I was too much engaged with these personal talks to attend much to what was going on elsewhere; but all through breakfast I had been more and more impressed by the aspect of one of the guests, sitting next to Milnes. He was a man of large presence,--a portly personage, gray-haired, but scarcely as yet aged; and his face had a remarkable intelligence, not vivid nor sparkling, but conjoined with great quietude,--and if it gleamed or brightened at one time more than another, it was like the sheen over a broad surface of sea. There was a somewhat careless self-possession, large and broad enough to be called dignity; and the more I looked at him, the more I knew that he was a distinguished person, and wondered who. He might have been a minister of state; only there is not one of them who has any right to such a face and presence.
At last,--I do not know how the conviction came,--but I became aware that it was Macaulay, and began to see some slight resemblance to his portraits. But I have never seen any that is not wretchedly unworthy of the original. As soon as I knew him, I began to listen to his conversation, but he did not talk a great deal, contrary to his usual custom; for I am told he is apt to engross all the talk to himself.
Probably he may have been restrained by the presence of Ticknor, and Mr.
Palfrey, who were among his auditors and interlocutors; and as the conversation seemed to turn much on American subjects, he could not well have a.s.sumed to talk them down. I am glad to have seen him,--a face fit for a scholar, a man of the world, a cultivated intelligence.
After we left the table, and went into the library, Mr. Browning introduced himself to me,--a younger man than I expected to see, handsome, with brown hair. He is very simple and agreeable in manner, gently impulsive, talking as if his heart were uppermost. He spoke of his pleasure in meeting me, and his appreciation of my books; and--which has not often happened to me--mentioned that The Blithedale Romance was the one he admired most. I wonder why. I hope I showed as much pleasure at his praise as he did at mine; for I was glad to see how pleasantly it moved him. After this, I talked with Ticknor and Miles, and with Mr.
Palfrey, to whom I had been introduced very long ago by George Hillard, and had never seen him since. We looked at some autographs, of which Mr.
Milnes has two or three large volumes. I recollect a leaf from Swift"s Journal to Stella; a letter from Addison; one from Chatterton, in a most neat and legible hand; and a characteristic sentence or two and signature of Oliver Cromwell, written in a religious book. There were many curious volumes in the library, but I had not time to look at them.
I liked greatly the manners of almost all,--yes, as far as I observed,-- all the people at this breakfast, and it was doubtless owing to their being all people either of high rank or remarkable intellect, or both.
An Englishman can hardly be a gentleman, unless he enjoy one or other of these advantages; and perhaps the surest way to give him good manners is to make a lord of him, or rather of his grandfather or great-grandfather.
In the third generation, scarcely sooner, he will be polished into simplicity and elegance, and his deportment will be all the better for the homely material out of which it is wrought and refined. The Marquis of Lansdowne, for instance, would have been a very commonplace man in the common ranks of life; but it has done him good to be a n.o.bleman. Not that his tact is quite perfect. In going up to breakfast, he made me precede him; in returning to the library, he did the same, although I drew back, till he impelled me up the first stair, with gentle persistence. By insisting upon it, he showed his sense of condescension much more than if, when he saw me unwilling to take precedence, he had pa.s.sed forward, as if the point were not worth either a.s.serting or yielding. Heaven knows, it was in no humility that I would have trodden behind him. But he is a kind old man; and I am willing to believe of the English aristocracy generally that they are kind, and of beautiful deportment; for certainly there never can have been mortals in a position more advantageous for becoming so. I hope there will come a time when we shall be so; and I already know a few Americans, whose n.o.ble and delicate manners may compare well with any I have seen.
I left the house with Mr. Palfrey. He has cone to England to make some researches in the State Paper Office, for the purposes of a work which he has in hand. He mentioned to me a letter which he had seen, written from New England in the time of Charles II. and referring to the order sent by the minister of that day for the appearance of Governor Bellingham and my ancestor on this side of the water. The signature of this letter is an anagram of my ancestor"s name. The letter itself is a very bold and able one, controverting the propriety of the measure above indicated; and Mr.
