Hawkestone Park, Jan. 2nd, 1827.

Beloved friend,

Though I felt perfectly ‘blasÉ’ of parks yesterday, and thought I could never take any interest in them again, I am quite of another mind to-day, and must in some respects give Hawkestone the preference over all I have seen. It is not art, nor magnificence, nor aristocratical splendour, but nature alone, to which it is indebted for this pre-eminence, and in such a degree that were I gifted with the power of adding to its beauty, I should ask, What can I add?

Turn your imagination to a spot of ground so commandingly placed, that from its highest point you can let your eye wander over fifteen counties. Three sides of this wide panorama rise and fall in constant change of hill and dale, like the waves of an agitated sea, and are bounded at the horizon by the strangely-formed jagged outline of the Welsh mountains, which at either end descend to a fertile plain shaded by thousands of lofty trees, and in the obscure distance where it blends with the sky is edged with a white misty line—the ocean.

The Welsh mountains are partly covered with snow, and all the cultivated country between so thickly intersected with hedge-rows and trees, that at a distance it has rather the appearance of a thinly planted wood, here and there broken by water or by numberless fields and meadows. You stand directly in the centre of this scene, on the summit of a group of hills, looking down over the tops of groves of oaks and beeches alternating with the most luxuriant slopes of meadow-land, upon a wall of rock five or six hundred feet high, which forms numerous steep precipices and pretty valleys. In one of the gloomiest spots of this wilderness arise the venerable ruins of ‘the Red Castle,’ a magnificent memorial of the time of William the Conqueror.

Now imagine this whole romantic group of hills, which rises isolated from the very plain, to be surrounded almost in a perfect circle by the silver waves of the river Hawke. This naturally bounded spot is Hawkestone Park, a spot whose beauties are so appreciated even in the neighbourhood, that the brides and bridegrooms of Liverpool and Shrewsbury come here to pass their honeymoon. The park seems indeed rather the property of the public than of its possessor, who never resides here, and whose ruinous and mean-looking house lies hidden in a corner of the park, like a ‘hors d’oeuvre.’ There is, however, a pretty inn, in which visitors find all that is needful to their comfort. Here we passed the night, and after a good breakfast ‘Á la fourchette,’ set out on our long excursion on foot; for the roads are so bad that we could not drive. Our scrambling walk, almost dangerous in winter, lasted four hours.

We crossed a grassy plain, shaded by oaks and covered with grazing cattle, to the rocks I have mentioned, in which the pale green veins show the existence of copper. They rise out of a lofty hanging wood of old beeches, and are crowned at their summits with black firs, the whole effect of which is most striking. In this natural wall is a grotto, which, after climbing wearily along a zig-zag path in the wood, you reach through a dark covered way more than a hundred feet long, hewn in the rock. The grotto consists of numerous caverns incrusted with all sorts of minerals. There are small openings in which are set pieces of coloured glass cut like brilliants; in the dark they gleam like the precious stones of Aladdin’s cave. An old woman was our guide, and excited our wonder by her unwearied walking, and the dexterity with which she climbed up and down the rocks in slippers. The irregular steps of stone were as smooth as glass, and so difficult sometimes to pass over, that our good R——, who had iron heels to his boots, complained bitterly of the efforts he had to make to keep himself up. We reached a summer-house, built of trunks and branches of trees and covered with moss, which commanded a picturesque view of a fantastic hill called the Temple of Patience. Our way then led us to the so-called Swiss Bridge, which is boldly thrown from one rock to another. As the railing is partly broken down and the passage rather a dizzy one, my good Julia, if it were possible for her to have come thus far, would have found an end to her expedition. How fortunate it is to have such an unwearied guide through the regions of imagination—one who bears you in an instant across the giddy bridge, and now places you before a black tower-like rock projecting out of the glittering beeches, overgrown with thorns and festooned with garlands of ivy! This was long the abode of a fox, who lived secure from pursuit in his castle of Malapartus; it is still called Reynard’s House. We went on, up hill and down dale, and at length, rather tired, reached the terrace, an open place with beautiful peeps at the country cut in the wood. Not far from thence, behind very high trees, stands a column a hundred-and-twenty feet high, dedicated to the founder of the family,—a London merchant and Lord Mayor of London in the time of Henry the Third,—whose statue crowns the pillar. A convenient winding staircase in the inside leads to its summit, whence you overlook the panorama of fifteen counties already mentioned. You pass through still wider chasms between the rocks to a lovely cottage, standing in complete seclusion at the end of a green valley, where formerly various beasts and birds were kept, which are now preserved stuffed in a room of the cottage. A young woman showed them to us, with the strange announcement,—‘All these animals that you see used to live formerly.’ I spare you the green-house built of masses of rock and branches of trees, and the Gothic tower—a sort of summer-house, and lead you a long, long way through wood, then over green hills and through a narrow defile to the magnificent ruin, the sublimely situated Red Castle. The decayed walls and the hewn rocky sides are of great extent. You can reach the interior only through a winding passage blasted in the rock, so utterly dark that I found myself obliged to use my guide’s petticoat as an Ariadne’s clue, for I literally could not see my hand before my eyes. Out of this tunnel you emerge into a picturesque alley of rock, with smooth high walls overarched with mountain-ashes. On the side you perceive a cavern, the mouth of which is still closed with a rusty iron gate. Climbing rude steps in the rock, you reach the upper part of the ruin—a high roofless tower, in whose walls, fifteen feet thick, many trees centuries old have struck their roots, and in the interior of which is a well, which appears to sink down to the entrails of the earth. The massy and unshaken barrier around it, the lofty tower through which the sky appears above, and the bottomless depth beneath, where reigns eternal night, produce an effect I never remember to have experienced. You see Hope and Despair allegorically united in one picture before you. The tower, and the rock on which it stands, look down from a giddy height, in a perfectly perpendicular line, upon the valley, in which the huge trees appear like copse-wood.

By a somewhat considerable leap of the imagination you reach a New Zealander’s hut on the banks of a little lake, built many years ago from a drawing of Captain Cook’s, and furnished with arrows, spears, tomahawks, skulls of eaten enemies, and such-like pretty trifles, the innocent luxuries of these children of nature.

