anti-modern imaginations, as they paddled triumphantly by. I was trying to imagine myself in the primate’s barge, with Cranmer or with Laud; or again, as I “shot the bridge, with its roar of waters,” I conjured up the day when Dryden, with his fashionable companions, took water, that they might the better hear the distant guns, by which they knew “the fleet, under his Royal Highness, was then engaging the Dutch upon the coast, and that a great event was then deciding.” Ah! it was the poetry of the Thames to go upon it with oars, and to hear the waterman lament the degenerate days of steam; or to draw out his Allegro by questions about the “champion of the river,” and the great rowing match soon to come off, to the probable discomfiture of that hero’s further claims to that dignity. The salt talked very bad dry English, but his wet vocabulary was truly rich; and I left his boat at Blackfriars Bridge, with a sort of feeling that, instead of a few paltry shillings he had earned by his conduct on the voyage, the not unusual compliment to affable sea-captains, of “a vote of thanks, and a piece of plate.”

I now went to the Temple Gardens, where, according to great Will, began the wars of York and Lancaster, by the plucking of the two roses; and, for a while, I sauntered about those pleasant walks, in the company of one of the benchers, feeling very much as if I had found a little Oxford on the margin of the Thames. After a subsequent visit to the room which Dr. Johnson once inhabited, and sauntering through courts and alleys, where one sees many a celebrated name painted over a door, as a business sign, we entered the Temple Church. Great restorations have been made here of late, at an immense expense, and generally in good taste and on correct principles, save that unsightly seats, too much like pews, encumber the space in front of the altar, which ought to be entirely open. What a reverend old Church; built in the twelfth century by Crusaders, and consecrated by a Patriarch of Jerusalem! Under its walls, inside, lies Selden, and outside, lies Oliver Goldsmith; but, to me, its most sacred interest is the fact, that here the immortal Hooker erected those noble defences of the Church of England which broke the rising tide of Puritanism, and ultimately saved us from its floods. Here that great “Master of the Temple,” while his inmost soul was panting for a quiet country cure, bore patiently the heat and burthen of the day, in wearisome conflict with the dogged Travers, who could always preach “Geneva in the afternoon, against the morning Canterbury.” On entering “the Round,” you are struck with its venerable effect, heightened by the fine figures of the old Templars, stretched, cross-legged, upon the floor. These figures were sadly mutilated, but have been admirably restored. The Round is free from pewing, and opens into the choir, where the benchers’ stalls are ranged on either hand. The two societies of the Middle and Inner Temple worship here together, and their respective arms—a Pegasus and a Lamb—are interchanged in the showy decorations of the vaulting.

I ascended into the triforia by a cork-screw staircase, pausing to enter the famous Penitential Cell—a dismal hole in the wall, in which a refractory Templar was sometimes confined, but which offered him the consolations of religion, by means of a hagioscope, or slit in the masonry, through which he could see the altar of the Church, and join in the devotions of his brethren—though it may be feared he more generally responded to their chant with anything but benediction. In the triforia are happily preserved all the monuments which lately disfigured the walls below: and so set are the benchers against any renewing of a bad example, that I was told they had resisted the erection of even Hooker’s bust in the choir. This I was sorry to hear, as one really felt the want of it on looking about the walls which once reflected the sounds of his earnest and persuasive voice. And what was my surprise, on my next visit, to find a workman setting it there, just as it should be! It was covered. I begged him to let me see it. ‘Honour to thy old square cap, thou venerable and judicious Richard,’ said my inmost heart, as the well-known features emerged in all their dignity; and then I asked if I was so fortunate as to be the very first to salute it. The workman, who was the sculptor himself, assured me that I was. ‘It is well,’ I answered, ‘that an American clergyman should have the privilege. We know how to value in America the great defender of Law and of Religion, and much as England owes to Hooker, America owes infinitely more, or will do so when the Church shall have proved herself, as she will in the end, the salvation of the Republic.’

Under the roof of the Middle Temple Hall, where the benchers, barristers and students still dine together, was first acted on Twelfth night, 1602, Shakspeare’s play, so called. A visit to that noble hall, and a sight of its celebrated equestrian Charles First, by Vandyck, gave me great delight. There are also several other royal portraits, and many heraldic memorials of the great historic lawyers who once “ate their terms” within its walls. The hall of the Inner Temple is less striking, but of similar character. One wonders what future Lord Chancellor sits daily at these boards, among the students. But in the Inner Temple, I thought chiefly of that gentle Templar, more gentle than its armorial Lamb, who once sat with them, the author of “the Task.”