Palfrey feels certain that it was written by my aforesaid ancestor. I mentioned my wish to ascertain the place in England whence the family emigrated; and Mr. Palfrey took me to the Record Office, and introduced me to Mr. Joseph Hunter,--a venerable and courteous gentleman, of antiquarian pursuits. The office was odorous of musty parchments, hundreds of years old. Mr. Hunter received me with great kindness, and gave me various old records and rolls of parchment, in which to seek for my family name; but I was perplexed with the crabbed characters, and soon grew weary and gave up the quest. He says that it is very seldom that an American family, springing from the early settlers, can be satisfactorily traced back to their English ancestry.
July 16th.--Monday morning I took the rail from Blackheath to London. It is a very pleasant place, Blackheath, and far more rural than one would expect, within five or six miles of London,--a great many trees, making quite a ma.s.s of foliage in the distance; green enclosures; pretty villas, with their nicely kept lawns, and gardens, with gra.s.s-plots and flower borders; and village streets, set along the sidewalks with ornamental trees; and the houses standing a little back, and separated one from another,--all this within what is called the Park, which has its gateways, and the sort of semi-privacy with which I first became acquainted at Rock Park.
From the London Bridge station I took a cab for Paddington, and then had to wait above two hours before a train started for Birkenhead. Meanwhile I walked a little about the neighborhood, which is very dull and uninteresting; made up of crescents and terraces, and rows of houses that have no individuality, and second-rate shops,--in short, the outskirts of the vast city, when it begins to have a kind of village character but no rurality or sylvan aspect, as at Blackheath. My journey, when at last we started, was quite unmarked by incident, and extremely tedious; it being a slow train, which plods on without haste and without rest. At about ten o"clock we reached Birkenhead, and there crossed the familiar and detestable Mersey, which, as usual, had a cloudy sky brooding over it.
Mrs. Blodgett received me most hospitably, but was impelled, by an overflow of guests, to put me into a little back room, looking into the court, and formerly occupied by my predecessor, General Armstrong. . . . . She expressed a hope that I might not see his ghost,--nor have I, as yet.
Speaking of ghosts, Mr. H. A. B------ told me a singular story to-day of an apparition that haunts the Times Office, in Printing-House Square. A Mr. W------ is the engineer of the establishment, and has his residence in the edifice, which is built, I believe, on the site of Merchant Taylor"s school,--an old house that was no longer occupied for its original purpose, and, being supposed haunted, was left untenanted. The father-in-law of Mr. W------, an old sea-captain, came on a visit to him and his wife, and was put into their guest-chamber, where he pa.s.sed the night. The next morning, a.s.signing no very satisfactory reason, he cut his visit short and went away. Shortly afterwards, a young lady came to visit the W------"s; but she too went away the next morning,--going first to make a call, as she said, to a friend, and sending thence for her trunks. Mrs. W------ wrote to this young lady, asking an explanation.
The young lady replied, and gave a singular account of an apparition,-- how she was awakened in the night by a bright light shining through the window, which was parallel to the bed; then, if I remember rightly, her curtains were withdrawn, and a shape looked in upon her,--a woman"s shape, she called it; but it was a skeleton, with lambent flames playing about its bones, and in and out among the ribs. Other persons have since slept in this chamber, and some have seen the shape, others not. Mr.
W------ has slept there himself without seeing anything. He has had investigations by scientific people, apparently under the idea that the phenomenon might have been caused by some of the Times"s work-people, playing tricks on the magic-lantern principle; but nothing satisfactory has thus far been elucidated. Mr. B------ had this story from Mrs.
Gaskell. . . . . Supposing it a ghost, nothing else is so remarkable as its choosing to haunt the precincts of the Times newspaper.
July 29th.--On Sat.u.r.day, 26th, I took the rail from the Lime Street station for London, via the Trent Valley, and reached Blackheath in the evening. . . . .
Sunday morning my wife and I, with J-----, railed into London, and drove to the Ess.e.x Street Chapel, where Mr. Channing was to preach. The Chapel is the same where Priestley and Belsham used to preach,--one of the plainest houses of worship I was ever in, as simple and undecorated as the faith there inculcated. They retain, however, all the form and ceremonial of the English Established Church, though so modified as to meet the doctrinal views of the Unitarians. There may be good sense in this, inasmuch as it greatly lessens the ministerial labor to have a stated form of prayer, instead of a necessity for extempore outpourings; but it must be, I should think, excessively tedious to the congregation, especially as, having made alterations in these prayers, they cannot attach much idea of sanct.i.ty to them.