Here we closed our walk, leaving unseen several devices which deform the place, and which, as well as (alas!) the paths, are somewhat in decay. But these defects are slight, in a whole so full of sublime and wondrously-varied natural beauty.

Newport, Jan. 3rd.

It is winter in good earnest;—the earth covered with ice and six inches of snow, and the cold in the rooms, so insufficiently warmed by open fires, almost insufferable. As I passed the greater part of the day in the carriage, I have little to tell.

Birmingham, Jan. 4th.

To-day too we saw nothing remarkable on our road but a newly laid out park through which we drove, with a small but elegant garden, with very pretty flower-stands of various sorts, and baskets, all of fine wire, and clothed with creepers. R—— was obliged to draw them with stiff fingers.

The inn at which we ate our luncheon bore the date 1603 carved in stone, and is the prettiest specimen of a cottage in an antique style, with brickwork in various patterns, I have met with. Towards evening we reached Birmingham, where I am reposing comfortably after the excessive cold.

January 6th.

The whole day has been, as in my last visit, devoted to the manufactories and warehouses. The poor workmen, however, have a bad time of it. Their earnings are sufficient, it is true; but many of their occupations are of such a kind that the slightest neglect or carelessness may be productive of the most dreadful consequences. I saw a man whose business it is to hold the piece of metal out of which livery buttons are stamped. He has had his thumbs twice shattered, and they are now only little formless lumps of flesh. Wo to those whose clothes approach too near to the steam-engines or other hideous machines! Many a one has this inexorable power seized and crushed, as the boa crushes its helpless prey. Some occupations are as unhealthy as those of the lead-works in Siberia; and in others there is a stench which a stranger can scarcely endure for a minute.

Everything has its dark side,—this advanced state of manufacture among the rest; but that is no reason for rejecting it.

Even virtue has its disadvantages when it oversteps the bounds of moderation; while on the other hand the greatest evil, crime itself not excepted, has its bright spots.

It is remarkable that, in spite of this wonderful progress in all discoveries, the English have not yet been able, as Mr. Thomasson assured me, to rival the iron-castings of Berlin. What I saw of this kind were immeasurably inferior. I am sometimes tempted to think that we are arrived at that point at which, far as the English now excel us, they will begin to descend, and we to ascend. But as they have to fall from such a height, and we to rise from such a depth, a long time may elapse before we arrive at the meeting-point. However, as I said, I think we have started on the road. Deutschland, Gluck auff! if thy sons obtain but freedom, their efforts will succeed.

Stratford-on-Avon, Jan. 6th.

This day’s journey was not long, but full of interest; for the place whence my letter is dated is the birth-place of Shakspeare.

It is profoundly affecting to see the familiar trifles which centuries ago stood in immediate and domestic contact with so great and beloved a man; then to visit the place where his bones have long been mouldering; and thus in a few moments to traverse the long way from his cradle to his grave. The house in which he was born, and the very room hallowed by this great event, still stand almost unchanged. The latter is perfectly like a humble tradesman’s room, such as we commonly find them in our small towns; quite suited to the times when England stood on the same step of civilization which the lower classes still occupy with us. The walls are completely covered with the names of men of every country and rank; and although I do not particularly like the parasitical appendages on foreign greatness, like insects clinging to marble palaces, yet I could not resist the impulse of gratitude and veneration, which led me to add my name to the others.

The church on the Avon (the same river which washes the noble walls of Warwick,) where Shakspeare lies buried, is a beautiful remnant of antiquity, adorned with numerous remarkable monuments; among which, that of the chief of poets is, of course, the most conspicuous. It was formerly painted and gilded, as was the bust; but through the stupidity of a certain Malone, was whitewashed over about a century ago, by which it lost much of its singular character. The bust is far from having any merit as a work of art: it is devoid of expression, and probably, therefore, of resemblance. It was not without a considerable outlay of trouble and money that I succeeded in getting a little engraving of the monument in the original colours,—the last copy the clerk’s wife had, as she assured me. I send it with my letter.

I also bought in a bookseller’s shop several views of the place, and of the objects I have mentioned. In the town-house there is a large picture of Shakspeare, painted in more recent times; and a still better one of Garrick, which has some resemblance, not only in the features but the ‘tournure’ to Iffland.

Oxford, Jan. 7th.

After having given the ‘parkomanie’ two days rest, we revived it to-day, having visited no less than four great parks, the last of which was the famous Blenheim. But in order:—‘ExÉcutez vous.’

First we passed through Eastrop Park, remarkable in as far as it is of the time in which the French style had just begun to decline; but at this transition period the change was as yet so slight, that avenues of clumps, of different but regularly alternating figures, replaced avenues of single trees; and hedges were planted in serpentine lines. The whole appeared in great decay.

Ditchley Park is more beautiful. Unfortunately, the English climate played us a sad trick to-day. In the morning (for the second time since we left London) the sun shone, and we were triumphing in our good luck, when suddenly there fell such a fog that during the whole remaining day we never could see a hundred steps before us,—often scarcely ten. In the house we found a number of good pictures, especially very fine portraits, but no creature could tell us whom they represented. We learned nothing new in our art, but we found a novelty in another department. In the gamekeeper’s lodge, in default of spoils of nobler beasts, were about six dozen rats nailed up, their legs and tails displayed with great taste.

Our third visit was to Blandford Park, belonging to Lord Churchill; very inconsiderable as a park, but the house contains some noble pictures. Two, I particularly envied the possessor. The first, a female figure, attributed, no doubt falsely, to Michael Angelo. The drawing is certainly bold, but there is a truth and elasticity in the flesh, a Titian-like colouring, and a lovely archness of expression, which betray no Michael Angelo,—even suppose the assertion to be false, that we possess no oil-paintings of that great master.

The second riveted me still more;—a Judith ascribed to Cigoli, a painter whose works I do not remember to have seen. The subject is common enough: the triumphant virgin, with the trunkless head in her hand, has always appeared to me rather disgusting than attractive; but here the artist has diffused an expression over Judith’s elevated and captivating face, which appears to me to be conceived in the very spirit of poetry.