My next visit was an ambitious one. I spent an hour, or so, in climbing to the ball of St. Paul’s, within which, of course, I ensconsed myself, and indulged in very sublime reflections. The fact is, however, that it was very hot, and when some half dozen cockneys had wedged themselves in, after me, I verily thought the chances lay between smothering and being toppled down in a lump into the street (400 feet below) like a big pippin; for the ball shook and trembled upon the rods which support it, in a manner by no means soothing to excitable nerves. I was glad when I got safely back to the “Golden Gallery,” and could cool myself, and look down on the roofs and chimneys of the million at one glance. Here is your true view of London! Here that “mighty heart” is seen, and felt, and heard in its throbbings. Here a thoughtful man finds food for reflection, and a benevolent one for interceding prayer. Oh, God! to think of the life and death, the joy and misery, the innocence and the guilt, and all the mixed and mingled passions, emotions, thoughts, and deeds which are going on beneath these roofs, along those labyrinthine streets, and alleys, and in all this circuit of miles and miles, and close-packed human beings! God alone understands the issues there deciding: it is too much for one to dwell upon a single moment; but, thank God for the assurance that “He remembereth that we are but dust:” yea, thank God, for a Saviour and an High Priest, who can be touched with the feeling of human infirmities!

In the successive stages of mounting to the ball, one passes, of course, many objects of interest. The original model of St. Paul’s is well worthy of inspection, as conveying Wren’s own ideal of the cathedral. He was so attached to it, that he cried when forced to depart from it; but it strikes me as greatly inferior to the actual design. It might better suit the dilettanti, but except in the unreality of the second story, which is a mere screen to the roofing and buttresses, I can see nothing to regret in the substitution. The model room is also the depository of sundry old and tattered flags, which, after escaping “the thunder of the captains, and the shoutings,” were formerly suspended in the dome. It was fashionable to say that they desecrated it—but why so? The God of battles and the Prince of Peace are one: and I can see no reason why the flags of Waterloo should not be hung up before the Lord of Hosts, in His Holy Temple. The question is merely one of taste; but the flags may be as well considered as tokens of peace, as trophies of war; and why should not the providence of God, as the giver of all victory, be thus recognized, by a significant acknowledgment, that to Him, and not to the Duke of Wellington, for example, we owe the general peace which has for so long a period blessed the world, since the overthrow of Napoleon? It is a sublime association with this cathedral, that it was first used for Divine Service in celebrating the Peace of Ryswick, which, with all its faults, has secured to England inestimable blessings: and, perhaps the virtual appeal to God, which is made by connecting His awful name with the awful issues of battles, may have a happy effect on the national conscience. It may make men afraid of mere wars of ambition; may keep in view the fact, that peace only should be the end of conflict; and may also correct the sentimentalism which fails to see that war may sometimes be a just and a holy exertion of that magistracy with which God has girded the loins of rulers, and for which they are responsible to Him who commands them not to “wear the sword in vain.”

The Library is a place of little interest to one who has but little time. You look with reverence at the great bell, which thunders out the death of time from hour to hour, and only tolls when a Prince’s departure, or that of some great ecclesiastic, is to be announced to the nation. The vastness of the clock and its dial, give you fresh impressions of the enormous scale of everything about you, and the Whispering Gallery is reached with a sense of fatigue, which quite accords with this effect. Here a bore of a fellow shows off the petty experiment of the whisper, and stuns you by slamming a door; after which you are vexed to find that the paintings of the dome have disappeared under the humid influences of the London climate. It is only when these first annoyances are over, that you regain entire command of your thoughts, and are able to measure “the length and breadth, and depth and height,” of the noble dome within whose concavity you are now walking about, and perchance listening to the glorious swell of the organ below. The architecture of this dome becomes easily understood, as one ascends between its inner and outer surfaces, and one cannot but regret to find that the former is so vastly disproportioned to the latter. Here the triumph of Michael Angelo, and the one grand superiority of St. Peter’s, begins to be powerfully felt. Wren has constructed his dome prosaically; the rhetoric and the poetry of architecture are sublimely displayed in the work of the mighty Florentine.

During the ascent, you emerge from time to time to open air, and get external views from the successive galleries. London chimneys are, at first, below you, and then the steeples, and then even its canopy of smoke and vapour; and all its mingling sounds come to your ear at last like the murmur of the sea. “How dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low.” The elevation is indeed considerable; but with such a Babel at one’s feet; with the fleets and the treasures of nations all in sight; and with a million of men swarming like ants in their mole-hill, just below, it is one’s own fault if the moral elevation be not far more sublime, and if the impressions of the hour are not forcibly suggestive of a glimpse of the world from the mansions of eternity.

After a very cursory inspection of the ill-judged sculpture in the nave and transepts, and a more affectionate visit to the statue of Howard, to the kneeling figure of Heber, and that of Bishop Middleton, which represents him as confirming two Indian children, I had time to survey the crypts before the Evening Service. Here lie Reynolds, and West, and Lawrence, and several of their brothers of the Academy; and here, in a sort of chapel, which admits the external air and light through a grating, lies the architect himself—the truly great Sir Christopher.

But now you come to the circular vault, upheld by massive pillars, and lighted partially from the dome above, but more strongly by gas-burners, where you stand before the sepulchre of Nelson. The sarcophagus is an empty relic of Cardinal Wolsey’s ambition, but looks so modern, that one is tempted to believe he ordered it in prophetic spirit, expressly for its present purpose. After all, it is not Nelson’s sepulchre, for he is buried under it. The hero and the ecclesiastic have alike been compelled to accept a “little earth for charity,” and this hollow semblance of a coffin dangles like that of Mohammed, between them. Alas! that Nelson’s tomb should suggest any meaner thoughts than those of his genius and glory; but it was in fact a relief to turn to the simple monument of Collingwood, and to be able to say, here lies not only a decaying hero, but a slumbering Christian.

