Some favourable accidents have thrown me lately, more than I had a right to expect, in the circumstances under which I have visited England, into the society of the leading whigs. At dinner at Lord Grey’s, I have met Lord Holland, Lord Lauderdale, Lord John Russell, Lord Duncannon, Lord Althorp, Lord Durham, and many men of less note, though all of the same way of thinking. Were it permitted to relate what passes when one is admitted within the doors of a private house, I could amuse you, beyond a question, by repeating the conversation and remarks of men of whom it is matter of interest to learn any thing authentic, but neither of us has been educated in a gossiping school. Still, without violating propriety, I may give you some notions of my distinguished host.
Lord Grey, notwithstanding his years, for he is no longer young, retains much of the lightness and grace of a young man, in his form. He is tall, well-proportioned, and I should think had once been sufficiently athletic, and there is an expression of suavity and kindness in his face, that report had not prepared me to see. He struck me as being as little of an actor in society, as any public man I have ever seen. Simple and well-bred, such a man could hardly escape being, but in Lord Grey’s simplicity, there is a nature one does not always meet. He is not exactly as playful as Lord Holland, who seems to be all bonhomie, but he sits and smiles at the sallies of those around him, as if he thoroughly enjoyed them. I thought him the man of the most character in his set, though he betrayed it quietly, naturally, and, as it were, as if he could not help it. The tone of his mind and of his deportment was masculine. I find that the English look upon this statesman with a little social awe, but I have now met him several times, and have dined twice with him at his own table, and so far from seeing, or rather feeling any grounds for such a notion, I have been in the company of no distinguished man in Europe, so much my senior, with whom I have felt myself more at ease, or who has appeared to me better to understand the rights of all in a drawing-room. I can safely say that his house is one of the very few in England, in which something has not occurred to make me feel that I was not only a foreigner, but an American. Lord Grey expressed no surprise that I spoke English, he spared me explanations of a hundred things that are quite as well understood with us as they are here, manifested liberality of sentiment without parade, and, on all occasions, acted and expressed himself precisely as if he never thought at all of national differences. His company was uniformly good, and as it was generally composed of men of rank, perhaps I fared all the better for the circumstance. Castes have a tendency to depress all but the privileged, and the losers are a little apt to betray the “beggar-on-horseback” disposition, when they catch one whom they can patronise or play upon. There was not the least of this about the manner of Lord Grey.
You may be curious to know in what the difference consists between the manner of living in a house like this, of which I am speaking, and in one of our own that corresponds to it, in social position. We have essentially larger and better houses than many of the town residences of the English nobility. Our rooms are, however, too apt to want height and dimension, for where we increase the number of the apartments these people increase the size. Almost every dwelling of any pretensions in London has a stone stair-case, and, although they are not to be compared to those of Paris, (the few great houses here, excepted) they give the arrangements a certain air of solidity and richness. In the other marbles, I think, on the whole, we have the advantage; though regular architects controlling that, which, with us, is too often left to a mere mechanic, I should think violations of taste and propriety do not as often occur in the domestic ornaments of the English, as in our own.
Our old practice of having the reception rooms on the first floor, and the dining-room below, is very general in London, the only exceptions being in the comparatively few houses whose size admits of rooms en suite. Of course the stairs are more in use here than with us. This sadly impairs the effect, for nothing can be worse than to be obliged to climb and descend a long narrow flight of steps, in going to or from the table: I am wrong; it is worse to eat in a room that is afterwards used to receive in.
The English furnish their houses essentially as ours are furnished. French bronzes, clocks, &c., and, indeed, all continental and Chinese ornaments are perhaps less common, but they use much more furniture. The country practice of arranging the furniture, in a prim and starched manner, along the walls, is, I believe, rather peculiar to America, for both in France and England a negligent affluence of ottomans, sofas, divans, screens and tables of all sorts, appears to be the prevailing taste. I was lately in a drawing-room, here, in which I counted no less than fourteen sofas, causeuses, chaises longues, and ottomans, scattered about the room, in orderly confusion. The ottoman appears to be almost exclusively English, for it is rarely seen in Paris, whereas a drawing-room is seldom without one in London. I do not remember ever to have met with one in America, at all. In the wood and silks of furniture, think we rather excel the English, although it is not as usual to find magnificence of this sort, carried out with us, as it is here. Capt. Hall is unquestionably right, when he says our mode of furnishing is naked, compared to that of England, though the little we have is usually as handsome as any thing here.