I had rather possess good copies of such exquisite pictures, than less interesting originals by great masters:—it is the poetical not the technical part of a work of art that has charms for me. I pass over a fine collection of drawings by Raphael, Claude, and Rubens, and many interesting portraits.

The horrid fog was thicker and thicker, and we saw Blenheim as if by twilight. In grandeur and magnificence it is doubtless extraordinary; and I was much pleased with what I saw, or rather divined; for it was all shrouded in a veil, behind which the sun appeared rayless, like the moon. The house is very large and regular, built, unhappily, in the old French style, and truly royal in magnificence. The park is five German miles in circumference, and the piece of water, the finest work of its kind existing, occupies alone eight hundred acres. The pleasure-grounds are on an equally vast scale; forty men are daily employed in mowing. Opposite to the house the water forms a cascade, so admirably constructed of large masses of rock brought from a great distance, that it is difficult to believe it artificial.

One cannot help admiring the grandeur of Brown’s genius and conceptions, as one wanders through these grounds: he is the Shakspeare of gardening. The plantations have attained to such a height that we saw a single Portugal laurel growing out of the turf, which measured two hundred feet in circumference.

The present possessor, with an income of seventy thousand pounds, is so much in debt that his property is administered for the benefit of his creditors, and he receives five thousand a year for his life. It is a grievous pity that he spends this little in pulling in pieces Brown’s imposing gardens, and modernizing them in a miserable taste; transforming the rich draperies which Brown had thrown around Nature, into a harlequin jacket of little clumps and beds. A large portion of the old pleasure-ground is thus destroyed; as the old gardener, almost with tears in his eyes, remarked to us. Many noble trees lay felled around; and a black spot on the turf showed the place where a laurel, nearly as large as the one I mentioned, lately stood in all its pride and beauty. I thought with grief how vain it is to attempt to found anything lasting, and saw in imagination those of my successors who will destroy the plantations which we have designed and tended together with so much fondness. Blenheim is chiefly situated on the spot where stood the ancient royal park of Woodstock (which you remember from Walter Scott’s last novel). A great part of the oak wood which existed in the time of the unhappy Rosamond is still alive, and dying in an agony of a century’s duration. There are perfect monsters of oaks and cedars, both as to form and size. Many are so entirely enwreathed with ivy that it has killed them, but at the same time clothed them with a new and more beautiful evergreen foliage which enwraps the decayed trunk, like a magnificent shroud, till it falls into dust.

Deer, pheasants and cattle, people the park, whose green plains seemed, in the uncertain mist, boundless as the sea; in some places, bare as a Steppe, in others thickly planted.

The interior of the house looks rather neglected, but contains a number of valuable works of art. It must be confessed that never did a nation bestow a richer reward on one of its great men than Blenheim, which is princely even in its minutest details.[38]

As we entered, there was such a smoke that we thought we had to encounter a second fog in the house. Some very dirty shabby servants—a thing almost unheard-of here—ran past us to fetch the ‘ChÁtelaine,’ who, wrapped in a Scotch plaid, with a staff in her hand and the air of an enchantress, advanced with so majestic an air towards us, that one might have taken her for the Duchess herself. The magic wand was for the purpose of pointing more conveniently to the various curiosities. As a preliminary measure, she required that we should inscribe our names in a large book: unhappily, however, there was no ink in the inkstand, so that this important ceremony was necessarily dispensed with. We passed through many chill and faded rooms, decorated with numerous and fine pictures, though among them are many inferior ones, on which the names of Raphael, Guido, &c. are liberally bestowed. The gallery is extremely rich in fine and genuine Rubens’; the most attractive among which, to me, was his own frequently repeated but excellent portrait. I was also much interested by a whole length portrait of the wild Duke of Buckingham, by Van Dyk,—a rouÉ of a very different sort, both in the delicate turn of the features, the chivalrous dignity, and the tasteful dress, from our modern ones. Further on is a beautiful Madonna, by Carlo Dolce, less smooth and ‘banale’ than most of those by the same master; and an excellent and most characteristic portrait of Catharine of Medicis. She is very fair, with exquisitely beautiful hands, and a singular expression of cold passion (if I may use the words) in her features, which yet does not excite the feeling of repulsion one would anticipate. Ruben’s wife hangs opposite to her,—a handsome Flemish housewife, somewhat vulgar, but beautifully painted and admirably conceived. Philip the Second, by Titian, appeared to me unmeaning:—two beggar boys, by Morillo, admirable. Lot and his daughters, by Rubens;—the female figures somewhat less vulgar and coarse than most of his beauties, who generally have too much in common with the chief produce of his native country: Lot is admirably painted: the picture is however a very unpleasing one. In the bedroom was hung, oddly enough, a disgusting, fearful picture of Seneca’s death in the bath,—Seneca already a livid corpse.

The portrait of the Duke’s mother by Sir Joshua Reynolds is extremely pleasing. Her beauty and sweet child-like look were worthy of a Madonna; and the little boy is a perfect Cupid, full of archness and grace.

The library is a magnificent room, containing seventeen thousand volumes, decorated on the one side with a marble statue of Queen Anne; on the other, a strange pendant—a colossal antique bust of Alexander; a model of youthful beauty, in my opinion excelling the Apollo Belvedere. It is more human, and yet the god-like nature appears through the human,—not indeed in the christian, but the pagan sense of the word.

It is but fair to notice the portrait of the great Duke of Marlborough, to whom this whole splendid edifice owes its existence. His history is remarkable in many points of view: I especially advise every man who wishes to make his fortune to study it attentively; he may learn much from a character so formed to get on in the world.—The following anecdote has always appeared to me remarkable, insignificant as was the incident.

The Duke was one day overtaken by a violent shower of rain while riding with his suite. He asked his groom for his cloak; and not receiving it at the instant, repeated his order in a rather hasty tone. This provoked the man, and he replied with an impertinent air, “Well, I hope you will wait just till I have unbuckled it.” The Duke, without evincing the slightest irritation, turned smiling to the person next him, and said, “Now would I not for all the world be of that fellow’s temper.”