I looked for the monument of Dr. Donne with especial interest. You grope amid interesting relics of old St. Paul’s, a fragment of Lord Chancellor Hatton’s effigy, a piece of Dean Colet’s, and another of Sir Nicholas Bacon’s. At last, in one corner of a dismal cell, feebly lighted by a grated window from without, you see the old worthy, in his shroud, precisely as Walton describes the figure, but leaning against the wall like a ghost, or rather like one of the dried corpses in the Morgue, on the Great St. Bernard. You think of his truly heavenly mind, and strange life; of his rusty old poetry, and sound old sermons; of his ancestor, Sir Thomas More, and of his descendant, William Cowper. It is strange that no one ever thinks of Cowper as the inheritor of this double genius, and as owing some features of his intellect not less to the rhyming Dean of St. Paul’s, than to the author of Utopia. One would hope that under the Deanship of another poet, the graceful and scholarly Milman, this one historic relic of the old cathedral, and of a brother of the sacred lyre, might be set in a fitter place, or at least more decently erected in the place where it now seems irreverently set aside to moulder and be forgotten.

The Thames Tunnel was pronounced, by Canning, “the greatest bore in England:” he was bored to death by applications for Government aid in completing it, and hence spoke feelingly. It is now apparently done, though not finished, and is a cockney wonder, well worth a visit. Were it only in actual use as a thoroughfare under the bed of the Thames, thus realizing the original conception, it would not be without an element of true sublimity; but to see it degraded to a miserable show, scarcely paying for its keeper, and serving only to enable the visitor to say that he has walked under the Thames, is enough to justify one in naming it a folly. Its uses, however, may even yet be demonstrated to be great, and I cannot but feel that this noble work has not been executed for naught. It will even yet have a history. Pity it is that the Duke of Wellington had no occasion to use it, in planning the defences of the city on the memorable tenth of April, 1848. It needed but the passage of a single regiment, under his command, through this mysterious excavation, for actual purposes of surprise and stratagem, to give the place a charm forever; and had such a passage been by chance accomplished in the night, and led by the Duke in person, for the sake of some masterly result, a new and romantic interest would have been added as well to his own marvellous story, as to that of the Tunnel itself. If the caverny wine vaults of the London Docks were but connected with the Tunnel on one side, and the Tower on the other, so that there might be a sub-marine passage to the Tower, from the Surrey side, it would at least furnish associations of a military character to this daring achievement of Brunel.

Such were some of the random suggestions of my fancy, as I descended the shaft, on the Wapping-side. I entered the dark hole, with a vague realization of the descent of the Trojan hero into the shades of old. The first glance reveals a narrow street, with very narrow side-walks, or trottoirs, arched over with masonry, which is quite devoid of anything remarkable in itself. It is here and there a little damp-looking, but not more so perhaps than tunnels under ground. Gas burns along the dismal vault, but hardly lights it; enabling one to amuse himself with the thought of seeing fire beneath a river, and to pick his way comfortably; but otherwise only rendering darkness visible. The corresponding way, or the other half, is quite filled up with stalls and shops, in which they offer, here a raree-show, and there refreshments. A wretched grinding organ fills the cavern with doleful music, and little peddlers offer things for sale. So few, however, seem to be passing, that one wonders how they find it worth while to carry on this mermaid merchandise. You are so bored with their importunity, that it is not without an effort that you compose yourself, and reflect that fishes are swimming, and that the keels of countless ships, with the wealth of nations in their holds, are passing over your head, and that the very smallest breach in the arch above would “hurl an ocean on your march below.” This is the one great idea of the Tunnel. I passed through and emerged at Rotherhithe, and then descending, returned in the same way. It occurred to me, what if Guy Fawkes the Second should fill this place with gunpowder, and touch off the magazine, by electric telegraph, just as a royal fleet was passing the critical point! Strange to say, it might be so arranged, by means of the telegraph and Cardinal Wiseman, that the Pope himself, sitting in his armchair at the Vatican, might produce this terrible explosion in the Thames; and I suppose he is quite as likely to do it, as he is to effect the other results which he and the Cardinal (or the Cardinal and he) are actually attempting.