[Here follows a long record of Mr. Hawthorne"s visit to Miss Bacon,-- condensed in Our Old Hone, in the paper called "Recollections of a Gifted Woman."]
August 2d.--On Wednesday (30th July) we went to Marlborough House to see the Vernon gallery of pictures. They are the works, almost entirely of English artists of the last and present century, and comprise many famous paintings; and I must acknowledge that I had more enjoyment of them than of those portions of the National Gallery which I had before seen,-- including specimens of the grand old masters. My comprehension has not reached their height. I think nothing pleased me more than a picture by Sir David Wilkie,--The Parish Beadle, with a vagrant boy and a monkey in custody; it is exceedingly good and true throughout, and especially the monkey"s face is a wonderful production of genius, condensing within itself the whole moral and pathos of the picture.
Marlborough House was the residence of the Great Duke, and is to be that of the Prince of Wales, when another place is found for the pictures. It adjoins St. James"s Palace. In its present state it is not a very splendid mansion, the rooms being small, though handsomely shaped, with vaulted ceilings, and carved white-marble fireplaces. I left S----- here after an hour or two, and walked forth into the hot and busy city with J-----. . . . . I called at Routledge"s bookshop, in hopes to make an arrangement with him about Miss Bacon"s business. But Routledge himself is making a journey in the north, and neither of the partners was there, so that I shall have to go thither some other day. Then we stepped into St. Paul"s Cathedral to cool ourselves, and it was delightful so to escape from the sunny, sultry turmoil of Fleet Street and Ludgate, and find ourselves at once in this remote, solemn, shadowy seclusion, marble-cool. O that we had cathedrals in America, were it only for the sensuous luxury! We strolled round the cathedral, and I delighted J----- much by pointing out the monuments of three British generals, who were slain in America in the last war,--the naughty and bloodthirsty little man! We then went to Guildhall, where I thought J----- would like to see Gog and Magog; but he had never heard of those ill.u.s.trious personages, and took no interest in them. . . . . But truly I am grateful to the piety of former times for raising this vast, cool canopy of marble [St. Paul"s] in the midst of the feverish city. I wandered quite round it, and saw, in a remote corner, a monument to the officers of the Coldstream Guards, slain in the Crimea. It was a mural tablet, with the names of the officers on an escutcheon; and two privates of the Guards, in marble bas-relief, were mourning over them. Over the tablet hung two silken banners, new and glossy, with the battles in which the regiment has been engaged inscribed on them,--not merely Crimean but Peninsular battles. These banners will bang there till they drop away in tatters.
After thus refreshing myself in the cathedral, I went again to Routledge"s in Farrington Street, and saw one of the firm. He expressed great pleasure at seeing me, as indeed he might, having published and sold, without any profit on my part, uncounted thousands of my books. I introduced the subject of Miss Bacon"s work; and he expressed the utmost willingness to do everything in his power towards bringing it before the world, but thought that his firm--it being their business to publish for the largest circle of readers--was not the most eligible for the publication of such a book. Very likely this may be so. At all events, however, I am to send him the ma.n.u.script, and he will at least give me his advice and a.s.sistance in finding a publisher. He was good enough to express great regret that I had no work of my own to give him for publication; and, truly, I regret it too, since, being a resident in England, I could now have all the publishing privileges of a native author. He presented me with a copy of an ill.u.s.trated edition of Longfellow"s Poems, and I took my leave.
Thence I went to the Picture Gallery at the British Inst.i.tution, where there are three rooms full of paintings by the first masters, the property of private persons. Every one of them, no doubt, was worth studying for a long, long time; and I suppose I may have given, on an average, a minute to each. What an absurdity it would seem, to pretend to read two or three hundred poems, of all degrees between an epic and a ballad, in an hour or two! And a picture is a poem, only requiring the greater study to be felt and comprehended; because the spectator must necessarily do much for himself towards that end. I saw many beautiful things,--among them some landscapes by Claude, which to the eye were like the flavor of a rich, ripe melon to the palate.