The more well-known story of the ‘petulance’ of the Duchess of Castlemaine, which Churchill turned to such good account, and which in the strangest way laid the basis of his great career, showed an entirely similar ‘disposition,’ and power over himself.

In night and fog we reached Oxford, where I alighted at the Star, and refreshed myself with an admirable dinner prepared by a French cook from London. Though I do not, like the ancients, regard cooks as objects of religious veneration, I cannot deny that I have singular respect for their art: ‘Il est beau au feu’ may be said with as much justice of a virtuoso of this kind, as of the most dashing soldier; and in the field of politics and diplomacy, every minister knows how much he is indebted to his cook.

My excursion draws to a close, and in three days I hope to send off B—— with all the materials he has collected, like a bee laden with honey.

January 8th.

Oxford is a most singular city. Such a crowd of magnificent Gothic buildings, from five hundred to a thousand years old, can nowhere else be found collected in one place. There are spots in which you can imagine yourself transported back to the fifteenth century. You see nothing around you but monuments of that period, without a single incongruous object. Many, nay almost all, of these old colleges and churches are also very beautiful in detail, and all of a most picturesque character. I have often wondered why we do not adopt many of the details of this style of architecture; for instance, the broad light windows in two or three divisions, sometimes diversified with large bows and irregularly divided; only habit could make us endure the uniform rows of square holes which we call windows.

I went first to the so-called Theatre, which was built by a bishop three hundred years ago. The iron railing which surrounds it has, instead of pillars, a sort of ‘termini’ with the heads of the Roman Emperors, a strange fancy, but the effect is not bad. In this theatre—which, as might be expected from its origin, is more like a church—the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the Prince Regent were made Doctors, and were obliged to appear in scarlet robes. The portraits of all three have since been placed here. The King of England in his coronation robes—an admirable picture by Lawrence, worthy of ancient times—hangs in the centre, in a most splendid frame; on either side, in far simpler frames and simpler garb, hang the Emperor of Russia, and the King of Prussia, also by Lawrence. The King is not like: of the Emperor Alexander I never saw a better portrait.

At the University Stereotype Press, where the printing of a sheet on both sides is accomplished in five minutes, I again displayed my activity, and had the honour to print a sheet, which I send you as companion to the Birmingham button: it contains some interesting incidents concerning the Maccabees.

A great deal of the printing for the Bible Society is done here; and if it goes on at this rate, the time will soon arrive concerning which a periodical called ‘The Catholic,’ of the year 1824, prophesied in this wise: “If it comes to that, that all read the Bible, the world will be a fit abode only for wild beasts.” If “the Catholic” means that all will understand it, he may be right, for then the whole human race will be ripe for another world. Nevertheless I am so far of “the Catholic’s” mind, that I think the indiscriminate diffusion of the Bible among all,—even the rudest savages,—is throwing pearls before swine.

I next went to the Museum, which contains a very heterogeneous mixture of things. On the staircase as you enter is a picture of the battle of Pavia, in which the principal figures are portraits painted at the time, as is expressed on the canvass. It is precisely in the style of the old miniatures, and very interesting for the accuracy of the dresses and armour: under it is the inscription “Comen les gens de Lempereur deffirent les francoys en lan 1525.” Portraits of Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Richelieu also adorn the staircase. Under them was that of Tradescant, a noted gardener of Charles the First, from which it was impossible to tear his colleague R—— away; he looked at the picture with a sort of protecting air, and was specially delighted with a garland of mulberries and cucumbers which picturesquely surrounded this father of gardeners. The most interesting thing in the picture, to me, was the portrait of a strange large bird; worthy of the Arabian Nights, called Dodo, which belonged to the gardener when alive, and whose like has never been seen in these parts since. As a proof that this is no fable, they showed us the genuine head and beak—wonderfully odd.

In the collection of natural history were a great many rare parrots, and a curious bird with spikes on its wings, with which it spears fish as with a lance. The diminutive warrior, who is only six inches high, looks uncommonly fierce and bold; he is like a miniature crane, only much more cunning and pugnacious. Here is the duck-billed platypus, that strange animal from New Holland. The productions of that part of the globe are so unlike those of all the others, that they almost make one imagine it belongs to another era of creation, or that it dropped on our earth from some wandering star.

The colours of a picture made of humming-bird’s feathers seemed something unearthly. Equally curious was a bas-relief of a knight in splendid gold-green armour made of beetles’ wings. Our modern knights might be very handsomely represented in steel-blue armour, made from the wings of the dung-beetle. I cannot attempt to give you an inventory of the cabinet of curiosities; I confined myself, as I always do, to what struck me, which was not always the most celebrated;—a jewelled glove of Henry the Eighth’s;—an autograph letter of Queen Elizabeth’s to Lord Burleigh, beautifully written;—a pretty riding-cloak and shoe of the Maiden Queen, which latter proves the extreme beauty of her foot; lastly, her watch, with a tasteful chain consisting of five medallions in a row, each containing hair of a different colour—probably of her chief favourites. Far more curious and sacred is a medallion with a portrait rudely executed in mosaic, and an inscription signifying that it belonged to the great Alfred. This precious relic was found ten years ago in ploughing a field in the island of Athelney, where Alfred lay hidden from the Danes.