The shipping which one beholds in the vicinity of the Tunnel, is such as to produce a powerful impression upon the mind, in favour of the vast scale on which the commerce of London is maintained with the whole world. Truly—“the harvest of the river is her revenue, and she is a mart of nations.” As compared with the port of New-York, the narrowness of the river here rather increases than lessens the effect, bringing the forest of masts and the bulk of steamers close together, while, in our great harbour, they are stretched along such a circuit of shore, or anchored in such an expanse of water, as materially diminishes the general impression of multitude and immensity. It must be remembered, however, that in estimating the tonnage of London, a vast number of vessels are included which are never thought of at the Custom-house in New-York. Thus, our river craft, which supply the city with produce for the market, such as eggs, poultry and the like, with the whole fleet of our domestic steamers, go for nothing with us; while on the contrary, the hoys that bring the like from the Low Countries and the coast of France, with the steamers that ply to other British ports, are all religiously reckoned in the commercial lists of the British Metropolis. With this abatement, one is surprised to see how respectable a proportion the tonnage of New-York bears to that of the populous Tyre of England; a proportion which is probably destined to a direct reversal at no distant period, when once the Pacific and the Australian and Asiatic coasts are fairly opened to our direct trade through the Isthmus of Darien.

London Sights and By-places.

It is surprising how deep-rooted in one’s mind is the nonsense literature of the nursery, and how practically useful it often renders itself in the serious occasions of life. The Cries of London, and the rhymes of Mother Goose may often point a moral of grave importance to mankind; but not less were they serviceable to me, in enlivening many a nook and corner of the great Metropolis, whenever I gave myself up to a city stroll, as I frequently did, without plan, and in the merest mood of adventure. ‘Heigho! here is Holborn’—or again—‘this, then, is Eastcheap’—or similar exclamations in view of St. Bride’s or St. Helen’s—such were my entertainments, as I moved musingly along, among stock-jobbers and Jews. The sight of Pannier Alley, or Pudding Lane, I am free to confess, raised emotions truly lively and refreshing; and seldom was I in want of associations, equally sentimental and profound, while I traversed, with all the reverence of a pilgrim, the mighty realms of Cockaigne.

From Charing-cross to Temple-bar, in spite of the modern improvements, one picks not a little of this sort of pleasure as he saunters along. Turning aside for a moment, let us step into Covent-gardens. There is the Church, so memorable from Hogarth’s picture; and so illustrative of the piety and taste of the Russels, one of whom being forced to build it here, amid his thousand tenants, gave Inigo Jones the order, and suggested the munificence of his plans in the words—“anything—a barn will do.” Accordingly, a barn it is. I searched its precincts for the grave of Butler, that marvellous Daguerreotypist of Puritanism, whose rhymes and aphorisms will live as long as the language which they so curiously shape and conjure into forms the most congenial to their pith and purpose. In the market one lingers amid the fruits and flowers, which here, every morning, offer to the Londoners a toothsome and brilliant display. “Buy my roses”—“cherry ripe, cherry red”—“strawberries, your honour”—and “flowers all a-blowing, all a-growing”—such are the sounds with which you are for a moment emparadised, albeit in London streets. Here also you spy an alderman’s dinner at every turn, and wonder how Chatterton could have contrived to starve, within call of such a surfeit. But alas! full many a ragged visitor looks on with lean and hungry stare, and famishes the more bitterly for the sight of plenty, which he cannot enjoy.

In company with a gentleman of the Middle Temple, I went one morning to Lincoln’s Inn, and surveyed its Hall and Library, which have been lately restored, in the style and taste of the olden time. I had the pleasure of looking at Lord Erskine’s statue, under the kindly guidance of one of his descendants. In the chapel, the pulpit where Heber used to preach, was my chief object of interest. Lincoln’s Inn Fields attracted my attention, for a time, though it is hard to conjure up, in such a spot as it is at present, the scaffold and the block, and poor Lord William Russell saying his last prayers. To the Temple gardens I then repaired for a little stroll, and there encountered the Crown-prince of Prussia, making his survey of the place, attended by his suite. He moves rapidly, and cuts a good figure. What he is, we shall be likely to know if we live to see him reign. From the Temple to Alsatia is but a step, and here I walked in painful honour of Nigel Olifaunt, as long as the sights and smells, which still preserve a thievish richness, would allow a mere romance to support my enthusiasm. And so from Whitefriars to Blackfriars, where, upon the very walls of ancient London, “the Times Newspaper” now flourishes, in its modern offices, and oft “with fear of change, perplexes monarchs.” I had been so happy as to make the acquaintance of Mr. Walter, its eminent proprietor; and under his hospitable roof, in Upper Grosvenor-street, I met with some of the most agreeable personages whom I encountered in the society of the Metropolis. The day’s adventures closed with a visit to Herald’s College, and to Doctors’ Commons. A slight inspection of the latter sufficed; but as I was in company with one who had business at the former, I lingered for a while in its worshipful chambers, and was glad to see something of the process of the anti-republican mystery to which it is devoted. Here are the historic books, from which pedigrees are furnished; and here are the authorities for quarterings and emblazonings, and all such changes in coat-armour as marriages and entailments may make necessary. Some interesting relics are shown of the days when knights and tournaments, and battles too, were in higher esteem than now; and one cannot but be entertained with the beautiful drawings and colourings of the divers artists here employed to “gild the refined gold” of British gentility. In the quadrangle of the College are the escutcheons of the Stanleys, marking the site of the ancient Derby House.

