November 12th.--This morning we issued forth, and found the atmosphere chill and almost frosty, tingling upon our cheeks. . . . . The gateway of Somerset House attracted us, and we walked round its s.p.a.cious quadrangle, encountering many government clerks hurrying to their various offices.
At least, I presumed them to be so. This is certainly a handsome square of buildings, with its Grecian facades and pillars, and its sculptured bas-reliefs, and the group of statuary in the midst of the court.
Besides the part of the edifice that rises above ground, there appear to be two subterranean stories below the surface. From Somerset House we pursued our way through Temple Bar, but missed it, and therefore entered by the pa.s.sage from what was formerly Alsatia, but which now seems to be a very respectable and humdrum part of London. We came immediately to the Temple Gardens, which we walked quite round. The gra.s.s is still green, but the trees are leafless, and had an aspect of not being very robust, even at more genial seasons of the year. There were, however, large quant.i.ties of brilliant chrysanthemums, golden, and of all hues, blooming gorgeously all about the borders; and several gardeners were at work, tending these flowers, and sheltering them from the weather. I noticed no roses, nor even rose-bushes, in the spot where the factions of York and Lancaster plucked their two hostile flowers.
Leaving these grounds, we went to the Hall of the Middle Temple, where we knocked at the portal, and, finding it not fastened, thrust it open. A boy appeared within, and the porter or keeper, at a distance, along the inner pa.s.sage, called to us to enter; and, opening the door of the great hall, left us to view it till he should be at leisure to attend to us.
Truly it is a most magnificent apartment; very lofty,--so lofty, indeed, that the antique oak roof was quite hidden, as regarded all its details, in the sombre gloom that brooded under its rafters. The hall was lighted by four great windows, I think, on each of the two sides, descending half-way from the ceiling to the floor, leaving all beneath enclosed by oaken panelling, which, on three sides, was carved with escutcheons of such members of the society as have held the office of reader. There is likewise, in a large recess or transept, a great window, occupying the full height of the hall, and splendidly emblazoned with the arms of the Templars who have attained to the dignity of Chief Justices. The other windows are pictured, in like manner, with coats of arms of local dignitaries connected with the Temple; and besides all these there are arched lights, high towards the roof, at either end full of richly and chastely colored gla.s.s, and all the illumination that the great hall had come through these glorious panes, and they seemed the richer for the sombreness in which we stood. I cannot describe, or even intimate, the effect of this transparent glory, glowing down upon us in that gloomy depth of the hall. The screen at the lower end was of carved oak, very dark and highly polished, and as old as Queen Elizabeth"s time. The keeper told us that the story of the Armada was said to be represented in these carvings, but in the imperfect light we could trace nothing of it out. Along the length of the apartment were set two oaken tables for the students of law to dine upon; and on the dais, at the upper end, there was a cross-table for the big-wigs of the society; the latter being provided with comfortable chairs, and the former with oaken benches.
From a notification, posted near the door, I gathered that the cost of dinners is two shillings to each gentleman, including, as the attendant told me, ale and wine. I am reluctant to leave this hall without expressing how grave, how grand, how sombre, and how magnificent I feel it to be. As regards historical a.s.sociation, it was a favorite dancing-hall of Queen Elizabeth, and Sir Christopher Hatton danced himself into her good graces here.
We next went to the Temple Church, and, finding the door ajar, made free to enter beneath its Norman arches, which admitted us into a circular vestibule, very ancient and beautiful. In the body of the church beyond we saw a boy sitting, but n.o.body either forbade or invited our entrance.
On the floor of the vestibule lay about half a score of Templars,--the representatives of the warlike priests who built this church and formerly held these precincts,--all in chain armor, grasping their swords, and with their shields beside them. Except two or three, they lay cross-legged, in token that they had really fought for the Holy Sepulchre. I think I have seen nowhere else such well-preserved monumental knights as these. We proceeded into the interior of the church, and were greatly impressed with its wonderful beauty,--the roof springing, as it were, in a harmonious and accordant fountain, out of the cl.u.s.tered pillars that support its groined arches; and these pillars, immense as they are, are polished like so many gems. They are of Purbeck marble, and, if I mistake not, had been covered with plaster for ages until latterly redeemed and beautified anew. But the glory of the church is its old painted windows; and, positively, those great s.p.a.ces over the chancel appeared to be set with all manner of precious stones,--or it was as if the many-colored radiance of heaven were breaking upon us,--or as if we saw the wings of angels, storied over with richly tinted pictures of holy things. But it is idle to talk of this marvellous adornment; it is to be seen and wondered at, not written about. Before we left the church, the porter made his appearance, in time to receive his fee,-- which somebody, indeed, is always ready to stretch out his hand for. And so ended our visit to the Temple, which, by the by, though close to the midmost bustle of London, is as quiet as if it were always Sunday there.