August 7th.--Yesterday we took the rail for London, it being a fine, sunny day, though not so very warm as many of the preceding days have been. . . . . We went along Piccadilly as far as the Egyptian Hall. It is quite remarkable how comparatively quiet the town has become, now that the season is over. One can see the difference in all the region west of Temple Bar; and, indeed, either the hot weather or some other cause seems to have operated in a.s.suaging the turmoil in the city itself. I never saw London Bridge so little thronged as yesterday. At the Egyptian Hall, or in the same edifice, there is a gallery of pictures, the property of Lord Ward, who allows the public to see them, five days of the week, without any trouble or restriction,--a great kindness on his Lordship"s part, it must be owned. It is a very valuable collection, I presume, containing specimens of many famous old masters; some of the early and hard pictures by Raphael and his master and fellow-pupils,--very curious, and nowise beautiful; a perfect, sunny glimpse of Venice, by Ca.n.a.letto; and saints, and Scriptural, allegorical, and mythological people, by t.i.tian, Guido, Correggio, and many more names than I can remember. There is likewise a dead Magdalen by Canova, and a Venus by the same, very pretty, and with a vivid light of joyous expression in her face; . . . .
also Powers"s Greek Slave, in which I see little beauty or merit; and two or three other statues.
We then drove to Ashley Place, to call on Mrs. S. C. Hall, whom we found at home. In fact, Wednesday is her reception-day; although, as now everybody is out of town, we were the only callers. She is an agreeable and kindly woman. She told us that her husband and herself propose going to America next year, and I heartily wish they may meet with a warm and friendly reception. I have been seldom more a.s.sured of the existence of a heart than in her; also a good deal of sentiment. She had been visiting Bessie, the widow of Moore, at Sloperton, and gave S----- a rose from his cottage. Such things are very true and unaffected in her. The only wonder is that she has not lost such girlish freshness of feeling as prompts them. We did not see Mr. Hall, he having gone to the Crystal Palace.
Taking our leave, we returned along Victoria Street--a new street, penetrating through what was recently one of the worst parts of the town, and now bordered with large blocks of buildings, in a dreary, half-finished state, and left so for want of funds--till we came to Westminster Abbey. We went in and spent an hour there, wandering all round the nave and aisles, admiring the grand old edifice itself, but finding more to smile at than to admire in the monuments. . . . . The interior view of the Abbey is better than can be described; the heart aches, as one gazes at it, for lack of power and breadth enough to take its beauty and grandeur in. The effect was heightened by the sun shining through the painted window in the western end, and by the bright sunshine that came through the open portal, and lay on the pavement,--that s.p.a.ce so bright, the rest of the vast floor so solemn and sombre. At the western end, in a corner from which spectators are barred out, there is a statue of Wordsworth, which I do not recollect seeing at any former visit. Its only companion in the same nook is Pope"s friend, Secretary Craggs.
Downing Street, that famous official precinct, took its name from Sir George Downing, who was proprietor or lessee of property there. He was a native of my own old native town, and his descendants still reside there,--collateral descendants, I suppose,--and follow the drygoods business (drapers).
August 10th.--I journeyed to Liverpool via Chester. . . . . One sees a variety of climate, temperature, and season in a ride of two hundred miles, north and south, through England. Near London, for instance, the grain was reaped, and stood in sheaves in the stubble-fields, over which girls and children might be seen gleaning; farther north, the golden, or greenish-golden, crops were waving in the wind. In one part of our way the atmosphere was hot and dry; at another point it had been cooled and refreshed by a heavy thunder-shower, the pools of which still lay along our track. It seems to me that local varieties of weather are more common in this island, and within narrower precincts, than in America. . . . . I never saw England of such a dusky and dusty green before,--almost sunbrowned, indeed. Sometimes the green hedges formed a marked framework to a broad sheet of golden grain-field. As we drew near Oxford, just before reaching the station I had a good view of its domes, towers, and spires,--better, I think, than when J----- and I rambled through the town a month or two ago.
Mr. Frank Scott Haydon, of the Record Office, London, writes me that he has found a "Henry Atte Hawthorne" on a roll which he is transcribing, of the first Edward III. He belonged to the Parish of Aldremeston, in the hundred of Blakenhurste, Worcester County.
August 21st.--Yesterday, at twelve o"clock, I took the steamer for Runcorn, from the pier-head. In the streets, I had noticed that it was a breezy day; but on the river there was a very stiff breeze from the northeast, right ahead, blowing directly in our face the whole way; and truly this river Mersey is never without a breeze, and generally in the direction of its course,--an evil-tempered, unkindly, bl.u.s.tering wind, that you cannot meet without being exasperated by it. As it came straight against us, it was impossible to find a shelter anywhere on deck, except it were behind the stove-pipe; and, besides, the day was overcast and threatening rain.