I had met, more than once, with Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, and by his invitation, I took an opportunity to be a spectator at the Old Bailey one morning, when some flagrant criminals were to be tried. It is a horrid spectacle, but one would see everything, except the last act at Newgate, on many reasonable grounds. I shuddered as I entered the street before the prison, where such crowds of brutal human beings have long been wont to congregate around the gallows. Dr. Dodd was not hanged here, but I could think of him only as I entered the doleful little courtroom in which he was tried. I found an inferior magistrate trying some petty offenders; but when this was over, the judges, in their robes and wigs, made their appearance, preceded by the sheriff, dressed in a full court suit, and bearing a drawn sword. The judges were Baron Alderson, and my kind friend, Judge Talfourd. I was seated, by his order, in a raised box, or pew, at the side of the bench, apparently reserved for invited strangers. Directly one Francis Judd, a youth of seventeen, was put to the bar, to be tried for the murder of his father! There was about the very opening of this trial something stern and awful, which the poor prisoner appeared to feel. He stood pale and haggard, picking the sprigs of rue, which, according to custom, were stuck in the spikes before him, and seemed simply sensible of the fact that he was in the clutches of the law. There was a majesty about the administration of justice here, which is utterly wanting in our courts. The case was opened with short speeches—the witnesses were examined—the instrument which dealt the death blow was produced, and some bloody relics were exhibited by the policemen who had detected the culprit. The case was clear against the lad, but he looked stupidly on. Then came the summing up. His counsel admitted the deed, but claimed that it was only manslaughter. The judge told the jury it was for them to say whether it was murder or not. They conferred awhile—they looked at the prisoner, and he at them—they gave their verdict—manslaughter. Baron Alderson, who seemed to have his black cap just ready to put on, thrust it aside, and lifting his glass to his eye, to survey the poor wretch, said:—“Francis Judd, the jury have found you guilty of manslaughter. For my own sake, and far more for yours, I thank God they have. Had it been a verdict of murder, I could not have found fault with it, and my duty would have been more, far more, painful than it is now. I have looked in vain for proper signs of emotion in you during this trial. I am sorry you have not shown some feelings of horror at your awful guilt. A father’s slaughter! The weapon with which you struck the old man’s gray head brought before your eyes, and even the covering of his pillow, stained with the blood! Poor youth, he may have been stern with you, but still he was your father. Your punishment will be severe, but it will give you time to meditate and repent—the sentence of the court is, that you be transported for life.” The whole trial had just taken one hour and a half by the watch. Yet all had been fair, and merciful. What a contrast to an American trial! Francis Judd was then removed, and soon another culprit, bullet-headed and brute featured, was standing in his place. I had seen enough, and, bowing to Judge Talfourd, I took my departure. I passed St. ’Pulchre’s, whose bell still tolls the knell of the convicts, and whose solemn clock is their last measure of time.

I went into the crypts of one of the old London Churches, to survey its Norman architecture, and there found myself standing amid piles of coffins, of all sizes and descriptions. Open gratings let in the light from the streets, and disclosed the passers-by, who seemed unconscious of the fact, that catacombs were so near. I never was in such an awful place before. The smell was not so bad as I should have supposed would be the case, and chloride of lime was sprinkled liberally about. But here were the coffins of a family, piled one upon another—a consumptive mother, and her one, two, three, five, or six children, in successive stages of decay. What a story it told—that pile of mortality! Here was a coffin, so large that Goliath might lie in it. “Eight men never carried that coffin,” said the sexton, and on it I read the name of some beef and pork consuming Londoner, whilom a substantial pillar of the Exchange. The sexton next brought me to a case, which he opened, exhibiting the dried corpse of a female. “This was here,” said he, “in the time of the great fire of London, and was then dried as you see.” Next he came to a sort of chest, standing upright, and opening like a closet. He opened it, and displayed two mummy-like figures, singularly dried, and undecayed. He moved their horrid heads upon their shoulders, and said—“They were twin brothers that were hung, sir, long ago, sir, in George Third’s time.” I mentioned what I had seen to a friend in the Temple. “I am surprised,” said he, “but you have seen the poor fellows whose fate sealed that of Dr. Dodd. They are the two Perreaus hanged for forgery in 1776; of whom Lord Mansfield said to the King—‘they must be regarded as murdered men, if your Majesty pardons Dr. Dodd.’”

My Miltonic enthusiasm being now excited, I sought out Bunhill fields, and the Old Artillery ground, near which he once dwelt. Moreover, I fared through Grub-street, in whose garrets have dwelt the rhyming tribes, idealized by Hogarth’s Distressed Poet, from time immemorial. Tom Moore enjoys a laugh at our American “Tiber,” formerly “Duck Creek;” but what shall excuse the fact,—which, by the slightest substitution, I may tell in his own line—