I must now conduct you to the picture-gallery built by Elizabeth, and preserved exactly ‘in statu quo.’ The roof is of wainscot panelled, and in each panel a coat-of-arms, which has a most antique and magnificent effect. Very good models of the principal temples of antiquity stand in the ante-room. There are some excellent pictures. The one which charmed me the most was an authentic portrait of Mary of Scotland, by Zuccaro, painted just after her arrival from France, and brilliant in all the indescribable radiance and fascination of her youth and freshness. It is easy to understand how it was that this woman had only passionate adorers and devoted partisans, or furious enemies. A face more, in the true sense of the word, charming,—seductive,—can scarcely be imagined: with all its French graces, it however betrays the selfishness of the beauty, the recklessness of unbridled passion; but of malignity or vulgarity, such as we see, the former in Elizabeth, the latter in Catharine of Medicis, not a trace;—in short, a perfectly womanlike, and therefore perfectly captivating character of countenance, with all the virtues and all the weaknesses and vices of her sex in their fullest proportions. I should think the possession of such a picture a real happiness,—that of the original might give one too much trouble. The same artist painted a portrait of Elizabeth, precisely like that at Warwick. The Earl of Leicester, taken shortly before his death, is extremely interesting. His face is as elegant and high-bred as it is handsome; and though not indicative of genius, has the expression of a sagacious, dignified, and powerful man. There are no remains of the brilliancy of youth, but a proud complacent consciousness of secure unalterable favour. In a copy of the School of Athens by Giulio Romano, I admired once more the exquisite face of the young duke of Urbino,—that ideal of soft youthful beauty:—the loveliest girl might be more than satisfied with the possession of it. Garrick’s portrait, by Raphael Mengs, did not answer my idea of that great actor so perfectly as the one at Stratford-on-Avon. I was delighted with a picture of Charles the Twelfth, by SchrÖter,—every inch a grand Don Quixotte: and with a very characteristic Charles the Second, by Sir Peter Lely. Charles’ aspect, like his age, seems to me entirely French, even to his features, which are strikingly like those of Bussy Rabutin. His father hangs near,—a more attractive picture than usual. He has unquestionably a fine face, with very speaking eyes; but the soft, melancholy, ideological expression too plainly shows that the bearer of such features was little fitted to encounter such a man as Cromwell, or such an age as that he lived in. It is the greatest calamity for a prince to fall upon an ill-suited time, unless he be strong enough to impress his own stamp upon it. The great Locke, by Gibson, is a pale attenuated student. Near him is a handsome portly Luther, by Holbein;—the stately Handel, by Hodson;—and Hugo Grotius, with his acute, crafty, and yet high chivalrous face, more that of an energetic man of the world than of a man of letters. These are the subjects that struck me the most.

January 9th.

To-day I have walked all over Oxford; and I cannot express with what intense delight I wandered from cloister to cloister, and refreshed myself at this living spring of antiquity.

There is a magnificent avenue of elms, which like the buildings around it, dates from the year 1520. From this queen of avenues, in which not a single tree is wanting, and which leads through a meadow to the river, you see on one side a charming landscape, on the other a part of the city, with five or six of the most beautiful Gothic towers,—ever a noble view, but to-day rendered almost like a picture of fairy enchantment: the sky was overcast, the wind drove the black fantastic clouds, like a herd of wild beasts, across it; at length the most beautiful rainbow, vaulting from one tower and descending on another, spanned the whole city.

From this ancient seat of the Muses of England, from all its colleges,—each different from the other,—each enclosing a spacious court, and adorned with noble towers,—each with its own more or less beautifully ornamented church, its library and picture-gallery, all in their kind of new and varied interest,—I carry away the most agreeable recollections. If you can bear to drink again and again from the old cup, you shall accompany me in my rambles.

My first walk was to the Ratcliffe Library; a round and modern building,—erected, that is, in the last century, at Dr. Ratcliffe’s cost,—nearly in the centre of the town. The interior is simply a rotunda in three stages or stories, with a cupola and two open galleries, whence side-rooms radiate from the inner, to the outer circles. Below are casts of the best antiques. A small winding staircase leads to a side tower, from the roof of which you have a splendid view of the Gothic palaces pointing to heaven with their hundred spires. The surrounding country is cheerful, fertile, and well wooded. There are four-and-twenty colleges (a sort of cloister for education,) and thirteen churches in this small town, containing only sixteen thousand inhabitants.

From hence we proceeded to Henry the Eighth’s Library, preserved, externally and internally, in nearly its original state, and containing not less than three hundred thousand volumes. The ‘locale’ is like no other of the kind, and transports one completely into past ages. The cruciform room; the strange shelves; the iron gratings, half blue, half gilded, and of a form no longer seen; the enormous windows, as broad as three church windows together and ornamented with beautiful coloured glass; the gay gilded ceiling, with numberless panels, each containing the picture of an open Bible with four crowns; even the Doctors sitting at the tables in the dress of Luther, which they still wear,—how strangely is the fancy excited by such a scene! A gallery runs round midway of the high shelves, for the purpose of reaching the books above. On the railing of this gallery are hung the portraits of the various librarians, from the first to the last; some, unhappily, in modern dresses, who look like apes among their venerable predecessors. In the middle of the room the shelves are so arranged on either side, that they form a long alley of enclosed closets, in which every man who wishes to use the library can work completely undisturbed,—an old and most exemplary arrangement. There are also books in the rooms which occupy the whole ground-floor of this quadrangular edifice. Here are some very curious manuscripts and specimens of early printing. I saw with sorrow how large a tribute the poverty of Germany has been compelled to pay to the wealth of England; among other things, a magnificent copy of Faust’s first Bible, of the year 1440, which I think belonged to our Doctor Barth, and is inscribed with a number of notes in his handwriting. I was delighted to find a manuscript so exactly like a volume of Froissart in our library, (that with the miniatures in every leaf,) embellished with the same arabesques of fruit and flowers on a gold ground, the style and colouring of the figures so precisely the same, that it is scarcely to be doubted they are by the same painter. Unfortunately there is neither name nor date. The text is Quintus Curtius,—all the figures exactly in the costume of the time of the illuminator: Alexander, cased in iron from head to foot, breaks a lance with Darius, and throws him from his saddle, just in the style of the French and English Knights in Froissart.