I have undergone very miserable hours on the Mersey, where, in the s.p.a.ce of two years, I voyaged thousands of miles,--and this trip to Runcorn reminded me of them, though it was less disagreeable after more than a twelvemonth"s respite. We had a good many pa.s.sengers on board, most of whom were of the second cla.s.s, and congregated on the forward deck; more women than men, I think, and some of them with their husbands and children. Several produced lunch and bottles, and refreshed themselves very soon after we started. By and by the wind became so disagreeable that I went below, and sat in the cabin, only occasionally looking out, to get a peep at the sh.o.r.es of the river, which I had never before seen above Eastham. However, they are not worth looking at; level and monotonous, without trees or beauty of any kind,--here and there a village, and a modern church, on the low ridge behind; perhaps, a windmill, which the gusty day had set busily to work. The river continues very wide--no river indeed, but an estuary--during almost the whole distance to Runcorn; and nearly at the end of our voyage we approached some abrupt and prominent hills, which, many a time, I have seen on my pa.s.sages to Rock Ferry, looking blue and dim, and serving for prophets of the weather; for when they can be distinctly seen adown the river, it is a token of coming rain. We met many vessels, and pa.s.sed many which were beating up against the wind, and which keeled over, so that their decks must have dipped,--schooners and vessels that come from the Bridgewater Ca.n.a.l. We shipped a sea ourselves, which gave the fore-deck pa.s.sengers a wetting.
Before reaching Runcorn, we stopped to land some pa.s.sengers at another little port, where there was a pier and a lighthouse, and a church within a few yards of the river-side,--a good many of the river-craft, too, in dock, forming quite a crowd of masts. About ten minutes" further steaming brought us to Runcorn, where were two or three tall manufacturing chimneys, with a pennant of black smoke from each; two vessels of considerable size on the stocks; a church or two; and a meagre, uninteresting, shabby, brick-built town, rising from the edge of the river, with irregular streets,--not village-like, but paved, and looking like a dwarfed, stunted city. I wandered through it till I came to a tall, high-pedestalled windmill on the outer verge, the vans of which were going briskly round. Thence retracing my steps, I stopped at a poor hotel, and took lunch, and, finding that I was in time to take the steamer back, I hurried on board, and we set sail (or steam) before three. I have heard of an old castle at Runcorn, but could discover nothing of it. It was well that I returned so promptly, for we had hardly left the pier before it began to rain, and there was a heavy downfall throughout the voyage homeward. Runcorn is fourteen miles from Liverpool, and is the farthest point to which a steamer runs. I had intended to come home by rail,--a circuitous route,--but the advice of the landlady of the hotel, and the aspect of the weather, and a feeling of general discouragement prevented me.
An incident in S. C. Hall"s Ireland, of a stone cross, buried in Cromwell"s time, to prevent its destruction by his soldiers. It was forgotten, and became a mere doubtful tradition, but one old man had been told by his father, and he by his father, etc., that it was buried near a certain spot; and at last, two hundred years after the cross was buried, the vicar of the parish dug in that spot and found it. In my (English) romance, an American might bring the tradition from over the sea, and so discover the cross, which had been altogether forgotten.
August 24th.--Day before yesterday I took the rail for Southport,--a cool, generally overcast day, with glimmers of faint sunshine. The ride is through a most uninteresting tract of country, at first, glimpses of the river, with the thousands of masts in the docks; the dismal outskirts of a great town, still spreading onward, with beginnings of streets, and insulated brick buildings and blocks; farther on, a wide monotony of level plain, and here and there a village and a church; almost always a windmill in sight, there being plenty of breeze to turn its vans on this windy coast. The railway skirts along the sea the whole distance, but is shut out from the sight of it by the low sand-hills, which seem to have been heaped up by the waves. There are one or two lighthouses on the sh.o.r.e. I have not seen a drearier landscape, even in Lancashire.