The corporation of London must have made this change after a very heavy dinner. Grub-street, however, has been always famous for very light ones; and if Milton did verily inhabit here, in her day, it is not surprising that Mary Powell bewailed her maiden life, and ran away into Oxfordshire. But enough of him and her. My reader will be more gratified to learn that on crossing to Southwark, I had no difficulty in discovering the mean and narrow entrance to an old-fashioned court, over which is still legible, the following inscription—“This is the inne where Sir Jeffry Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty pilgrims lay, in their journey to Canterbury, Anno 1383.” It was “the Tabard” then, and it is, by some strange corruption, “the Talbot” now. Here then was that charmed spot, from which went forth those devotees of St. Thomas-à-Becket, who talked so merrily, and often so well; and whose quaint portraiture as it has been preserved by genius, so embalms the peculiarities of thought, of manners, and of language, which characterized our English forefathers, in that marvellous age, when Wycliffe in prose, and Chaucer in poetry, laid the foundation of our Anglo-Saxon Literature, and scattered many goodly seeds of a reformation in religion. I was entranced by the associations of the place, for it is yet an Old English Inn, and looks as if it might still be the identical hostelry, built as it is around the inn-yard, with galleries, and ancient windows, and odd devices. It is but a halting-place for wagoners and countrymen; but, in spite of myself, I could not resist the temptation to enter its humble door, and order a little something, for Chaucer’s sake, to refresh a wayfarer.

London Society.

I have spoken of my daily occupations with little or no allusion to that, which proved to me the chief charm of life in London, its delightful society. It would be a poor tribute to modern civilization to regard the social pleasures of a brilliant capital, as presenting a secondary topic of remark; and yet so sacred are even the most public of domestic civilities, that whatever goes on under a private roof, seems necessarily invested with a character, to which types cannot do justice, without, at the same time, becoming sacrilegious. The ethics of travel are, even yet, by no means settled; for persons who should be authorities, have been often betrayed into the setting of an example, which, if all were free to follow it, would permit society to be infested with hordes of literary pirates, whose flag would be fatal to the freedoms and confidences of civilized intercourse, everywhere. On both sides of the Atlantic such social corsairs have too frequently paraded their spoils. It is not so much with the fear of their ignominy before mine eyes, as in view of that Golden Rule which they have flagrantly transgressed, that I shall restrict myself, in my narratives, to the most general allusions to social scenes, and to the mention of such names only as are more or less publicly known.

One needs only a few competent letters as a passport to English hospitality. After first introductions, the way of the stranger who behaves himself, is as open as in his own land. Hospitality is, in fact, a truly English virtue. Nowhere else does the word imply so much genuine kindness. Nowhere else does it so completely make the stranger at home. Morning, noon, and night, it follows you up with its benevolent perseverance, and seems to exact the minimum of ceremony in return. It does not satisfy itself with politeness; it shows you the soul of friendship; and that, while it allows you all the freedom of a passenger, when you might otherwise feel embarrassed by your inability to reciprocate such proofs of good will. The truth is, there is real heart in the civilities which are proffered, and where politeness is rooted in sincerity, it is always considerate, inventive and unfailing. An English gentleman, whatever his circumstances, as soon as he knows that you are entitled to his attentions, does all that he can to make you really happy. If his means are small he is not ashamed to offer you the best he can give, and he is pleased with his success, if he feels that you have accepted his hospitality in the spirit which prompted it. Contented, self-respecting, hearty Christian love is the root of the matter, in those true specimens of English nature, which are uppermost in my memory, as I write, and “whatsoever things are lovely” are but the generous product of that sound and healthful stock. Happy is he who has made a genuine Englishman his friend, for such a friendship implies the fullest confidence, and is a tribute to accredited integrity and worth.

In London, during “the season,” there is an incessant round not only of fashionable entertainments, but also of such as are indeed feasts of reason and of soul. You are invited to breakfast at ten or eleven o’clock, and are sure to meet an agreeable company, as few as the Graces, or as many as the Muses. One after another the guests drop in, in morning dress, and among them are a number of ladies who sit at table in their bonnets, and generally add not a little to the liveliness of the company. There is nothing, perhaps, before you besides an egg, with your tea and toast; but the side-board is loaded with substantials, and you have a variety of fruits to conclude the repast. The party conduct themselves as if time were plenty, and easy conversation goes round; your host occasionally drawing you out, on subjects upon which you are supposed to be informed. After an hour or more, there is a general breaking up, and Sir Somebody begs you to take a seat in his carriage, which is waiting at the door, or Mr. Blank proposes walking with you to the “University Club House;” or you draw off to keep some other engagement. Ten to one you breakfast somewhere else to-morrow, as the consequence of making yourself as little disagreeable as possible to-day; and so it goes on to your heart’s content, through the week.

