In October, 1849, at the age of thirty, five years after his return from the South Seas, and two years after his marriage, Melville again left home. His departure was not prompted by any lack of diversion at home: there had been plenty of it at 103 Fourth Avenue. Melville’s brothers Allan and Tom, his sisters Augusta, Fanny and Helen, his mother, his wife, and the visits from Boston of the Shaws, had been a sufficiently varied company to divert any lover of humanity, and to enamour a misanthrope to the family hearth. Withal, Melville was not only a husband, but a father: and duties towards the support of the company with whom he lived were blatantly clear. For this support he depended solely upon the earnings from his books. In three years he had published five volumes: Typee, Omoo, Mardi (in two volumes) and Redburn. Though he had attracted wide attention as a writer, he was, nevertheless, in debt to his publishers. Despite sisters, and brothers, and wives, and babies, and mothers, and callers, he had stuck relentlessly to his desk, and another book—White-Jacket—he had finished in manuscript. His, as well as his sister Augusta’s, was “a pressing case.” So he decided to go to England, to make personal intercession with publishers, hoping thereby to improve his income from the other side of the Atlantic.

On October 11, 1849, after a detention of three or four days, owing to wind and weather, he went on board the tug Goliath a little after noon. A violent storm was blowing from the west, and with some confusion the passengers were transferred to the Southampton, a regular London liner that lay in the North River. By half-past five, with yards square, and sailing in half a gale, Melville was again out of sight of land.

“As the ship dashed on,” says Melville in his journal of the trip, “under double-reefed topsails, I walked the deck, thinking of what they might be doing at home, and of the last familiar faces I saw on the wharf—Allan was there, and George Duyckinck, and a Mr. McCurdy, a rich merchant of New York, who had seemed somewhat interested in the prospect of his son (a sickly youth of twenty, bound for the grand tour) being very romantic. But to my great delight, the promise that the Captain had given me at an early day, he now made good; and I find myself in the individual occupancy of a large state-room. It is as big almost as my own room at home; it has a spacious berth, a large wash-stand, a sofa, glass, etc., etc. I am the only person on board who is thus honoured with a room to himself. I have plenty of light, and a little thick glass window in the side, which in fine weather I may open to the air. I have looked out upon the sea from it, often, tho not yet 24 hours on board.”

The George Duyckinck who was among the party that had waved him off was, of course, one of two Duyckinck brothers who published in 1855 the two volume CyclopÆdia of American Literature: a work vituperated in its day for shocking omissions and inaccuracies. Both the work and its critics have now fallen into a decent oblivion. Withal, in this same antiquated CyclopÆdia is to be found one of the best informed summaries of the first half of Melville’s life ever printed.

On October 12, Melville records in his journal his impressions upon finding himself again on the ocean. “Walked the deck last night till about eight o’clock,” he says, “then made up a whist party and played till one of the number had to visit his room from sickness. Retired early and had a sound sleep. Was up betimes and aloft, to recall the old emotions of being at the mast-head. Found that the ocean looked the same as ever. Have tried to read but find it hard work. However, there are some very pleasant passengers on board, with whom to converse. Chief among these is a Mr. Adler, a German scholar, to whom Duyckinck introduced me. He is author of a formidable lexicon (German or English); in compiling which he almost ruined his health. He was almost crazy, he tells me, for a time. He is full of the German metaphysics and discourses of Kant, Swedenborg, etc. He has been my principal companion thus far. There is also a Mr. Taylor among the passengers, cousin of James Bayard Taylor, the pedestrian traveller. There is a Scotch artist on board, a painter, with a most unpoetical looking child, a young-one all cheeks and forehead, the former preponderating. Young McCurdy I find to be a lisping youth of genteel capacity, but quite disposed to be sociable. We have several Frenchmen and Englishmen. One of the latter has been hunting, and carries over with him two glorious pairs of antlers (moose) as trophies of his prowess in the Woods of Maine. We have also a middle-aged English woman, who sturdily walks the decks and prides herself upon her sea-legs, and being an old tar.” There was also aboard “a Miss Wilbur (I think) of New York.” Melville reports of Miss Wilbur that she “is of a marriageable age, keeps a diary, and talks about ‘winning souls to Christ.’” In the evening, Melville “walked the deck with the German, Mr. Adler, till a late hour, talking of ‘Fixed Fate, Free-will, free-knowledge absolute’ etc. His philosophy is Coleridgean; he accepts the Scriptures as divine, and yet leaves himself free to inquire into Nature. He does not take it, that the Bible is absolutely infallible, and that anything opposed to it in Science must be wrong. He believes that there are things not of God and independent of Him,—things that would have existed were there no God; such as that two and two make four; for it is not that God so decrees mathematically, but that in the very nature of things, the fact is thus.”

