Mr. —— has carried his kindness so far, as to go with me on the Thames. It had been our plan to row to Greenwich but the weather not proving favourable, we determined to go as far as London bridge, and return on foot through the city. We took boat, accordingly, at Westminster stairs, and went down with the tide.
The Thames is both a pretty and an ugly stream. When full, it is a river of respectable depth and of some width, but, at low water, above London bridge, it is little more than a rivulet flowing amid banks of slimy mud. The wherries in use are well adapted to their work, in this part of the river, but lower down they are not sufficiently protected against the waves. Accidents very frequently happen, though probably they are not out of proportion to the number of boats that are constantly plying in every direction. The principal danger is of getting athwart the cables of barges and ships, when the strength of the current is very apt to cause a wherry to fill.
As we went down with the tide, a pair of sculls answered our purpose, for one can have oars or sculls, at pleasure. The banks of the Thames, above Westminster bridge, are quite pretty, and above Chelsea, where the river flows through fields, they may be said to be even more; the villas on the shores, the windings of the current, and the meadows, raising them almost to positive beauty. But below Westminster bridge, little remains to be admired, until you reach the sea. Though on a larger scale, the navigable part of the river has a strong resemblance to the Raritan below Brunswick, being crooked, muddy, and bounded by wet meadows. The latter has a small advantage in scenery, however; the hills lying nearer to the stream. The passage of the Kilns, also, has frequently reminded me of the Thames below London.
Within the town, itself, warehouses blackened by coal-smoke, manufactories, timber-yards, building and graving docks, and waterman’s stairs, principally line the shores. There are no magnificent quays, as at Paris, the shipping taking in and discharging by means of lighters, except in the wet docks, of which, however, there are now nearly sufficient to accommodate all the shipping of the port that is engaged in foreign trade. The Thames presents a very different picture to-day, from what it did when I first entered it, in the year 1806. At that time the river was literally so crowded as to make it a matter of great difficulty to get a ship through the tiers. There were hundreds of galliots alone, engaged in the trade from Holland, and this in a time of vindictive warfare! It was the only place I knew, which gave one a vivid impression of what is meant by a forest of masts. Most of the docks existed, too, at that time, and they were crowded with vessels. I asked the waterman to-day, an old man who remembered the river many years, what he thought might be the visible difference between the number of vessels in the port, during the year 1806 and that of 1828, and he told me fully half. My own eye would confirm this opinion. The trade has gone to the out-ports; particularly to Liverpool. With the commerce of the river much of its life and peculiarities, it seems to me, have departed. The costumes have disappeared: the waterman have a less jolly manner, and even Jack wears the bell-mouthed trowsers no longer. These mutations are constantly going on in the world, but the Thames left a vivid impression on my young fancy, twenty-two years ago, and returning to it, after so long an absence, they struck me with force, and in some degree painfully.
Although the Thames is not the Seine, nor the Arno, nor the Tiber, it has a picturesque and imposing beauty of its own, especially between the bridges. There is a gloomy grandeur in the affluence of the dark objects, in the massive piles that cut the stream, in the movement, and in the sombre edifices that line the shores. Here and there a building remarkable in history, or of architectural pretension, is seen, and usually the dome of St. Paul’s is floating in the haze of the back-ground. As for the bridges themselves, they are not unsuited to the general sombre character of the view, though I think them in bad taste as to forms. There is an English massiveness about them that is imposing, but they strike me as being out of proportion heavy for the stream they span, and unnecessarily solid. The arches, with the exception of those of Southwark, are not sufficiently elliptical for lightness and beauty. It would have been a poetical and worthy thought to have made the bridge at Westminster gothic. Southwark bridge is of iron, and the open work impairs the effect of its proportions, which are much the finest of any, but could the sides be closed, it would be a succession of bold and noble arches. Between Westminster Hall and the custom-house, there are now five of these heavy piles, viz. Westminster, Waterloo, Southwark, Blackfriars, and London. Preparations are making to rebuild the latter, and as London has improved so much in nothing, of late years, as in its public architecture, it is fair to suppose that the new work will be more worthy of the capital of a great empire than its predecessor; though, I dare say, it will not be as much extolled, since nations, like individuals, as their minds expand become less vain of their knowledge than they were wont to be of their ignorance. The London bridge of my nursery tales was but an indifferent specimen of national taste, though lauded to the skies.
We passed the Temple gardens, and one or two more belonging to private dwellings, before we got to Blackfriars, after which no signs of vegetation were visible. The Temple buildings are quaint and interesting, and the gardens, as usual in this country, spots of emerald, beautifully arranged.