We now went to St. Paul"s. U---- and Miss Shepard ascended to the Whispering Gallery, and we, sitting under the dome, at the base of one of the pillars, saw them far above us, looking very indistinct, for those misty upper-depths seemed almost to be hung with clouds. This cathedral, I think, does not profit by gloom, but requires cheerful sunshine to show it to the best advantage. The statues and sculptures in St. Paul"s are mostly covered with years of dust, and look thereby very grim and ugly; but there are few memories there from which I should care to brush away the dust, they being, in nine cases out of ten, naval and military heroes of second or third cla.s.s merit. I really remember no literary celebrity admitted solely on that account, except Dr. Johnson. The Crimean war has supplied two or three monuments, chiefly mural tablets; and doubtless more of the same excrescences will yet come out upon the walls. One thing that I newly noticed was the beautiful shape of the great, covered marble vase that serves for a font.
From St. Paul"s we went down Cheapside, and, turning into King Street, visited Guildhall, which we found in process of decoration for a public ball, to take place next week. It looked rather gewgawish thus gorgeous, being hung with flags of all nations, and adorned with military trophies; and the scene was repeated by a range of looking-gla.s.ses at one end of the room. The execrably painted windows really shocked us by their vulgar glare, after those of the Temple Hall and Church; yet, a few years ago, I might very likely have thought them beautiful. Our own national banner, I must remember to say, was hanging in Guildhall, but with only ten stars, and an insufficient number of stripes.
November 15th.--Yesterday morning we went to London Bridge and along Lower Thames Street, and quickly found ourselves in Billingsgate Market, --a dirty, evil-smelling, crowded precinct, thronged with people carrying fish on their heads, and lined with fish-shops and fish-stalls, and pervaded with a fishy odor. The footwalk was narrow,--as indeed was the whole street,--and filthy to travel upon; and we had to elbow our way among rough men and slatternly women, and to guard our heads from the contact of fish-trays; very ugly, grimy, and misty, moreover, is Billingsgate Market, and though we heard none of the foul language of which it is supposed to be the fountain-head, yet it has its own peculiarities of behavior. For instance, U---- tells me that one man, staring at her and her governess as they pa.s.sed, cried out, "What beauties!"--another, looking under her veil, greeted her with, "Good morning, my love!" We were in advance, and heard nothing of these civilities. Struggling through this fishy purgatory, we caught sight of the Tower, as we drew near the end of the street; and I put all my party under charge of one of the Trump Cards, not being myself inclined to make the rounds of the small part of the fortress that is shown, so soon after my late visit.
When they departed with the warder, I set out by myself to wander about the exterior of the Tower, looking with interest at what I suppose to be Tower Hill,--a slight elevation of the large open s.p.a.ce into which Great Tower Street opens; though, perhaps, what is now called Trinity Square may have been a part of Tower Hill, and possibly the precise spot where the executions took place. Keeping to the right, round the Tower, I found the moat quite surrounded by a fence of iron rails, excluding me from a pleasant gravel-path, among flowers and shrubbery, on the inside, where I could see nursery-maids giving children their airings. Possibly these may have been the privileged inhabitants of the Tower, which certainly might contain the population of a large village. The aspect of the fortress has so much that is new and modern about it that it can hardly be called picturesque, and yet it seems unfair to withhold that epithet from such a collection of gray ramparts. I followed the iron fence quite round the outer grounds, till it approached the Thames, and in this direction the moat and the pleasure-ground terminate in a narrow graveyard, which extends beneath the walls, and looks neglected and s.h.a.ggy with long gra.s.s. It appeared to contain graves enough, but only a few tombstones, of which I could read the inscription of but one; it commemorated a Mr. George Gibson, a person of no note, nor apparently connected with the place. St. Katharine"s Dock lies along the Thames, in this vicinity; and while on one side of me were the Tower, the quiet gravel-path, and the s.h.a.ggy graveyard, on the other were draymen and their horses, dock-laborers, sailors, empty puncheons, and a miscellaneous spectacle of life,--including organ-grinders, men roasting chestnuts over small ovens on the sidewalk, boys and women with boards or wheelbarrows of apples, oyster-stands, besides pedlers of small wares, dirty children at play, and other figures and things that a Dutch painter would seize upon.