On the following morning, Melville was up early. “Opened my bull’s eye window, and looked out to the East. The sun was just rising—the horizon was red;—a familiar sight to me, reminding me of old times. Before breakfast, went up to the mast-head by way of gymnastics. About ten o’clock the wind rose, the sun fell, and the deck looked dismally empty. By dinner time, it blew half a gale, and the passengers mostly retired to their rooms, sea-sick. After dinner, the rain ceased, but it still blew stiffly, and we were slowly forging along under close-reefed top-sails—mainsail furled. I was walking the deck, when I perceived one of the steerage passengers looking over the side; I looked too, and saw a man in the water, his head completely lifted above the waves,—about twelve feet from the ship, right amast the gangway. For an instant, I thought I was dreaming; for no one else seemed to see what I did. Next moment, I shouted ‘Man Overboard!’ and turned to go aft. I dropped overboard the tackle-fall of the quarter-boat, and swung it toward the man, who was now drifting close to the ship. He did not get hold of it, and I got over the side, within a foot or two of the sea, and again swung the rope toward him. He now got hold of it. By this time, a crowd of people—sailors and others—were clustering about the bulwarks; but none seemed very anxious to save him. They warned me, however, not to fall overboard. After holding on to the rope, about a quarter of a minute, the man let go of it and dropped astern under the mizzen chains. Four or five of the seamen jumped over into the chains and swung him more ropes. But his conduct was unaccountable; he could have saved himself, had he been so minded. I was struck by the expression of his face in the water. It was merry. At last he dropped off under the ship’s counter, and all hands cried ‘He’s gone!’ Running to the taffrail we saw him again, floating off—saw a few bubbles, and never saw him again. No boat was lowered, no sail was shaken, hardly any noise was made. The man drowned like a bullock. It afterward turned out, that he was crazy, and had jumped overboard. He had declared he would do so, several times; and just before he did jump, he had tried to get possession of his child, in order to jump into the sea, with the child in his arms. His wife was miserably sick in her berth.”

In the steerage another crazy man was reported. But his lunacy turned out to be delirium tremens, consequent upon “keeping drunk for the last two months.”

Sunday the fourteenth was “a regular blue devil day; a gale of wind, and everybody sick. Saloons deserted, and all sorts of nausea heard from the state-rooms. Managed to get thro’ the day somehow, by reading and walking the deck, tho’ the last was almost as much as my neck was worth. Saw a lady with a copy of Omoo in her hand two days ago. Now and then she would look up at me, as if comparing notes. She turns out to be the wife of a young Scotchman, an artist, going out to Scotland to sketch scenes for his patrons in Albany, including Dr. Armsby. He introduced himself to me by mentioning the name of Mr. Twitchell who painted my portrait gratis. He is a very unpretending young man, and looks more like a tailor than an artist. But appearances are etc.—” The portrait painted by Mr. Twitchell is now not known to exist.

Monday broke fair. “By noon the passengers were pretty nearly all on deck, convalescent. They seem to regard me as a hero, proof against wind and weather. My occasional feats in the rigging are regarded as a species of tight-rope dancing. Poor Adler, however, is hardly himself again. He is an exceedingly amiable man, and a fine scholar whose society is improving in a high degree. This afternoon Dr. Taylor and I sketched a plan for going down the Danube from Vienna to Constantinople; thence to Athens on the steamer; to Beyrout and Jerusalem—Alexandria and the Pyramids. From what I learn, I have no doubt this can be done at a comparatively trifling expense. Taylor has had a good deal of experience in cheap European travel, and from his knowledge of German is well fitted for a travelling companion thro Austria and Turkey. I am full (just now) of this glorious Eastern jaunt. Think of it:—Jerusalem and the Pyramids—Constantinople, the Egean and also Athens!—The wind is not fair yet, and there is much growling consequently. Drank a small bottle of London stout to-day for dinner, and think it did me good. I wonder how much they charge for it? I must find out.”

On the sixteenth his journal looks back towards home. “What’s little Barney about?” he asks of his son Malcolm. And of his wife: “Where’s Orianna?” Four days later, having been “annoyed towards morning by a crying baby adjoining” he repeats this simple catechism.

The entire morning of the eighteenth—the day delightful and the ship getting on famously—Melville spent “in the maintop with Adler and Dr. Taylor, discussing our plans for the grand circuit of Europe and the East. Taylor, however, has communicated to me a circumstance that may prevent him from accompanying us—something of a pecuniary nature. He reckons our expenses at $400.” Though Melville played with this idea of the trip into the East for some days, he in the end was forced by lack of funds to give it up. Not until 1856 did he see Greece, and Constantinople, and the Holy Land, and then under tragic circumstances.