We landed at London bridge, and my companion had the good nature to point out to me the supposed site of the Boar’s Head, in East Cheap.[3] It must have been what the cockneys call a rum place, for an heir-apparent to carouse in, and yet, Shakspeare, who wrote in the century after that in which Henry reigned, would scarcely have presumed to take so much liberty with royalty, in an age like his, without being sustained by pretty well authenticated traditions, in favour of what he was doing.
Mr. —— threaded the narrow streets of this part of the town, like one who knew them well, kindly pointing out to me every object of interest that we passed. I smiled as we went along the well-remembered thoroughfares, for it was not possible to avoid comparing the cultivated, celebrated, and refined man who gave himself this trouble, with an individual who had first introduced me, twenty-two years earlier, into the very same streets.
You must be sufficiently acquainted with family events to know that I was once in the navy. At that time, it was considered creditable as well as advantageous to the young naval aspirant, to show his mettle by going a voyage or two in a merchant vessel, as a common mariner, before he was placed on the quarter-deck of a man-of-war. This was my course, and I had twice visited London, in the capacity of a young tar, before I was eighteen, besides making several other voyages. The first time I came to London, it was fresh from college, a lad of about seventeen. I had then been long enough at sea to get a nautical air, and of course was confounded with my shipmates of the fore-castle. The oldest custom-house officer put on board the ship had been a gentleman’s domestic, and he was full of the lore of the servants’ hall. He soon singled me out, and I was much edified, for a week, with his second-hand anecdotes of great people, and the marvels of the West-end. The first Sunday after our arrival in dock, he proposed giving me ocular proofs of the truth of his accounts, and we sallied forth in company, he as Minerva, and I as Telemachus. We passed over much of the ground now passed over under the better guidance of Mr. —— and it was amusing to me to note the difference in the tastes and manner of my two cicerones. When we approached the monument, the ex-valet stopped, and with an important manner inquired if I had ever heard of the great fire in London. I had, luckily, for it singularly raised me in his estimation. With due formalities, I was then introduced to the place where it had broken out, and to the monument. “That is what we call the monument,” said Mr. ——, in his quiet way, glancing his eye at it, as he turned away to show me the new Boar’s Head. “This is the house of my Lord Mayor, and that is the coach of one of the sheriffs,” said Mr. Swinburne, for so was the custom-house officer named. “Wren has been much praised and much censured for this edifice,” observed Mr. ——, as we passed beneath the massive walls. I was led by the ex-valet down a narrow street into a quaint, old, gothic, edifice, where, in a large hall, I was confronted with carved monstrosities in wood, which I was told with much chuckling were Gog and Magog. “That is a quaint and rather remarkable building,” said the poet, as we passed the head of the same street; “it is Guildhall; you may know that it gets its name, from being used by the guilds, or corporated companies of the city.” “This is Bow-church, and those are the bells that Whittington heard, as he was quitting Lunnun,” observed the oracular Mr. Swinburne—“You were born far enough from this place, to escape the imputation of cockneyism,” remarked the poet, as we trudged along. “There, that is St. Paul’s!” cried Mr. Swinburne, with an awful emphasis, as if he expected me to fall down and worship it. “It was a great work to be executed by a single architect,” the poet simply said, “and it has many noble points about it; I think it has, at least, the merit of simplicity.” He was right enough, as to externals, but it wants unity of design, within.
In this way, then, I went along, with my present companion, irresistibly tempted to compare his quiet, unpretending manner, with the brimful importance, and strutting ignorance of the guardian of the revenue. One of the contrasts was so droll that I have not yet forgotten it, though it is unconnected with any of the historical monuments. Mr. Swinburne bristled close up to me, when we had got nearer to the court end, and putting his hand to his mouth, as we passed a quiet old gentleman, he whispered ominously, “An earl!”—“Do you see that person on the opposite side of the street,” said the poet, within fifty yards of the same spot—“it is Lord ——, known as the husband of the handsomest woman in England, and for nothing else.” I remember to have greatly scandalized Mr. Swinburne, by one of my antics. “Did you ever hear of such a man as John Horne Tooke,” he inquired. “Certainly; what of him?” “Why that is he who has just passed—the fellow who looks like a half and half parson.” I turned in my tracks, incontinently, and gave chase, for, at that early age I was not insensible to the pleasure of looking at celebrated men, and I had been taught to regard Horne Tooke as a writer who had got the better of Junius. Favored by the jacket and trousers I passed several times round “the chace,” and I believe at length attracted his attention, by my manœuvres. He was an austere looking man, but I fancied he was not displeased at such evident admiration. As for Mr. Swinburne, he applied some very caustic epithets to my folly, but I succeeded in mollifying him by double doses of admiration for his cockney wonders.