A very curious French manuscript, the subject of which is an heroic poem, contains the name of the writer with the date 1340, (an extremely rare occurrence,) and under it the name of the painter with the date 1346; this gives reason to conclude that the latter had spent six years in the illuminating, which is almost all executed on a very unusual design, in gold, blue and red in squares, like a carpet. This manuscript is peculiarly interesting from the circumstance that the painter, instead of enclosing the text within a border or arabesque, has surrounded it with a representation of the trades, sports, and pastimes of his time. A cursory glance showed me, together with many games and occupations which we have lost, so many which are still so precisely the same, that I was really surprised. For instance, a masked-ball; Kammerchen vermiethen;[39] the Handespiel, or ‘gioco di villano;’ the same with the feet, which we boys often used to play in winter to warm ourselves; throwing at cocks, and cockfighting; rope-dancers and conjurors; horse-riders and trained horses, whose feats are more wonderful than ours; rifle-shooting at a man who (‘mille pardons’) turns himself in unseemly wise to the company, like one still existing on a gate at Lausitz; a smithy, where a horse is shoeing; a wagon, with three large cart-horses harnessed out at length, with harness, &c. all in the present form, even the driver’s costume,—a blue slop—the very same; and many other things which I have not time to notice,—showed that though many things change, yet an infinite deal remains unaltered, and perhaps, ‘À tout prendre,’ human life is more the same in different ages than we generally imagine.

A Boccacio, with exquisitely beautiful miniatures, is one of the show-pieces of the library. A copy of the Acts of the Apostles, of the seventh century, in Greek and Latin, is shown as a great curiosity: each line contains only one word in each language. Considering its great antiquity, it is in very good preservation.

In the beautiful court of All Souls College—which moreover is carpeted with the finest turf—there is a spot whence you have a most magnificent view of spires, towers, and faÇades of ancient buildings, rising in unbroken series, one behind another, without the least mixture of modern houses. Here is another noble library. In the middle is an orrery, which illustrates our solar system very clearly, and keeps equal course with the sun and planets through the year.

Christ’s College is a beautiful building of modern times; a part of it only is very old. The church is of Saxon architecture; round and pointed arches intermingle, but do not at all offend the eye. Here is the famous shrine of St. Frisdewilde, a most magnificent and tasteful Gothic monument of the beginning of the eighth century, and still in good preservation. It was enriched with silver Apostles and other ornaments, which were plundered in Cromwell’s time. That unhappy religious war did irreparable damage to the antiquities of England; till then, all these sacred relics were in perfect preservation.

Attached to this college is that most charming walk I described to you above. It leads us to Magdalen College, which has been in part newly restored. The restoration is perfectly in the ancient style, and renders this part of the building secure for five hundred years to come; it has already cost forty thousand pounds, though but a small part is completed:—it may be imagined what enormous sums the execution of such works from the foundation would cost. Nothing great in art can be executed now, for the money it would cost is absolutely unattainable. The sum which formerly purchased a god-like work of Raphael’s, would now (even allowing for the difference in the value of money) scarcely buy a moderate portrait by Lawrence. The Botanic Garden, which closed our walk, contains nothing worth describing. I therefore release you for the present, my dear Julia; ‘mais c’est Á y revenir demain.’

Buckingham, Jan. 10th.

It is a sin how long my private journal has been neglected. The more my letters to you swell, the more does my unhappy journal shrink. If you were to burn these letters, I should have no trace of what had become of me all this time. Imagine how unpleasant to vanish from one’s own memory!

My imagination is so ‘montÉe’ by the many vestiges and echoes of past times, that I dream of a distant future, in which even ruins will be no more,—in which we shall lose not only these shadows of humanity, but human nature itself, and begin a new life in new spheres. For in remembrance, say what you will, we entirely lose that which we actually were;—even here, the old man nearly loses himself as a child. We may indeed find ourselves again, my best friend, and then will the tie that binds us necessarily re-unite. Let this satisfy us.

‘Mais revenons À nos moutons;—c’est À dire, parlons de nouveau de parcs.’

Dreadful weather—rain and darkness, detained me at Oxford till three in the afternoon, when it cleared sufficiently for me to set out. The postilion missed the road, which is not a main one, and drove us a long way about, so that we arrived very late. While the fire was lighting in my room, I sat down in mine host’s, where I found a very pretty girl, his niece, and two doctors of the place, with whom I talked away the evening very pleasantly.

Aylesbury, Jan. 11th.

Stowe is, like Blenheim, another specimen of English grandeur and magnificence. The park embraces a large tract of undulating ground, with fine trees; the house is a noble building in the Italian style. The grounds were laid out long ago; and though in many respects beautiful, and remarkable for fine lofty trees, are so overloaded with temples and buildings of all sorts, that the greatest possible improvement to the place would be the pulling down ten or a dozen of them. There is a charming flower-garden, thickly surrounded with high trees, firs, cedars and evergreens, and flowering shrubs. The parterre forms a regular pattern like a carpet, in front of a crescent-formed house filled with rare birds. In the middle of this carpet is a fountain, and on either side are two pretty ‘voliÈres’ of wire.

In the park stands a tower called the Bourbon Tower, from the circle of limes around it which Louis the Eighteenth planted during his long residence at Hartwell in this neighbourhood. The tower, though modern, is half fallen in. I wish this be no ill omen for the Bourbons in France, where even the sage Charter-giver could obtain no better titles from his subjects than ‘Louis l’InÉvitable,’ and ‘Deux Fois Neuf.’

Here is a monument deserving of mention, dedicated to the great men and women of England, with very appropriate inscriptions, and busts modelled after the best pictures.

The faÇade of the building is four hundred and fifty feet long, and as long is the unbroken ‘enfilade’ of rooms in the ‘bel Étage,’ which you enter from the garden by a fine flight of steps. You pass through a bronze door into an oval marble hall with a beautiful dome, whence alone it is lighted. A circle of twenty pillars of red scagliola marble surrounds it, and in the niches between them are ten antique statues. The floor is paved with real marble, and a gilded grating admits heated air. I will not weary you with further description of the rooms;—they are very rich, and all more or less decorated with pictures and curiosities. The state bed-room, which is not used, is crowded with fine porcelain, and contains a curious old bed of embroidered velvet with gold fringe.

In a boudoir near were many other curiosities, which we were only permitted to see through a grating. The loss of a ruby necklace formerly belonging to Marie Antoinette, is the very sufficient reason for this prohibition, which is never removed but in the Duke’s presence.

The library is a long gallery covered from top to bottom with shelves, with a light and elegant gallery in the middle. An adjoining room, fitted up in the same way, contains nothing but maps and engravings, probably one of the richest collections in the world. This seems the peculiar taste of the present Duke.