Reaching Southport at three, I rambled about, with a view to discover whether it be a suitable residence for my family during September. It is a large village, or rather more than a village, which seems to be almost entirely made up of lodging-houses, and, at any rate, has been built up by the influx of summer visitors,--a sandy soil, level, and laid out with well-paved streets, the princ.i.p.al of which are enlivened with bazaars, markets, shops, hotels of various degrees, and a showy vivacity of aspect. There are a great many donkey-carriages,--large vehicles, drawn by a pair of donkeys; bath-chairs, with invalid ladies; refreshment-rooms in great numbers,--a place where everybody seems to be a transitory guest, n.o.body at home. The main street leads directly down to the sea-sh.o.r.e, along which there is an elevated embankment, with a promenade on the top, and seats, and the toll of a penny. The sh.o.r.e itself, the tide being then low, stretched out interminably seaward, a wide waste of glistering sands; and on the dry border, people were riding on donkeys, with the drivers whipping behind; and children were digging with their little wooden spades; and there were donkey-carriages far out on the sands,--a pleasant and breezy drive. A whole city of bathing-machines was stationed near the sh.o.r.e, and I saw others in the seaward distance.
The sea-air was refreshing and exhilarating, and if S----- needs a seaside residence, I should think this might do as well as any other.
I saw a large brick edifice, enclosed within a wall, and with somewhat the look of an almshouse or hospital; and it proved to be an Infirmary, charitably established for the reception of poor invalids, who need sea-air and cannot afford to pay for it. Two or three of such persons were sitting under its windows. I do not think that the visitors of Southport are generally of a very opulent cla.s.s, but of the middle rank, from Manchester and other parts of this northern region. The lodging-houses, however, are of sufficiently handsome style and arrangement.
OXFORD.
[Mr. Hawthorne extracted from his recorded Oxford experiences his excursion to Blenheim, but left his observations of the town itself untouched,--and these I now transcribe.--ED.]
August 31st.--. . . . Yesterday we took the rail for London, and drove across the city to the Paddington station, where we met Bennoch, and set out with him for Oxford. I do not quite understand the matter, but it appears that we were expected guests of Mr. Spiers, a very hospitable gentleman, and Ex-Mayor of Oxford, and a friend of Bennoch and of the Halls. Mr. S. C. Hall met us at the Oxford station, and under his guidance we drove to a quiet, comfortable house in St. Giles Street, where rooms had been taken for us. Durham, the sculptor, is likewise of the party.
After establishing ourselves at these lodgings, we walked forth to take a preliminary glimpse of the city, and Mr. Hall, being familiar with the localities, served admirably as a guide. If I remember aright, I spoke very slightingly of the exterior aspect of Oxford, as I saw it with J----- during an hour or two"s stay here, on my way to Southampton (to meet S----- on her return from Lisbon). I am bound to say that my impressions are now very different; and that I find Oxford exceedingly picturesque and rich in beauty and grandeur and in antique stateliness.
I do not remember very particularly what we saw,--time-worn fronts of famous colleges and halls of learning everywhere about the streets, and arched entrances; pa.s.sing through which, we saw bits of sculpture from monkish hands,--the most grotesque and ludicrous faces, as if the slightest whim of these old carvers took shape in stone, the material being so soft and manageable by them; an ancient stone pulpit in the quadrangle of Maudlin College (Magdalen), one of only three now extant in England; a splendid--no, not splendid, but dimly magnificent--chapel, belonging to the same College, with painted windows of rare beauty, not brilliant with diversified hues, but of a sombre tint. In this chapel there is an alabaster monument,--a rec.u.mbent figure of the founder"s father, as large as life,--which, though several centuries old, is as well preserved as if fresh from the chisel.
In the High Street, which, I suppose, is the n.o.blest old street in England, Mr. Hall pointed out, the Crown Inn, where Shakespeare used to spend the night, and was most hospitably welcomed by the pretty hostess (the mother of Sir William Davenant) on his pa.s.sage between Stratford and London. It is a three-story house, with other houses contiguous,--an old timber mansion, though now plastered and painted of a yellowish line.
The ground-floor is occupied as a shoe-shop; but the rest of the house is still kept as a tavern. . . . .
It is not now term time, and Oxford loses one of its most characteristic features by the absence of the gownsmen; but still there is a good deal of liveliness in the streets. We walked as far as a bridge beyond Maudlin College, and then drove homeward.