Some of the scenes that I had witnessed, in my first visits to London, returned to my mind so forcibly to-day, that it appeared as if I had gone back to boyhood and the days of fun. We had in the ship a gigantic fellow from Kennebunk, of the name of Stephen Stimpson. He had been impressed into the British navy, and when he joined us, had just been discharged from a frigate called the Boadicea, of the Boadishy, as he termed her, and (quite as a matter of course) he hated England in his heart. This man was particularly desirous of going to the West-end with me, at a later day, having heard Mr. Swinburne descant on the wonders to be seen there. As we were walking up St. James’ street in company, whither I had a great deal of trouble to get him, for he was for philosophizing and speculating on all he saw, and not a little for fighting, he came suddenly to a halt. An elderly lady was walking through the crowd followed by a footman, in a mourning livery. The man carried a cane and wore a cocked hat. Stephen watched this pair some time, and then gravely wished to know why “that minister kept so close in the wake of the old woman ahead of him?” I explained to him who they were, but he scouted the idea. It was a regular “minister,” as witness the cocked hat, the black coat and breeches, and moreover the cane, and he was not to be bamboozled by any nonsense about servants. I had to let him follow the lady to her own residence, where, as I had foretold, the “minister” took off his hat, opened the door for his mistress, and followed her into the house. It was many months before Stephen ceased to speak of this. After all, the same promenade would excite almost as much astonishment in Broadway, at this very moment.
At that time there was a stand of sedan-chairs, in St. James’ street, near the spot where Crockford’s club-house has since been erected. I had some difficulty in getting him over this “shoal,” for after laughing in the chairmen’s faces, he was for having a ride, on the spot.
The ranger of the Green-park, usually a person of rank, has a very pretty residence and garden, that open on Piccadilly. As we passed its gate, on our way to Hyde Park corner, a black footman was standing at it, his master probably expecting company. The negro was dressed in a rich white livery pretty well garnished with silver lace, red plush breeches, white silk stockings, a cocked hat, and his head was powdered as white as snow. You may imagine the effect such an apparition would be likely to produce on my Kennebunk companion. As there are no houses, but this of the ranger, on the park side of Piccadilly, and comparatively few people walk there, we had the black porter, for a little time, all to ourselves. It was with a good deal of persuasion that I prevented Stephen from laying hands on the poor fellow, in order to turn him round and examine him. As it was, he walked round him himself, dealing out his comments with particular freedom. All this time, the negro maintained an air of ludicrous dignity, holding himself as erect as a marine giving a salute, and looking steadily across the street. Among other things, Stephen suggested that the fellow might be one of Mr. Jefferson’s “niggers,” who had decamped with a pair of his master’s nether garments! He was so tickled with this conceit, that I succeeded in dragging him away while he was in the humour. When we returned, an hour or two later, the black had disappeared.
Stephen had a desire to enter the Green-park, but I hesitated, for I had once been forbidden admission to Kensington Gardens, on account of wearing a roundabout. While we were debating the point, a worthy citizen came up, and said—“Go in, my lads; this is a free country, and you have as much right there as the King.” On this intimation we proceeded. “What queer notions these people have of liberty,” observed Stephen, drily. “They think it a great matter to be able to walk in a field, and there they let a nigger stare them in the face, with a cocked hat, red breeches, silk stockings, laced coat, and powdered wool!” I made my own reflections, too, for the first perception I had of the broad distinction that exists between political franchises and political liberty, dates from that moment. Young as I then was, I knew enough about royal appanages, and the uses of royal parks, to understand that the public entered them as a favour, and not as a right; but had it been otherwise, it would have left ground for reflection on the essential difference in principle, that exists between a state of things in which the community receive certain privileges as concessions, and that in which power itself is merely a temporary trust, delegated directly and expressly by the body of the people.
But I am permitting the scenes of boyhood, to divert me from the present moment.
Mr. —— showed me the Blue-coat School, the new General Post Office, and divers other places of interest, among which was Newgate. The architecture of the latter struck me as being unusually appropriate, and some of its emblems as poetically just, whatever may be the legal reputation of the place on other points.
Pursuing our way down Ludgate-hill, my companion turned short into the door of a considerable shop. It was Rundle & Bridges, the first jewellers and goldsmiths of the world! England has probably more plate, than all the rest of Europe united; at least, judging by the eye alone, I think it would so appear to a stranger, although her wealth in the precious stones appears to be even less than that of some of the smaller countries. One certainly sees fewer jewels in society, although I am told the display of diamonds at Court, is sometimes very great. There are no public collections to compare with those of the continent, and the severe, one might almost say classical, purity of taste, which prevails in the dress of the men here, must have an effect to lessen the demand for jewels.