I went a little way into St. Katharine"s Dock, and found it crowded with great ships; then, returning, I strolled along the range of shops that front towards this side of the Tower. They have all something to do with ships, sailors, and commerce; being for the sale of ships" stores, nautical instruments, arms, clothing, together with a tavern and grog-shop at every other door; bookstalls, too, covered with cheap novels and song-books; cigar-shops in great numbers; and everywhere were sailors, and here and there a soldier, and children at the doorsteps, and women showing themselves at the doors or windows of their domiciles.
These latter figures, however, pertain rather to the street up which I walked, penetrating into the interior of this region, which, I think, is Blackwall--no, I forget what its name is. At all events, it has an ancient and most grimy and rough look, with its old gabled houses, each of them the seat of some petty trade and business in its bas.e.m.e.nt story.
Among these I saw one house with three or four peaks along its front,--a second story projecting over the bas.e.m.e.nt, and the whole clapboarded over. . . . . There was a butcher"s stall in the lower story, with a front open to the street, in the ancient fashion, which seems to be retained only by butchers" shops. This part of London having escaped the Great Fire, I suppose there may be many relics of architectural antiquity hereabouts.
At the end of an hour I went back to the Refreshment-room, within the outer gate of the Tower, where the rest of us shortly appeared. We now returned westward by way of Great Tower Street, Eastcheap, and Cannon Street, and, entering St. Paul"s, sat down beneath the misty dome to rest ourselves. The m.u.f.fled roar of the city, as we heard it there, is very soothing, and keeps one listening to it, somewhat as the flow of a river keeps us looking at it. It is a grand and quiet sound; and, ever and anon, a distant door slammed somewhere in the cathedral, and reverberated long and heavily, like the roll of thunder or the boom of cannon. Every noise that is loud enough to be heard in so vast an edifice melts into the great quietude. The interior looked very sombre, and the dome hung over us like a cloudy sky. I wish it were possible to pa.s.s directly from St. Paul"s into York Minster, or from the latter into the former; that is, if one"s mind could manage to stagger under both in the same day.
There is no other way of judging of their comparative effect.
Under the influence of that grand lullaby,--the roar of the city,--we sat for some time after we were sufficiently rested; but at last plunged forth again, and went up Newgate Street, pausing to look through the iron railings of Christ"s Hospital. The boys, however, were not at play; so we went onward, in quest of Smithfield, and on our way had a greeting from Mr. Silsbee, a gentleman of our own native town. Parting with him, we found Smithfield, which is still occupied with pens for cattle, though I believe it has ceased to be a cattle-market. Except it be St.
Bartholomew"s hospital on one side, there is nothing interesting in this ugly square; though, no doubt, a few feet under the pavement there are bones and ashes as precious as anything of the kind on earth. I wonder when men will begin to erect monuments to human error; hitherto their pillars and statues have only been for the sake of glorification. But, after all, the present fashion may be the better and wholesomer. . . . .
November 16th.--Mr. Silsbee called yesterday, and talked about matters of art, in which he is deeply interested, and which he has had good opportunities of becoming acquainted with, during three years" travel on the Continent. He is a man of great intelligence and true feeling, and absolutely brims over with ideas,--his conversation flowing in a constant stream, which it appears to be no trouble whatever to him to keep up. . . . . He took his leave after a long call, and left with us a ma.n.u.script, describing a visit to Berlin, which I read to my wife in the evening. It was well worth reading. He made an engagement to go with us to the Crystal Palace, and came rather for that purpose this morning.