You are invited to dinner, at any hour from five to eight, sometimes, of course, very unceremoniously, and sometimes in full form. You go at the hour appointed, and discover that punctuality has ceased to be fashionable in London. I was often surprised to observe the latitude given to guests, and taken by the cook. At dinners, everything goes on as with us, save that there is some form in announcing the guests, and also in placing them at table. The servant vociferously proclaims “Mr. Green”—as he flings open the door of the drawing-room, and if for a moment you find yourself abashed by the noise which you find yourself making, it is afterwards very agreeable to know who is who, upon the arrival of others. A reverend personage enters in an ecclesiastical coat, with silk apron, or cassock, and you hear him proclaimed as “the Lord Bishop of ——,” or as “the Dean of ——.” A pleasing, but quiet-looking gentleman appears, under the sound of a name familiar as that of one of her Majesty’s Cabinet Ministers. “Lord ——” is announced, and you behold a somewhat distingué figure, wearing a glittering decoration around the neck, or upon the breast. Several literary or professional personages complete the company; and when the ladies are waited upon to the dining-room, you are sure to be paired with the suitable party, and to find yourself placed with careful reference to your insignificance or importance, as the case may be. As to the table, the good old English courses seem to be giving way to foreign customs, as with us. It is not unusual to sit down to flowers and fruits, and confectionary, and to see nothing else for your dinner, except as the soup and other dishes are brought you in succession, the meats being carved by the servants, and all the old-fashioned notions, as to vegetables and side dishes, very much Frenchified, and revolutionized. Grace before meat, and after the removal of the cloth, was always faithfully performed in the circles which I frequented; but I was sorry to hear that this new style of serving the table has somewhat affected those Christian proprieties, by confounding “the egg and the apples,” and leaving one in doubt as to where the dinner proper begins, or where it arrives at a legitimate conclusion.

The conversation at these dinners never seemed to me as animated as that of breakfast parties. Even the half hour after the withdrawal of the ladies, and the disappearance of servants, was less sociable and sprightly. I must say, however, that I entirely disagree with the profound Mr. Boswell, as regards the introduction of children at the dessert, which, in my opinion, greatly enlivens such occasions. In they come, rosy and beautiful, fresh from the nursery toilet, and bringing joy and hilarity in their eyes and faces! The son and heir steals up to his father; a lovely girl is permitted by mamma to come timidly to you. I was, indeed, a little surprised at a nobleman’s table, when his boy, a youth of twelve or fourteen, came to his side, to find the little fellow introduced as “Lord C——,” instead of Harry or Willie, as it would have been with us; but, as nothing could exceed the familiar and affectionate manner in which the title was spoken, I saw at once that it was natural enough to others, however unwonted to my Republican ear, to see a mere child so formally announced. After this announcement he was called simply “C——,” as if it had been his Christian name, and I was pleased with his simple and unaffected manners throughout. English children appear to be “under tutors and governors,” and generally behave with becoming deference to elder persons. I remember not a few of my little friends in England, with real affection. Blessings, then, I say, on the children, and may it never be unfashionable for them to be seen amid fruit and flowers, at an American or an English table!

I accepted a few invitations to evening parties, but what to call them I hardly knew. The superb apartments, in which they were given, were crammed with the company; there were perpetual exits and entrances; cries were constantly heard below of—“Lady K——’s carriage stops the way;” while the incessant grinding of wheels in the street proclaimed the arrival and departure of the great and the gay, as they went the rounds of many a similar scene during the same evening. At a splendid residence in Piccadilly, I was presented on such an occasion to the Duke of Wellington. He wore a plain black suit, with a star on the breast of his coat; and when I first saw him he was standing quite apart, with a noiseless and even retiring dignity of appearance, to which his white head gave the chief charm. I had no idea that I was near him, till turning suddenly, his unmistakeable figure was before me. The rooms were one blaze of rank and fashion; but for a while I could see no one but the old hero. When I was introduced, I could do little more than bow, and accept his polite recognition, for he was quite deaf, and I had observed that conversation was evidently distasteful to him.

On another evening, just after the Queen’s State Ball, I was amused to meet, in a similar scene, the dresses and costumes which had lately figured at the Palace. They were of historical character, and hence peculiarly interesting. Here was Henrietta Maria, the Queen of Charles First, and there was a lady of the Court of Charles the Second. The stiff court fashions of the Georges were also represented, and one could easily imagine himself among Chesterfields and Rochesters. But, thank God, the British Peerage, in our day, is dignified by better men, and amid this brilliant masquerading, I first met with young Lord Nelson, so justly beloved for his active interest in all good works, and found him most agreeable in conversation, which, even in such an assembly, was entirely in keeping with his character. Here, too, I saw and conversed with the Duke of Newcastle, since an important member of the British Ministry, but then, and always, as I feel sure from his unaffected tone of remark, not less than from his general reputation, an earnest Christian, anxious to be a faithful steward, and to do what he can for the extension of the kingdom of Christ among all mankind.

The general interest felt in this country in the author of Ion, may excuse my particular mention of a party at Lady Talfourd’s, in which the literary and legal professions were more fully represented. Here one saw the Barons of Westminster-Hall in their proper persons, without the burthen of robes and wigs: while moving about the rooms, one encountered a poet or popular novelist, and not least, the amiable host himself. He made kind inquiries concerning several of my distinguished countrymen, and touching upon matters of law, paid a very high compliment to the ability and legal skill with which the trial of Professor Webster had been managed in Boston. Judge Talfourd appeared then in the prime of life, and inspired me with respect by his modest but dignified personal demeanour. He has since died a death, on the bench, more impressive than that of heroes on the field.