The hall on the other side of the house, looking on the park, commands a view which struck me as quite peculiar. You see a large open grassy plain, skirted on either side by an oak wood, and in the middle and back ground meadows and wood interspersed. In the centre of the plain, about sixty or seventy paces from the house, stands, perfectly isolated, a colossal snow-white equestrian statue, of admirable workmanship. The pedestal is so high that the horseman seems to rest on the top of the wood behind him. Not a building, nor any other object than trees, grass, and sky, are visible; and the whole scene so utterly still and inanimate, that the white spectral image rivets the attention:—no finer decoration for Don Juan could be imagined. It happened, too, by a fortunate chance, that the sky on that side of the house was perfectly black with a threatening snow-storm, so that the dazzling white statue stood out in almost fearful grandeur. At the moment, it looked alive, and every muscle seemed to rise in the sharp lights.

Among the pictures is a treasure which seems to be unknown to our German travellers, at least I never saw it noticed:—a genuine portrait of Shakspeare, painted during his lifetime by Barnage. The hypercritics of England will have it there is no genuine portrait of Shakspeare; but it seems to me almost impossible to invent a physiognomy carrying on it such a triumphant air of truth, so fully expressing the grandeur and originality of the man; furnished with all the intellectual elevation, all the acuteness, wit, delicacy, all the genuine humour, whose exhaustless treasures were never so lavished on any mortal. The countenance is nowise what is vulgarly called handsome; but the sublime beauty of the mind within beams from every part. Across the lofty forehead gleam the bright flashes of that daring spirit; the large dark brown eyes are penetrating, fiery, yet mild; around the lips play light irony and good-natured archness, but wedded to a sweet benevolent smile, which lends the highest, the most heart-winning charm to the lofty, awful dignity of the intellectual parts of the face. Wondrously perfect appears the structure of the skull and forehead; there are no single prominences, but all the organs so capacious and complete that we stand astonished before such a glorious pattern of perfect organization, and feel a deep joy at finding the man in so beautiful a harmony with his works.

Two excellent Albrecht DÜrers—a pair of female saints in a fantastic landscape—attracted me, particularly by their primitive German character. They are two genuine NÜrnberg housewives, dressed in their fatherlandish caps, and taken from nature itself; good-natured, and busied about their saintly affairs.—A picture of Luther, by Holbein, is more intellectual and less fat than usual.

There is a remarkable picture, by Van Dyk, of the Duke of Vieuxville, ambassador from the Court of France to Charles the First, who with chivalrous devotion followed the King into the field and was killed at Newbury. The dress is old, but picturesque;—a white ‘juste-au-corps, À la Henri Quatre,’ with a black mantle thrown over it; full short black breeches falling over the knee, with silver points; pale violet stockings with gold clocks, and white shoes with gold roses. On the mantle is embroidered the star of the Holy Ghost, four times as large as it is now worn, the blue riband ‘en sautoir,’ but hanging down very low, and the cross worn in the present fashion, on the side; it is narrower and smaller than now, and hangs by the broad riband almost under the arm.

The Duke de Guise was not such as I had pictured him to myself:—a pale face with reddish beard and hair; with the expression rather of an ‘intriguant’ than of a great man.—A picture which corresponds better with the character of the person it represents is Count Gondemar, Spanish ambassador to the Court of James the First, by Velasquez; he ingratiated himself with the King by his dog-Latin, in which burlesque form he made free to say anything. He brought the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh to the scaffold by his Jesuitical intrigues.

A picture of Cromwell, by his Court painter Richardson, has a double interest for the family. It was painted expressly for one of the Duke’s ancestor’s, who appears in the same picture as page, in the act of tying the Protector’s scarf. This portrait is not much like the others of the same personage I have seen; it represents him as younger, and of a more refined nature, and is therefore probably flattered. From the hand of a Court painter this is to be expected.

I must only mention two fine and large Teniers’, one of which represents three wonderfully characteristic Dutch boors, meeting in a village and gossiping with their pipes in their mouths; an excellent Ruysdael; six famous Rembrandt’s, and Titian’s lovely mistress. I admired, too, a new specimen of art,—two SÈvres cups with miniatures after PÉtitot, by that admirable porcelain-painter Madame Janquotot. The one represents Ninon de l’Enclos, of whom I had never before seen a picture that answered to my idea of her. This expressed her character fully, and is of the most attractive beauty,—genuine French, lively as quicksilver, bold almost to impudence, but too generous and too truly natural to leave any other than an engaging impression on the mind. The other—a gentle, placid, and voluptuous beauty—- was inscribed, FranÇoise d’Orleans de Valois. As thoroughly initiated in French genealogies and memoirs, you will know who she is. ‘Je l’ignore.’ Each cup cost a thousand francs.

In a beautiful moonlight we drove to Aylesbury, whence I now write.

Uxbridge, Jan. 12th.

This evening I hope to be in London again. While the horses are putting-to I write a few words. We saw Lord Carrington’s park this morning,—for your comfort be it said, the last, at present at least. The garden is nothing remarkable: the house is in the beloved modern Gothic style, but, being simple and unpretending, looks less affected. It is built of stone, without ornament. A good portrait of Pitt hangs in the library. This great man has anything but the face of a man of genius,—and who knows whether posterity will think his deeds betray more than his face?

One thing pretty I observed in the garden,—a thick massy wreath of ivy planted on the turf. It looks as if negligently dropped there. Our excursion was to be closed by the sight of Bulstrode, which Repton describes at such length as the model of parks; but this drop is spared you, my poor Julia, for the Duke of Portland has sold it, and the present owner has felled the trees about which Repton is so enthusiastic, ploughed up the park, and pulled down the house to sell the stone. It was a miserable scene of desolation,—made more miserable by the strange dress of the women at work; they were wrapped from top to toe in blood-red cloaks, and looked like an ill-omened assemblage of executioners.

London, Jan. 13th.