We drove to the London Bridge station, where we bought return tickets that ent.i.tled us to admission to the Palace, as well as conveyance thither, for half a crown apiece. On our arrival we entered by the garden front, thus gaining a fine view of the ornamental grounds, with their fountains and stately pathways, bordered with statues; and of the edifice itself, so vast and fairy-like, looking as if it were a bubble, and might vanish at a touch. There is as little beauty in the architecture of the Crystal Palace, however, as was possible to be with such gigantic use of such a material. No doubt, an architectural order of which we have as yet little or no idea is to be developed from the use of gla.s.s as a building-material, instead of brick and stone. It will have its own rules and its own results; but, meanwhile, even the present Palace is positively a very beautiful object. On entering we found the atmosphere chill and comfortless,--more so, it seemed to me, than the open air itself. It was not a genial day; though now and then the sun gleamed out, and once caused fine effects in the gla.s.swork of a crystal fountain in one of the courts.
We were under Mr. Silshee"s guidance for the day, . . . . and first we looked at the sculpture, which is composed chiefly of casts or copies of the most famous statues of all ages, and likewise of those crumbs and little fragments which have fallen from Time"s jaw,--and half-picked bones, as it were, that have been gathered up from spots where he has feasted full,--torsos, heads and broken limbs, some of them half worn away, as if they had been rolled over and over in the sea. I saw nothing in the sculptural way, either modern or antique, that impressed me so much as a statue of a nude mother by a French artist. In a sitting posture, with one knee over the other, she was clasping her highest knee with both hands; and in the hollow cradle thus formed by her arms lay two sweet little babies, as snug and close to her heart as if they had not yet been born,--two little love-blossoms,--and the mother encircling them and pervading them with love. But an infinite pathos and strange terror are given to this beautiful group by some faint bas-reliefs on the pedestal, indicating that the happy mother is Eve, and Cain and Abel the two innocent babes.
Then we went to the Alhambra, which looks like an enchanted palace. If it had been a sunny day, I should have enjoyed it more; but it was miserable to shiver and shake in the Court of the Lions, and in those chambers which were contrived as places of refuge from a fervid temperature. Furthermore, it is not quite agreeable to see such clever specimens of stage decoration; they are so very good that it gets to be past a joke, without becoming actual earnest. I had not a similar feeling in respect to the reproduction of mediaeval statues, arches, doorways, all brilliantly colored as in the days of their first glory; yet I do not know but that the first is as little objectionable as the last. Certainly, in both cases, scenes and objects of a past age are here more vividly presented to the dullest mind than without such material facilities they could possibly be brought before the most powerful imagination. Truly, the Crystal Palace, in all its departments, offers wonderful means of education. I marvel what will come of it.
Among the things that I admired most was Benvenuto Cellini"s statue of Perseus holding the head of Medusa, and standing over her headless and still writhing body, out of which, at the severed neck, gushed a vast exuberance of snakes. Likewise, a sitting statue, by Michel Angelo, of one of the Medici, full of dignity and grace and reposeful might. Also the bronze gate of a baptistery in Florence, carved all over with relieves of Scripture subjects, executed in the most lifelike and expressive manner. The cast itself was a miracle of art. I should have taken it for the genuine original bronze.
We then wandered into the House of Diomed, which seemed to me a dismal abode, affording no possibility of comfort. We sat down in one of the rooms, on an iron bench, very cold.
It being by this time two o"clock, we went to the Refreshment-room and lunched; and before we had finished our repast, my wife discovered that she had lost her sable tippet, which she had been carrying on her arm.
Mr. Silsbee most kindly and obligingly immediately went in quest of it, . . . . but to no purpose. . . . .
Upon entering the Tropical Saloon, we found a most welcome and delightful change of temperature among those gigantic leaves of banyan-trees, and the broad expanse of water-plants, floating on lakes, and s.p.a.cious aviaries, where birds of brilliant plumage sported and sang amid such foliage as they knew at home. Howbeit, the atmosphere was a little faint and sickish, perhaps owing to the odor of the half-tepid water. The most remarkable object here was the trunk of a tree, huge beyond imagination, --a pine-tree from California. It was only the stripped-off bark, however, which had been conveyed hither in segments, and put together again beyond the height of the palace roof; and the hollow interior circle of the tree was large enough to contain fifty people, I should think. We entered and sat down in all the remoteness from one another that is attainable in a good-sized drawing-room. We then ascended the gallery to get a view of this vast tree from a more elevated position, and found it looked even bigger from above. Then we loitered slowly along the gallery as far as it extended, and afterwards descended into the nave; for it was getting dusk, and a horn had sounded, and a bell rung a warning to such as delayed in the remote regions of the building.
Mr. Silsbee again most kindly went in quest of the sables, but still without success. . . . . I have not much enjoyed the Crystal Palace, but think it a great and admirable achievement.