I was on the same sofa, at a ball in Paris, with Prince ——, one of the richest men of the continent. His arm lay on the back of the seat, in a way to bring the hand quite near me. Every finger was covered with jewels of price, some of them literally having two or three, like the fingers of a woman. A piece of soap would have done more to embellish the hand, than all this finery. Directly before me stood the Duke of ——, one of the richest nobles of England. I took an occasion to look at him, as he drew a glove. He had not even the signet-ring, which it is now so very common to wear, but the hand was as white as snow.
The shop of Rundle & Bridges was large, but it made a wholesale and affluent appearance, rather than the brilliant show one meets with in Paris. As Mr. —— was known we were received with great attention and civility. One of the heads of the establishment took us up stairs, into a more private apartment, where we were shown many magnificent things, and among others a good deal of the royal plate which had been sent here to be cleaned. It struck me, as a whole, that the same objection exists to the taste of England, as respects her plate, that exists in relation to almost all her works of art—its clumsiness. An English tureen is larger than a French tureen; an English chair, an English plate, an English carriage, even an English razor, are all larger than common. The workmanship is quite often better, but the forms are neither as classical, nor as graceful. As respects the plate, its massiveness may convey an idea of magnificence, but it is a ponderous and, in so much, a barbarous magnificence compared to that in which the beauty of the proportions, or of the intellectual part, is made of more importance than the mere metal. To the eye of taste a vessel of brass may have more value than one of gold.
You can have no just notion of the affluence of the shops of London, generally, in the article of plate. Gold, silver-gilt, and silver vessels, are literally piled in their vast windows, from the bottoms to the summits, as if space were the only thing desirable. I have seen single windows, in which, it struck me, the simple metallic wealth was greater in amount, than the value of the entire stock of our heaviest silversmiths. I am certain we were shown, to-day, single sets of diamonds that would form a capital for a large dealer in America.
While I tell you the taste of the English plate is not generally good, the cultivation of the fine arts being still too limited to extend much of its influence to the mechanical industry of the country, there are some great exceptions. Flaxman, one of the first geniuses of our times, a man perhaps superior to Benvenuto Cellini, in the intellectual part of his particular branch of art, was compelled, by the want of taste in the public and his own poverty, to make designs for the silversmiths, for which he had been fitted by early and severe study in Italy. Perhaps he was really more successful in his sketches than in his completer works. Had there been a dozen such men in England, the tables of the British nobility would have exhibited taste and beauty, as well as magnificence.
Among the royal plate was a salver just finished, which was beautiful, although the conceit was feudal rather than poetical, and conveyed an idea very different from that created by a sight of the steel-yards, and weights, and other familiar objects of domestic use, disinterred at Pompeii. The material was gold, and the ornaments were the stars and other insignia of the orders of chivalry which the present king is entitled to wear. The star and garter of the first English order was in the centre of the salver, drawn in large figures, while the others were arranged on the border, which was wide enough to receive them, on a diminished, but still on a suitable scale. The work resembled line engraving, and was done with truth and spirit, though, after all, it was nothing but a sort of tailorism. The history of the salver itself was rather curious. The eastern kings have a practice of enclosing their personal missives in tubes or cases of gold, resembling the tin and copper cases that are used to hold scrolls. In the course of a century, so many of these golden cases had accumulated, that George IV., who is a much greater prince in such matters, than in others more essential, took a fancy to have them converted into this piece of furniture.
I heard an anecdote the other day of this sovereign, which shows he can at least bear contradiction, and that on a point on which the nation itself is rather sensitive. The Duke of Wellington made one of his guests at dinner, and the conversation is said to have turned on the different armies of Europe! “I think it must be generally conceded,” observed the king, “that the British cavalry is the best in Europe; is it not Arthur?” for he is said to have the affectation of calling the great man by his christian name, by way of illustrating himself, it is to be supposed. “The French is very good, sir,” was the answer of a man who had seen a service very different from that which figures in histories, novels, and gazettes. “I allow that the French cavalry is good, but I say that our own is better.” “The French cavalry is very good, sir.” “I do not deny it; but is not ours better?” “The French is very good, sir.” “Well, I suppose I must knock under, since Arthur will have it so.” You are to remember practical men say the French cavalry is the best of modern times. Had this anecdote came from a laquais de place, I should not have mentioned it.
Coming through Fleet-street, Mr. —— led me into a court, where he had some business with a printer. Here he told me I was in Bolt-court, celebrated as having been that in which Johnson resided. The place seemed now abandoned to printers. Here I left my companion and returned home.