The rest of the week went by eventlessly. Melville read, lounged, played cards, went into the Ladies’ Saloon for the first time, there to “hear Mrs. Gould, the opera lady, sing.” When he comes to Sunday, October 21, he is unusually laconic: on ship board at least, Melville was in a mood to sympathise with Fielding’s liberties with the calendar in Tom Jones in counting six secular days as a full week. “Cannot remember what happened to-day,” he writes; “it came to an end somehow.” But on the morrow, his memory cleared. “I forgot to mention that last night about 9:30 P. M., Adler and Taylor came into my room, and it was proposed to have whiskey punches, which we did have accordingly. Adler drank about three tablespoons full—Taylor four or five tumblers, etc. We had an extraordinary time and did not break up till after two in the morning. We talked metaphysics continually, and Hegel, Schlegel, Kant, etc., were discussed under the influence of the whiskey. I shall not forget Adler’s look when he quoted La Place the French astronomer—‘It is not necessary, gentlemen, to account for these worlds by the hypothesis’, etc. After Adler retired, Taylor and I went out on the bowsprit—splendid spectacle.” Three days later there was further inducement to metaphysical discussion. “By evening blew a very stiff breeze and we dashed on in magnificent style. Fine moonlight night, and we rushed on thro’ snow-banks of foam. McCurdy invited Adler, the Doctor and I into his room and ordered champagne. Went on deck again and remained till near midnight. The scene was indescribable—I never saw such sailing before.”

On Saturday, October 27: “Steered our course in a wind. I played shuffle-board for the first time. Ran about aloft a good deal. McCurdy invited Adler, Taylor and I to partake of some mulled wine with him, which we did, in my room. Got—all of us—riding on the German horse again. Taylor has not been in Germany in vain. We sat down to whist, and separated at about three in the morning.”

On the morrow, “Decks very wet, and hard work to take exercise. (‘Where dat old man?’) Read a little, dozed a little and to bed early.” So passed another vacant Sabbath. In the margin opposite “Where dat old man?” Melville’s wife has added in pencil: “Macky’s baby words.” Melville thrice quotes this question of Malcolm’s—and each time Mrs. Melville explains it in the margin, and initials her explanation each time. The third time she writes: “First words of baby Malcolm’s. E.S.M.”

Monday was wet and foggy. Some of the passengers were sick. “In the afternoon tried to create some amusement by arraigning Adler before the Captain in a criminal charge. In the evening put the Captain in the chains, and argued the question ‘which was best, a monarchy or a republic?’ Had some good sport during the debate—the Englishman wouldn’t take part in it tho’.—After claret and stout with Monsieur Moran and Taylor, went on deck and found it a moonlight midnight. Wind astern. Retired at 1 A. M.”

On November 1, Melville wrote: “Just three weeks from home, and made the land—Start Point—about 3 P. M.—well up channel—passed the Lizzard. Very fine day—great number of ships in sight. Thro’ these waters Blake’s and Nelson’s ships once sailed. Taylor suggested that he and I should return McCurdy’s civilities. We did, and Captain Griswold joined and ordered a pitcher of his own. The Captain is a very intelligent and gentlemanly man—converses well and understands himself. I never was more deceived in a person than I was in him. Retired about midnight. Taylor played a rare joke upon McCurdy this evening, passing himself off as Miss Wilbur, having borrowed her cloak, etc. They walked together. Shall see Portsmouth to-morrow morning.”

Saturday, Nov. 3rd: “Woke about six o’clock with an insane idea that we were going before the wind, and would be in Portsmouth in an hour’s time. Soon found out my mistake. About eight o’clock took a pilot, who brought some papers two weeks old. Made the Isle of Wight about 10 A. M. High land—the Needles—Wind ahead and tacking. Get in to-night or to-morrow—or next week or year. Devilish dull, and too bad altogether. Continued tacking all day with a light wind from West. Isle of Wight in sight all day and numerous ships. In the evening all hands in high spirits. Played chess in the ladies’ saloon—another party at cards; good deal of singing in the gentlemen’s cabin and drinking—very hilarious and noisy. Last night every one thought. Determined to go ashore at Portsmouth. Therefore prepared for it, arranged my trunk to be left behind—put up a shirt or two in Adler’s carpet bag and retired pretty early.”

Sunday, Nov. 4th: “Looked out of my window first thing upon rising and saw the Isle of Wight again—very near—ploughed fields, etc. Light head wind—expected to be in a little after breakfast time. About 10 A. M. rounded the Eastern end of the Isle, when it fell flat calm. The town in sight by telescope. Were becalmed about three or four hours. Foggy, drizzly; long faces at dinner—no porter bottles. Wind came from the West at last. Squared the yards and struck away from Dover—distant 60 miles. Close reefed the topsails so as not to run too fast. Expect now to go ashore to-morrow morning early at Dover—and get to London via Canterbury Cathedral. Mysterious hint dropped me about my green coat. It is now eight o’clock in the evening. I am alone in my state-room—lamp in tumbler. Spite of past disappointments, I feel that this is my last night aboard the Southampton. This time to-morrow I shall be on land, and press English earth after the lapse of ten years—then a sailor, now H. M. author of Peedee, Hullabaloo and Pog-Dog. For the last time I lay aside my ‘log’ to add a line or two to Lizzie’s letter the last I shall write aboard. (‘Where dat old man?—Where looks?’)”