November 19th.--On Tuesday evening Mr. Silsbee came to read some letters which he has written to his friends, chiefly giving his observations on Art, together with descriptions of Venice and other cities on the Continent. They were very good, and indicate much sensibility and talent. After the reading we had a little oyster-supper and wine.
I had written a note to ------, and received an answer, indicating that he was much weighed down by his financial misfortune. . . . . However, he desired me to come and see him; so yesterday morning I wended my way down into the city, and after various reluctant circ.u.mlocutions arrived at his house. The interior looked confused and dismal.
It seems to me n.o.body else runs such risks as a man of business, because he risks everything. Every other man, into whatever depth of poverty he may sink, has still something left, be he author, scholar, handicraftman, or what not; the merchant has nothing.
We parted with a long and strong grasp of the hand, and ------ promised to come and see us soon. . . . .
On my way home I called at Truebner"s in Pater Noster Row. . . . . I waited a few minutes, he being busy with a tall, muscular, English-built man, who, after he had taken leave, Truebner told me was Charles Reade.
I once met him at an evening party, but should have been glad to meet him again, now that I appreciate him so much better after reading Never too Late to Mend.
December 6th.--All these days, since my last date, have been marked by nothing very well worthy of detail and description. I have walked the streets a great deal in the dull November days, and always take a certain pleasure in being in the midst of human life,--as closely encompa.s.sed by it as it is possible to be anywhere in this world; and in that way of viewing it there is a dull and sombre enjoyment always to be had in Holborn, Fleet Street, Cheapside, and the other busiest parts of London.
It is human life; it is this material world; it is a grim and heavy reality. I have never had the same sense of being surrounded by materialisms and hemmed in with the grossness of this earthly existence anywhere else; these broad, crowded streets are so evidently the veins and arteries of an enormous city. London is evidenced in every one of them, just as a megatherium is in each of its separate bones, even if they be small ones. Thus I never fail of a sort of self-congratulation in finding myself, for instance, pa.s.sing along Ludgate Hill; but, in spite of this, it is really an ungladdened life to wander through these huge, thronged ways, over a pavement foul with mud, ground into it by a million of footsteps; jostling against people who do not seem to be individuals, but all one ma.s.s, so h.o.m.ogeneous is the street-walking aspect of them; the roar of vehicles pervading me,--wearisome cabs and omnibuses; everywhere the dingy brick edifices heaving themselves up, and shutting out all but a strip of sullen cloud, that serves London for a sky,--in short, a general impression of grime and sordidness; and at this season always a fog scattered along the vista of streets, sometimes so densely as almost to spiritualize the materialism and make the scene resemble the other world of worldly people, gross even in ghostliness.
It is strange how little splendor and brilliancy one sees in London,--in the city almost none, though some in the shops of Regent Street. My wife has had a season of indisposition within the last few weeks, so that my rambles have generally been solitary, or with J----- only for a companion. I think my only excursion with my wife was a week ago, when we went to Lincoln"s Inn Fields, which truly are almost fields right in the heart of London, and as retired and secluded as if the surrounding city were a forest, and its heavy roar were the wind among the branches.
We gained admission into the n.o.ble Hall, which is modern, but built in antique style, and stately and beautiful exceedingly. I have forgotten all but the general effect, with its lofty oaken roof, its panelled walls, with the windows high above, and the great arched window at one end full of painted coats of arms, which the light glorifies in pa.s.sing through them, as if each were the escutcheon of some ill.u.s.trious personage. Thence we went to the chapel of Lincoln"s Inn, where, on entering, we found a cla.s.s of young choristers receiving instruction from their music-master, while the organ accompanied their strains. These young, clear, fresh, elastic voices are wonderfully beautiful; they are like those of women, yet have something more birdlike and aspiring, more like what one conceives of the singing of angels. As for the singing of saints and blessed spirits that have once been human, it never can resemble that of these young voices; for no duration of heavenly enjoyments will ever quite take the mortal sadness out of it.
In this chapel we saw some painted windows of the time of James I., a period much subsequent, to the age when painted gla.s.s was in its glory; but the pictures of Scriptural people in these windows were certainly very fine,--the figures being as large as life, and the faces having much expression. The sunshine came in through some of them, and produced a beautiful effect, almost as if the painted forms were the glorified spirits of those holy personages.