By bright gas-light, which is always like a festal illumination here, we drove into town, and as I wished to have an instant contrast with my park-and-garden life, I alighted at Covent Garden to see my first Christmas pantomime. This is a very favourite spectacle in England, particularly with children; so that I was quite in my place. Playwrights and scene-painters take great pains to make every year’s wonders exceed the last. Before I bid you good-night I must give you a rhapsodical sketch of the performance. At the rising of the curtain a thick mist covers the stage and gradually rolls off. This is remarkably well managed by means of fine gauze. In the dim light you distinguish a little cottage, the dwelling of a sorceress; in the back-ground a lake surrounded by mountains, some of whose peaks are clothed with snow. All as yet is misty and indistinct;—the sun then rises triumphantly, chases the morning dews, and the hut, with the village in the distance, now appear in perfect outline. And now you behold upon the roof a large cock, who flaps his wings, plumes himself, stretches his neck, and greets the sun with several very natural Kikerikys.[40] A magpie near him begins to chatter and to strut about, and to peck at a gigantic tom-cat lying in a niche in the wall, who sleepily stretches himself, cleans his face, and purrs most complacently. This tom-cat is acted with great ‘virtuositÉ’ by an actor who is afterwards transformed into Harlequin. The way in which he plays with a melon, the lightness and agility with which he climbs up the chimney and down again, his springs, and all his gesture, are so natural that they could only be acquired by a long study of the animal himself. Happily the scenic art is come to that, that it no longer suffers men to be excelled by poodles and monkeys, but has actually raised them to the power of representing those admired animals to the life.

Meanwhile the door opens, and Mother Shipton, a frightful old witch, enters with a son very like herself. The household animals, to whom is added an enormous duck, pay their morning court to the best of their ability. But the witch is in a bad humour, utters a curse upon them all, and changes them on the spot into the persons of the Italian comedy, who, like the rest of the world, persecute each other without rest, till at last the most cunning conquers. The web of story is then spun on through a thousand transformations and extravagances, without any particular connexion, but with occasional good hits at the incidents of the day; and above all, with admirable decorations, and great wit on the part of the machinist. One of the best scenes was the witch’s kitchen. A rock cleaves open and displays a large cave, in the midst of which more than a cart-load of wood forms the fire, before which a whole stag with its antlers, a whole ox, and a pig, are turning rapidly on the spit. On a hearth on the right side is baking a pie as big as a wagon, and on the left a plum-pudding of equal calibre is boiling. The ‘chef de cuisine’ appears with a dozen or two assistants in a grotesque white uniform, with long tails, and each armed with a gigantic knife and fork. The commandant makes them go through a ludicrous exercise, present arms, &c. He then draws them up ‘en pÉloton’ to baste the roast, which is performed with ladles of the same huge proportions as the other utensils, while they industriously fan the fire with their tails.

The scene next represents a high castle, to which the colossal ‘batterie de cuisine’ is conveyed like a park of artillery. It appears smaller and smaller along the winding path, till at length the pie disappears in the horizon like the setting moon.

Next we are transported into a large town, with all sorts of comical inscriptions on the houses, most of them satires on the multitude of new inventions and companies for all manner of undertakings; such as, “Washing Company of the three united kingdoms;” “Steam-boat to America in six days;” “Certain way of winning in the lottery;” “Mining shares at ten pounds a share, by which to become worth a million in ten years.” The fore-ground exhibits a tailor’s workshop, with several journeymen busily stitching away in the ‘rez de chaussÉe; a pair of shears six yards long are fixed over the door as a sign, with the points upwards. Harlequin arrives, pursued by Pantaloon and Co., and springs through the air with a somerset in at a window on the first story, which breaks with a loud crash. The pursuers drawing back from the ‘salto mortale,’ tumble over and thump each other with artist-like skill and wonderful suppleness. Ladders are now brought, and they climb into the house after Harlequin: but he has made his escape through the chimney, and runs off over the roofs. Pantaloon with his long chin and beard leans out of the window before which the shears are placed, to see which way Harlequin is gone. Suddenly the parted blades shut to, and his head falls into the street. Pantaloon, not a whit the less, runs down stairs and rushes out at the door after his rolling head;—unluckily a poodle picks it up and runs off with it, and Pantaloon after him. But here he meets Harlequin again, disguised as a doctor, who holds a consultation with three others as to what is to be done for the unhappy Pantaloon. They at length decide to rub the place where the head is wanting with Macassar oil; and by means of this operation a new head happily grows under the eye of the spectators.

In the last act, Tivoli at Paris is well given. A balloon ascends with a pretty child. While he floats from the stage over the heads of the audience the earthly scene gradually sinks, and as the balloon reaches the lofty roof, where it makes a circuit round the chandelier, the stage is filled with rolling clouds through which a thousand stars shine and produce a very pretty illusion.

As the balloon sinks, town and gardens gradually rise again. A rope is next stretched, on which a lady drives a wheelbarrow to the summit of a Gothic tower, in the midst of fire-works; while other ‘equilibristes’ perform their break-neck feats on level ground.

At the conclusion, the stage is transformed, amid thunder and lightning, into a magnificent Chinese hall with a thousand gay paper lanterns; where all spells are dissolved, the witch banished to the centre of the earth by a beneficent enchanter, and Harlequin, recognized as legitimate prince, marries his Columbine.

On our way home we had another and more terrible spectacle, gratis. A lofty column of lurid smoke poured from a chimney, and soon became tinged with blue, red and green;—the nearer we came the thicker and more variegated it ascended, like one of the Chinese fireworks we had just seen. “Probably,” said I to R——, “a chemical laboratory, if it be not indeed a fire in earnest.” Hardly had I said the words when my fears were fulfilled. Cries resounded from all sides, the flames streamed wildly forth towards heaven, the people flocked together, and fire-engines soon rattled through the streets. But the huge city swallows up all particular incidents,—five hundred steps further, and the fire in the neighbourhood excited no interest whatever; the guests in an illumined mansion danced merrily, the play-goers walked quietly home, and all traces of alarm or sympathy were lost.

But, my dear Julia, ‘il faut que tout finesse’—and so must my long narrative, which certainly furnishes you with a sheet for every year of my life. That it ends with fire you must take as an emblem of ardent love,—and here it is not necessary, as your superstition requires, to exclaim “In a good hour be it said.” Every hour, even the most unfortunate, is good—where love is.

Your L——.