I have been much struck with the great number and with the excellence of the paintings one sees in the English dwellings, for, in Paris, a good picture is rarely to be found out of the galleries and the palaces. I should think Rome, alone, can surpass London in this particular.
The offices of the London residences are much more extensive than with us, for, besides occupying a substratum of the house itself, they quite often extend into the yard, where they are covered with a large skylight. I am inclined to think the lodging rooms, generally, not as good as ours. The English get along with moderately-sized town-houses, all the better perhaps from their habits, for the young men quit the paternal roof early, it being usual to put them on allowances, and to let them go at large.
I have heard extraordinary things concerning the distance that is maintained between friends in England, and the ménagement that is necessary in conducting intercourse even between the members of the same family. One who ought to know from his official position, a foreigner in charge of a diplomatic mission, has assured me a son cannot presume to go unceremoniously and dine with a father, but that invitations are always necessary, and that the forms of society are rigidly observed between the nearest connexions. There is a secondary and an imitative class, (in England it is very numerous) of whom I can believe any absurdity of this nature, for they caricature usages, breeding, forms, and even principles. These are the people who talk about eating cheese, and drinking beer and port, and lay stress on things insignificant in themselves, as if manners, and taste, and elegance were not far more violated in their fussy pretensions, than they would be in emptying one of Barclay’s big butts. In other words, this is the silver-fork school, of whom one has heard a good deal in America, the gentry who come among us, in common, having little other claims to a knowledge of the world than that they have thus obtained at second hand, as the traditions of fashion, or perhaps in the pages of a novel.
I do not say that among the crowd of genteel vulgar that throng the capital of a great empire like this, a pretty numerous array of silly pretenders of this description may not be made, but it will not do to receive these people as the head of society, or, indeed, as a very material portion of it. As a rule, I certainly think mere drill passes for more in London than in most other capitals. This arises, in part, from the manner in which the whole nation is drilled, each in his station, from the valet to the master; but, in a social sense, chiefly, I think, because the same arbitrary distinctions do not prevail in England as elsewhere in Europe, nobility being, in most other countries, an indispensable requisite for admission into the great world. Certainly, as between Paris and London, the advantage in this particular is in favour of the former, where good sense, at all times, appears to regulate good breeding; but, notwithstanding, I am far from attributing to the English all the follies of this nature that it is the fashion to impute to them.
Nothing can have been more simple and unaffected than the intercourse between father and son, that I have witnessed here. It would be improper for a son, having a separate establishment, to come at unseasonable hours to the house of any father, who is in the habit of receiving much, for it might occasion an awkward inconvenience; and if one is bound to treat ordinary friends with this respect, still more so is he bound to manifest the same deference to his own parents.
I have been amused in tracing the many points of resemblance that are to be found between our own manners and those of the English. I should say the off-hand and familiar way in which the seniors of a family address the juniors, is one. Dining the other day with Lord S——, who has filled high ministerial appointments, when the ladies had retired, he said to his eldest son, a man older than I am, and a leading member of parliament, “Jack, ring the bell.”[10] I will not say that this is precisely American simplicity, but it is the way your father and mine would have been very apt to speak, under the same circumstances, and I think it is a manner which belongs to all that portion of our people who really come of the Middle States.