After leaving Lincoln"s Inn, we looked at Gray"s Inn, which is a great, quiet domain, quadrangle beyond quadrangle, close beside Holborn, and a large s.p.a.ce of greensward enclosed within it. It is very strange to find so much of ancient quietude right in the monster city"s very jaws, which yet the monster shall not eat up,--right in its very belly, indeed, which yet, in all these ages, it shall not digest and convert into the same substance as the rest of its bustling streets. Nothing else in London is so like the effect of a spell, as to pa.s.s under one of these archways, and find yourself transported from the jumble, mob, tumult, uproar, as of an age of week-days condensed into the present hour, into what seems an eternal sabbath. Thence we went into Staple Inn, I think it was,--which has a front upon Holborn of four or five ancient gables in a row, and a low arch under the impending story, admitting you into a paved quadrangle, beyond which you have the vista of another. I do not understand that the residences and chambers in these Inns of Court are now exclusively let to lawyers; though such inhabitants certainly seem to preponderate there.
Since then J----- and I walked down into the Strand, and found ourselves unexpectedly mixed up with a crowd that grew denser as we approached Charing Cross, and became absolutely impermeable when we attempted to make our way to Whitehall. The wicket in the gate of Northumberland House, by the by, was open, and gave me a glimpse of the front of the edifice within,--a very partial glimpse, however, and that obstructed by the solid person of a footman, who, with some women, were pa.s.sing out from within. The crowd was a real English crowd, perfectly undemonstrative, and entirely decorous, being composed mostly of well-dressed people, and largely of women. The cause of the a.s.semblage was the opening of Parliament by the Queen, but we were too late for any chance of seeing her Majesty. However, we extricated ourselves from the mult.i.tude, and, going along Pall Mall, got into the Park by the steps at the foot of the Duke of York"s Column, and thence went to the Whitehall Gateway, outside of which we found the Horse Guards drawn up,--a regiment of black horses and burnished cuira.s.ses. On our way thither an open carriage came through the gateway into the Park, conveying two ladies in court dresses; and another splendid chariot pressed out through the gateway,--the coachman in a c.o.c.ked hat and scarlet and gold embroidery, and two other scarlet and gold figures hanging behind. It was one of the Queen"s carriages, but seemed to have n.o.body in it. I have forgotten to mention what, I think, produced more effect on me than anything else, namely, the clash of the bells from the steeple of St. Martin"s Church and those of St. Margaret. Really, London seemed to cry out through them, and bid welcome to the Queen.
December 7th.--This being a muddy and dismal day, I went only to the
BRITISH MUSEUM,
which is but a short walk down the street (Great Russell Street). I have now visited it often enough to be on more familiar terms with it than at first, and therefore do not feel myself so weighed down by the many things to be seen. I have ceased to expect or hope or wish to devour and digest the whole enormous collection; so I content myself with individual things, and succeed in getting now and then a little honey from them.
Unless I were studying some particular branch of history or science or art, this is the best that can be done with the British Museum.
I went first to-day into the Townley Gallery, and so along through all the ancient sculpture, and was glad to find myself able to sympathize more than heretofore with the forms of grace and beauty which are preserved there,--poor, maimed immortalities as they are,--headless and legless trunks, G.o.dlike cripples, faces beautiful and broken-nosed,-- heroic shapes which have stood so long, or lain prostrate so long, in the open air, that even the atmosphere of Greece has almost dissolved the external layer of the marble; and yet, however much they may be worn away, or battered and shattered, the grace and n.o.bility seem as deep in them as the very heart of the stone. It cannot be destroyed, except by grinding them to powder. In short, I do really believe that there was an excellence in ancient sculpture, which has yet a potency to educate and refine the minds of those who look at it even so carelessly and casually as I do. As regards the frieze of the Parthenon, I must remark that the horses represented on it, though they show great spirit and lifelikeness, are rather of the pony species than what would be considered fine horses now. Doubtless, modern breeding has wrought a difference in the animal.
Flaxman, in his outlines, seems to have imitated these cla.s.sic steeds of the Parthenon, and thus has produced horses that always appeared to me affected and diminutively monstrous.