At six we went to dine with the hospitable Ex-Mayor, across the wide, tree-bordered street; for his house is nearly opposite our lodgings. He is an intelligent and gentlemanly person, and was Mayor two years ago, and has done a great deal to make peace between the University and the town, heretofore bitterly inimical. His house is adorned with pictures and drawings, and he has an especial taste for art. . . . . The dinner-table was decorated with pieces of plate, vases, and other things, which were presented to him as tokens of public or friendly regard and approbation of his action in the Mayoralty. After dinner, too, he produced a large silver snuff-box, which had been given him on the same account; in fact, the inscription affirmed that it was one of five pieces of plate so presented. The vases are really splendid,--one of them two feet high, and richly ornamented. It will hold five or six bottles of wine, and he said that it had been filled, and, I believe, sent round as a loving-cup at some of his entertainments. He cordially enjoys these things, and his genuine benevolence produces all this excellent hospitality. . . . . But Bennoch proposed a walk, and we set forth. We rambled pretty extensively about the streets, sometimes seeing the shapes of old edifices dimly and doubtfully, it being an overcast night; or catching a partial view of a gray wall, or a pillar, or a Gothic archway, by lamplight. . . . . The clock had some time ago struck eleven, when we were pa.s.sing under a long extent of antique wall and towers, which were those of Baliol College. Mr. D------ led us into the middle of the street, and showed us a cross, which was paved into it, on a level with the rest of the road. This was the spot where Latimer and Ridley and another Bishop were martyred in b.l.o.o.d.y Mary"s time. There is a memorial to them in another street; but this, where I set my foot at nearly midnight, was the very spot where their flesh burned to ashes, and their bones whitened. It has been a most beautiful morning, and I have seen few pleasanter scenes than this street in which we lodge, with its s.p.a.cious breadth, its two rows of fine old trees, with sidewalks as wide as the whole width of some streets; and, on the opposite side, the row of houses, some of them ancient with picturesque gables, partially disclosed through the intervening foliage. . . . . From our window we have a slantwise glimpse, to the right, of the walls of St. John"s College, and the general aspect of St. Giles. It is of an antiquity not to shame those mediaeval halls. Our own lodgings are in a house that seems to be very old, with panelled walls, and beams across the ceilings, lattice-windows in the chambers, and a musty odor such as old houses inevitably have. Nevertheless, everything is extremely neat, clean, and comfortable; and in term time our apartments are occupied by a Mr.
Stebbing, whose father is known in literature by some critical writings, and who is a graduate and an admirable scholar. There is a bookcase of five shelves, containing his books, mostly standard works, and indicating a safe and solid taste.
After lunch to-day we (that is, Mrs. Hall, her adopted daughter, S-----, and I, with the Ex-Mayor) set forth, in an open barouche, to see the remarkables of Oxford, while the rest of the guests went on foot. We first drew up at New College (a strange name for such an old place, but it was new some time since the Conquest), and went through its quiet and sunny quadrangles, and into its sunny and shadowy gardens. I am in despair about the architecture and old edifices of these Oxford colleges, it is so impossible to express them in words. They are themselves--as the architect left them, and as Time has modified and improved them--the expression of an idea which does not admit of being otherwise expressed, or translated into anything else. Those old battlemented walls around the quadrangles; many gables; the windows with stone pavilions, so very antique, yet some of them adorned with fresh flowers in pots,--a very sweet contrast; the ivy mantling the gray stone; and the infinite repose, both in sunshine and shadow,--it is as if half a dozen bygone centuries had set up their rest here, and as if nothing of the present time ever pa.s.sed through the deeply recessed archway that shuts in the College from the street. Not but what people have very free admittance; and many parties of young men and girls and children came into the gardens while we were there.
These gardens of New College are indescribably beautiful,--not gardens in an American sense, but lawns of the richest green and softest velvet gra.s.s, shadowed over by ancient trees, that have lived a quiet life here for centuries, and have been nursed and tended with such care, and so sheltered from rude winds, that certainly they must have been the happiest of all trees. Such a sweet, quiet, sacred, stately seclusion-- so age-long as this has been, and, I hope, will continue to be--cannot exist anywhere else. One side of the garden wall is formed by the ancient wall of the city, which Cromwell"s artillery battered, and which still retains its pristine height and strength. At intervals, there are round towers that formed the bastions; that is to say, on the exterior they are round towers, but within, in the garden of the College, they are semicircular recesses, with iron garden-seats arranged round them. The loop-holes through which the archers and musketeers used to shoot still pierce through deep recesses in the wall, which is here about six feet thick. I wish I could put into one sentence the whole impression of this garden, but it could not be done in many pages.