Seated at a table like Lord Grey’s, with the company I met there, I have been led to look around me, in quest of the points of difference, by which I could have known that I was not at home. Putting the conversation aside, for that necessarily was English as ours would have been American, it would not have been easy to point out any very broad distinctions. The dining-room was very much like one of our own, in a good house. There was a side-board which stood in a recess, with columns near it. The furniture was a little plainer than it might be with us, for an eating-room in Europe is seldom used for any other purpose. The form and arrangements of the table were very like, with a slight difference in the width of the table itself, ours, in the narrow cramped houses it is now so much the fashion to build, usually wanting width. We dined off of plate, a thing so rarely done in America as to form a substantial difference. The footmen were powdered and in showy liveries, and the butler was in black. The latter might still be seen at home, but three or four footmen in livery, in the same house, I have never witnessed but once. But remove the cloth, and send the servants away, and I think any one might have been deceived. As the party around this table was composed of men of high rank, and still higher personal consideration, it would be unfair to compare them with the wine-discussing, trade-talking, dollar-dollar, set that has made an inroad upon society in our commercial towns, not half of whom are educated, or indeed Americans; but I speak of a class vastly superior, which you know, and which, innovated on as it is by the social Vandals of the times, still clings to its habits and retains much of its ancient simplicity and respectability. Between these men, and those I have met at the table of Lord Grey, and at one or two other houses, here, I confess I have been almost at a loss to detect any other points of difference, than those which belong to personal individuality.
In the phrases, the intonation of the voice, the use and pronunciation of the words, it was not easy to detect any points of difference, although I have watched attentively, for a whole evening. The manner of speaking is identically the same as our own, (I speak now of the gentlemen of the Middle States) direct, simple and abbreviated. There is none of the pedantry of “I can not,” for “I can’t,” “I do not,” for “I don’t,” and all those school-boy and boarding-school affectations, by which a parade is made of one’s orthography. These are precisely our own good old New York forms of speech, and, knowing the associations and extraction of those who formed the school, I have always suspected it was the best in the country. I do not mean, however, to exclude from it the same classes in all the other Middle States, and that portion of those in the Southern who live much in the towns. Communion with the world is absolutely necessary to prevent prig-ism, for one insensibly inclines to books in a solitude, getting to be critical and fastidious about things that are better decided by usage than by reason.
The simple and quiet manner of addressing each other that prevails here, helps to complete the resemblance. The term “my Lord,” is scarcely ever uttered. I do not think that I have heard it used by gentlemen, six times since I have been in London, though the servants and all of the inferior classes never neglect it. I should say the term “my lady,” is absolutely proscribed in society. I have heard it but three times, since I have been in Europe, although one scarcely sees less of the titled English in Paris, than in London. These three cases are worth remembering, since they mark three different degrees of manners. It was used, or rather the phrase “your ladyship” was used by Sir —— ——, a physician, who evidently wanted the tone of one accustomed to associate with equals. It was used by Mrs. ——, an American (we are a little apt to be ultra in such things) at Paris, and I saw a daughter of “my lady” turn her head to conceal a smile. Thirdly, and lastly, it was used by Sir —— ——, a dashing young baronet, to Lady —— ——, in a sort of playful emphasis, as we should dwell on official appellations, in grave and sounding pleasantry.
Of course, there is more or less of fashion in all this; nor should I be surprised, ten years hence, to find it indispensable to breeding, to be punctilious the other way; so much depends on the mode of doing these things, that any custom of this nature can be brought into vogue, or be condemned. Still, there is so much inherent good taste in simplicity, that, I think, no very laboured exhibitions of the sort, can ever long maintain themselves.
One seldom repeats the terms “your Majesty,” and “Royal Highness,” in ordinary conversations with sovereigns and princes, any more than one is always saying “your Excellency” and “your Honour” in talking with the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts; the only two functionaries in America, I believe, who have legal styles of address. In France it is usual to say “sire,” “oui sire,” and “non sire;” but, here, I am told, for I never have had any personal communication with an English prince, it is the practice to say, “sir.” The English have rather an affectation of saying that “one uses ‘sir,’ only to the king and to servants.” This word is much less used by the English than with us, as it is much less used by people of the world in America, than by those who, either from living retired, or from not having access to society, are not people of the world. It is, however, a good word, and can be thrown in, occasionally, into American conversation with singular grace and point, though, like other good things it may be overdone. The coxcomb who refrains altogether from using it, with us, in deference to the cockney pandects of the Brummel school, shows neither “blood nor bottom.”