From the cla.s.sic sculpture, I pa.s.sed through an a.s.syrian room, where the walls are lined with great slabs of marble sculptured in bas-relief with scenes in the life of Senmacherib, I believe; very ugly, to be sure, yet artistically done in their own style, and in wonderfully good preservation. Indeed, if the chisel had cut its last stroke in them yesterday, the work could not be more sharp and distinct. In gla.s.s cases, in this room, are little relics and sc.r.a.ps of utensils, and a great deal of fragmentary rubbish, dug up by Layard in his researches,-- things that it is hard to call anything but trash, but which yet may be of great significance as indicating the modes of life of a long-past race. I remember nothing particularly just now, except some pieces of broken gla.s.s, iridescent with certainly the most beautiful hues in the world,--indescribably beautiful, and unimaginably, unless one can conceive of the colors of the rainbow, and a thousand glorious sunsets, and the autumnal forest-leaves of America, all condensed upon a little fragment of a gla.s.s cup,--and that, too, without becoming in the least glaring or flagrant, but mildly glorious, as we may fancy the shifting lines of an angel"s wing may be. I think this chaste splendor will glow in my memory for years to come. It is the effect of time, and cannot be imitated by any known process of art. I have seen it in specimens of old Roman gla.s.s, which has been famous here in England; but never in anything is there the brilliancy of these Oriental fragments. How strange that decay, in dark places, and underground, and where there are a billion chances to one that n.o.body will ever see its handiwork, should produce these beautiful effects! The gla.s.s seems to become perfectly brittle, so that it would vanish, like a soap-bubble, if touched.
Ascending the stairs, I went through the halls of fossil remains,--which I care little for, though one of them is a human skeleton in limestone,-- and through several rooms of mineralogical specimens, including all the gems in the world, among which is seen, not the Koh-i-noor itself, but a fac-simile of it in crystal. I think the aerolites are as interesting as anything in this department, and one piece of pure iron, laid against the wall of the room, weighs about fourteen hundred pounds. Whence could it have come? If these aerolites are bits of other planets, how happen they to be always iron? But I know no more of this than if I were a philosopher.
Then I went through rooms of sh.e.l.ls and fishes and reptiles and tortoises, crocodiles and alligators and insects, including all manner of b.u.t.terflies, some of which had wings precisely like leaves, a little withered and faded, even the skeleton and fibres of the leaves represented; and immense hairy spiders, covering, with the whole circ.u.mference of their legs, a s.p.a.ce as big as a saucer; and centipedes little less than a foot long; and winged insects that look like jointed twigs of a tree. In America, I remember, when I lived in Lenox, I found an insect of this species, and at first really mistook it for a twig. It was smaller than these specimens in the Museum. I suppose every creature, almost, that runs or creeps or swims or flies, is represented in this collection of Natural History; and it puzzles me to think what they were all made for, though it is quite as mysterious why man himself was made.
By and by I entered the room of Egyptian mummies, of which there are a good many, one of which, the body of a priestess, is unrolled, except the innermost layer of linen. The outline of her face is perfectly visible.
Mummies of cats, dogs, snakes, and children are in the wall-cases, together with a vast many articles of Egyptian manufacture and use,--even children"s toys; bread, too, in flat cakes; grapes, that have turned to raisins in the grave; queerest of all, methinks, a curly wig, that is supposed to have belonged to a woman,--together with the wooden box that held it. The hair is brown, and the wig is as perfect as if it had been made for some now living dowager.
From Egypt we pa.s.s into rooms containing vases and other articles of Grecian and Roman workmanship, and funeral urns, and beads, and rings, none of them very beautiful. I saw some splendid specimens, however, at a former visit, when I obtained admission to a room not indiscriminately shown to visitors. What chiefly interested me in that room was a cast taken from the face of Cromwell after death; representing a wide-mouthed, long-chinned, uncomely visage, with a triangular English nose in the very centre. There were various other curiosities, which I fancied were safe in my memory, but they do not now come uppermost.
To return to my to-day"s progress through the Museum;--next to the cla.s.sic rooms are the collections of Saxon and British and early English antiquities, the earlier portions of which are not very interesting to me, possessing little or no beauty in themselves, and indicating a kind of life too remote from our own to be readily sympathized with. Who cares for gla.s.s beads and copper brooches, and knives, spear-heads, and swords, all so rusty that they look as much like pieces of old iron hoop as anything else? The bed of the Thames has been a rich treasury of antiquities, from the time of the Roman Conquest downwards; it seems to preserve bronze in considerable perfection, but not iron.