With regard to the tone of society in general, I think every stranger must be struck with its elevation, whether intellectually or morally considered. An English gentleman is generally highly educated. Society consists of cultivated persons, male and female, whose accomplishments are not displayed, but exist as a matter of course, and as essential to one’s part in the duties and civilities of life. No one ventures to feel better informed than his neighbour, and hence there is a general deference to other men’s opinions, and a reserve in expressing one’s own, which is highly significant of extreme civilization and refinement. Such a state of society, however, has its drawbacks. Character often becomes neutralized, and genius itself dulled and flattened, where to distinguish one’s self is felt to be an impropriety, and where the manifestation of decided thought or feeling would be eccentric, and even rude. Hence I observed a sort of uniformity in manner and expression, which is sometimes depressing; and when upon some private occasion, I discovered that the smooth, quiet personage whom I had seen only in the dull propriety in which the pressure of company had held him, like a single stone in an arch, was a man of feeling, of taste, of varied information, and accurate learning, I said to myself—‘what a lamentable waste is here!’ This man who should have been enriching the world with his stores of erudition and of reflection, has never conceived of himself as having anything to impart, or by which his fellow-man should profit. His accomplishments are, like his fortune and respectability, his mere personal qualifications for a position in society, in which he is contented merely to move, without shining, or dispensing anything more than the genial warmth of good humour and benevolence. There are thousands of such men in England, living and dying in the most exquisite relish of social pleasures, and deriving daily satisfaction from their own mental resources, but contributing nothing to the increase of the world’s intellectual wealth, and never dreaming of their attainments as talents which they are bound to employ. They live among educated men—knowledge is a drug in their market: of course they know this or that, but so does everybody else, and what have they to confer? It would be an impertinence for them (so they seem to feel) to teach or to dictate an opinion. Dr. Johnson has left a remark, in the records of his biographer, upon this tendency of refinement to abase individual merit, and I am sure a dogmatist like himself would not now be supported in English society. So very odd and unaccountable a phenomenon, even were his manners less forbidding, would be intolerable in intelligent circles, to say nothing of those of splendour and fashion. England exhibits just now the smooth and polished surface of a social condition which has no marked inequalities. Even rank fails to create those chasms and elevations which were once so striking and formidable. Gentlemen are very nearly alike, whatever their antecedents. All are well-informed, all have travelled, all are well-bred, and alike familiar with the world. The Universities, too, have done not a little to assimilate characters. Minds have been fashioned in one mould, and opinions shaped by one pattern. Even language and expression, and personal carriage are reduced to a common formula. I closely watched the pronunciation of thorough-bred men, and often drew them into classical quotations, to observe their delicacy in prosody, and their manner of pronouncing the Latin. I prefer very much the German or Italian theories of classical orthoepy; but for mere longs and shorts, there is no such adept as an English tongue. They carry it into the vernacular, however, against all analogy, and often startle an American by what seems elaborate pedantry and affectation. You are confounded by an allusion to Longfellow’s Hyperion—accent on the penultimate; or you are puzzled by the inquiry whether any doctrinal differences exist between the English and American Churches—second syllable made studiously long! Yet the man would be thought an intolerable ass who should display his knowledge of purely French or Teutonic derivatives, by a similar deference to etymology: and no one thinks of carrying out this principle in all words of like analogy. Usage, however, with all its caprices, settles every dispute; and we Americans have no resource but conformity, unless we prefer to appear provincial. English usage must be the law of the English tongue, and the fashions of the court and capital are the standard of usage.

Among the authors of England, I had desired to see especially Mr. Samuel Rogers, who is now the last survivor of a brilliant literary epoch, and whose long familiarity with the historical personages of a past generation, would of itself be enough to make him a man of note, and a patriarch in the republic of letters. Though now above ninety years of age, he still renders his elegant habitation an attractive resort, and I was indebted to him for attentions which were the more valuable, as he was, at that time, suffering from an accident, and hence peculiarly entitled to deny himself entirely to strangers. His house, in St. James’s-street, has been often described, and its beautiful opening on the Green Park is familiar from engravings. Here every Englishman of literary note, during the last half century, has been at some time a guest, and if its walls could but Boswellize the wit which they have heard around the table of its hospitable master, no collection of Memorabilia with which the world is acquainted, could at all be compared with it. Here I met the aged poet, at breakfast; Sir Charles and Lady Lyell completing the party. He talked of the past as one to whom the present was less a reality, and it seemed strange to hear him speak of Mrs. Piozzi, as if he had been one of the old circle at Thrale’s. When a boy, he rang Dr. Johnson’s bell, in Bolt Court, in a fit of ambition to see the literary colossus of the time, but his heart failed him at the sticking point, and he ran away before the door was opened. Possibly the old sage himself responded to the call, and as he retired in a fit of indignation, moralizing on the growing impertinence of the age, how little did he imagine that the interruption was a signal tribute to his genius, from one who, in the middle of the nineteenth century, should be himself an object of veneration as the Nestor of Literature!