I can remember when our old staid ladies used to address the servants as “sir;” but then a servant, being a negro, had something respectable and genteel about him, for it was before he had lost both by too much intercourse with the European peasants who are superceding him. One might indeed say “sirrah,” to the new set, but “sir” would be apt to stick in his throat. The philosophy of the practice is obvious enough. In the mouth of one who uses this little word understandingly, it marks distance mingled with respect: used to a superior, the respect is for him; used to an inferior, the respect is for one’s self.
It has been cleverly and wittily said that, in America, we have a tolerably numerous class, who deem “nothing too high to be aspired to, and nothing too low to be done.” In making my comparisons with any thing and every thing on this side of the Atlantic, I keep these pliant persons entirely out of view. They can be justly compared to nothing else in human annals. They are the monstrous offspring of peculiar circumstances, and owe their existence to an unparalleled freedom of exertion, acting on the maxims of a government that is better understood in practice than in theory, and, which, among its thousand advantages, is obnoxious to the charge of giving birth to a species of gentry perfectly sui generis. I compare the gentlemen of no country to these philosophers.
On the continent of Europe, it is rather a distinction to be undecorated in society. Stars and ribbands are really so very common, that one gets to be glad to see a fine coat without them. As mere matters of show, they are but indifferent appendages of dress, unless belonging to the highest class of such ornaments, when indeed their characters change; for there is always something respectable in diamonds. Here it is quite the reverse. You probably may not know that birth, of itself, entitles no one to wear a decoration.[11] A king, as king, wears his crown and royal robes, but he wears no star, or ribband, or collar. A peer has his coronet, and his robes as a peer, but nothing else. The star and ribband are deemed the peculiar badges of orders of chivalry, and they vary according to the institution. The ribband is worn across the breast, like a sword belt, though usually it is placed under the coat. It is broad, and blue appears to be the honourable colour. At least the “blue ribband,” and the “cordon bleu,” are in most request in France and England, belonging to the orders of the Garter and of the Holy Ghost. The Legion d’Honneur and the Bath both use red ribbands. There are gorgeous collars and mantles to all the orders, for occasions of ceremony, but in society one seldom sees more than the ribband and the star, and not often the former. The garter at the knee is sometimes used also.
Lord Grey has no decoration; neither has Lord Lansdowne, nor Lord Holland. Lord Lauderdale, the day I dined in his company in Berkeley Square, wore a star, being a knight of the Thistle; Lord Spencer wore that of the Garter. These two are almost the only instances in which I have seen Englishmen in society, appearing with decorations, in London, though I have frequently seen them in Paris. The difference, in this respect, is striking on coming from the continent. The ribband at the button-hole, is very rarely, if ever, used here. The star, of course, only when dressed for dinners and evening entertainments, or on state occasions. It was formerly the practice, I believe, to appear in parliament with stars, but it is now very rarely done.
I tell you these things, since, as they do exist, it may be well enough to have some tolerably distinct notions as to the manner. With the exception of the Bath, the orders of this country are commonly conferred on personal favourites, or are the price of political friendships. There appear to be orders that are pretty exclusively confined to men of ancient and illustrious families, while others, again, have the profession of distinguishing merit. In England, the Garter, the Thistle, and St. Patrick’s, belong to the former class, and the Bath to the latter. You will, at once, imagine that the last stands highest in the public estimation, and that it is far more honourable to be a knight of the Bath, than to be a knight of the Garter. This would be the case were reason stronger than prejudice, but as it is not, I leave you to infer which has the advantage.
I had a little aside with one of the guests at Lord Grey’s, in the course of the evening, on the subject of the characters of the reigning family. It is true my informant was a whig, and the whigs look upon George IV. as a recreant from their principles; but this gentleman I know to be one worthy of credit, and singularly moderate, or I should not repeat his opinions.
Speaking of the king, he described him as a man more than commonly destitute of good faith. A sovereign must be of a singularly upright mind, not to be guilty of more or less duplicity, and of this my acquaintance seemed perfectly aware; but George IV., he thought, lent himself with more than common aptitude to this part of the royal rôle. He mentioned an anecdote as illustrative of the treachery of his character.
Some forty years since the debts of the Prince of Wales became so pressing as to render an application to parliament necessary for relief. By way of obtaining the desired end, it was promised that ‘like Falstaff’ he would “repent, and that suddenly,” and take himself a wife, to insure an heir to the throne. There was a report, however, that he was already privately married to Mrs. Fitz-Herbert. Although such a marriage was civilly illegal, by the laws of the kingdom, many well meaning, and all right-thinking people believed it to be binding in a moral and religious point of view, and as parliament was not absolutely destitute of such men, it became necessary to pacify their scruples. With this view Mr. Fox is said to have demanded authority of the Prince to contradict the rumour, if it might be done with truth. This authority he is understood to have received in the fullest terms, and it is certain Mr. Fox pledged himself to that effect, in his place in the house. After all, it is now confidently affirmed, the Prince was actually married to Mrs. Fitz-Herbert, and I was told Mr. Fox never forgave the gross act of duplicity by which he had been made a dupe.
The Duke of York was spoken of, as a well meaning and an honest man, but as one scarcely on a level with the ordinary scale of human intellect. Neither he nor his brother, however, had any proper knowledge of meum and tuum, a fault that was probably as much owing to the flatterers that surrounded them, and to defective educations, as to natural tendencies.
My informant added, that, George III. and the Duke of York excepted, all the men of the family possessed a faculty of expressing their thoughts, that was quite out of keeping, with the value of the thoughts themselves. The Duke of Kent he said formed an exception to the latter part of the rule, being clever; as, though in a less degree, was the Duke of Sussex. Having so good a source of information, I was curious to know how far the vulgar rumours which we had heard of the classical attainments of the present king were to be relied on. To this question my companion answered pithily, “he may be able to write good Latin, but he cannot write intelligible English.” I have seen a letter or two, myself, which sufficiently corroborate the latter opinion, for if one were to search for rare specimens of the rigmarole, he might be satisfied with these. George III. did little better.
As the conversation naturally turned on the tendency to adulation and flattery in a court, and their blighting influence on the moral qualities of both parties, my companion related an instance so much in point, that it is worth repeating. A Scotch officer, of no very extraordinary merit, but who had risen to high employments by personal assiduity and the arts of a courtier, was in the presence of George III., at Windsor, in company with one or two others, at a moment when ceremony was banished. That simple-minded and well-meaning monarch was a little apt to admit of tangents in the discourse, and he suddenly exclaimed “D——, it appears to me that you and I are just of a height—let’s measure, let’s measure.” The general placed his back to that of the king, but instead of submitting to the process of measurement, he kept moving his head in a way to prevent it. Another tangent drew the king off, and he left the room. “Why didn’t you stand still, and let him measure, D——,” asked a looker-on. “You kept bobbing your head so, he could do nothing.” “Well, I did’n’t know whether he wanted to be taller, or shorter.”
George III. has got great credit, in America, for his celebrated speech to Mr. Adams, whom he told “that he had been the last man in his kingdom to consent to the independence of America, and he should be the last man to call it in question, now it was admitted.” If he ever made such a declaration, it was a truly regal speech, and of a character with those that are often made by sovereigns, who, if wanting in tact themselves, draw on those around them for a supply. It is now generally understood that the answer of Charles X., when he appeared at the gates of Paris in 1814, as Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, where he is made to say, “that nothing is changed, except in the presence of another Frenchman,” was invented for him, by a clever subordinate, at the suggestion of M. de Talleyrand.[12] The dying speech of Dessaix, was put into his mouth by the First Consul, in his despatches I believe, for the Duc de ——, who stood at his side when he fell, assured me that the ball passed through his head, and that he died without uttering a syllable.
“Is not the truth, the truth?”
It would seem not.