The account of his experiences in England is preserved in a separate note-book, formally beginning: “Commenced this journal at 25 Craven Street at 6½ P. M. on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 1849—being just arrived from dinner at a chop house, and feeling like it.”

“Mon. Nov. 5th, 1849: Having at the invitation of McCurdy cracked some champagne with him, I returned about midnight to my state-room, and at four in the morning was wakened by the Captain in person, saying we were off Dover. Dressed in a hurry, ran on deck, and saw the lights ashore. A cutter was alongside, and after some confusion in the dark, we got off in her for the shore. A comical scene ensued, the boatman saying we could not land at Dover, but only at Deal. So to Deal we went, and were beached there just at break of day. Some centuries ago a person called Julius CÆsar jumped ashore about in this place, and took possession. It was Guy Fawkes day also. Having left our baggage (that is, Taylor, Adler and myself) to go round by ship to London, we were wholly non-encumbered, and I proposed walking to Canterbury—distant 18 miles, for an appetite to breakfast. So we strode thru this quaint old town of Deal, one of the Cinque Ports, I believe, and soon were in the open country. A fine Autumnal morning and the change from ship to shore was delightful. Reached Sandwich (6 miles) and breakfasted at a tumble down old inn. Finished with ale and pipes, visited ‘Richbors’ Castle’—so called—a Roman fortification near the sea shore. An imposing ruin, the interior was planted with cabbages. The walls some ten feet thick grown over with ivy. Walked to where they were digging—and saw, defined by a trench, the exterior wall of a circus. Met the proprietor—an antiquary—who regaled me with the history of the place. Strolled about the town, on our return, and found it full of interest as a fine specimen of the old Elizabethan architecture. Kent abounds in such towns. At one o’clock took the 2nd class (no 3rd) cars for Canterbury. The cathedral is on many accounts the most remarkable in England. Henry II, his wife, and the Black Prince are here—and Becket. Fine cloisters. There is a fine thought expressed in one of the inscriptions on a tomb in the nave. Dined at the Falstaff Inn near the Westgate. Went to the theatre in the evening, & was greatly amused at the performance: More people on the stage than in the boxes. Ineffably funny, the whole affair. All three of us slept in one room at the inn—odd hole.

“Tuesday, Nov. 6th: Swallowed a glass of ale and away for the R. R. Station & off for London, distant some 80 miles. Took the third class car—exposed to the air, devilish cold riding against the wind. Fine day—people sociable. Passed thro Penshurst (P. S.’s place & Tunbridge—fine old ruin that). Arrived at London Bridge at noon. Crossed at once over into the city and down at a chop-house in the Poulberry—having eaten nothing since the previous afternoon dinner. Went and passed St. Paul’s to the Strand to find our house. They referred us elsewhere. Very full. Secured room at last (one for each) at a guinea and a half a week. Very cheap. Went down to the Queen’s Hotel to inquire after our ship friends—(on the way green coat attracted attention)—not in. Went to Drury Lane at Julien’s Promenade Concerts (admittance 1 s.) A great crowd and fine music. In the reading room to see ‘Bentley’s Miscellany’ with something about Redburn. (By the way, stopped at a store in the Row & inquired for the book, to see whether it had been published. They offered it to me at a guinea). At Julien’s also saw Blackwoods’ long story about a short book. It’s very comical. Seemed so, at least, as I had to hurry on it. But the wonder is that the old Tory should waste so many papers upon a thing which I, the author, know to be trash, and wrote it to buy some tobacco with. A good wash & turned in early.

“Thursday, Nov. 8th: Dressed, after breakfast at a coffee-house, and went to Mr. Bentley’s. He was out of town at Brighton. The notices of Redburn were shown me.—Laughable. Staid awhile, and then to Mr. Murray’s, out of town. Strolled about and went into the National Gallery. Dined with the Doctor & Adler, and after dark a ramble thro’ Chancery Lane and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, we turned into Holborn & so to the Princess’s Theatre in Oxford Street. Went into the pit at the hall price—one shilling. The part of a Frenchman was very well played. So also, skater on the ice.

“Friday, Nov. 9th: Breakfasted late and went into Cheapside to see the ‘Lord Mayor’s show’ it being the day of the great civic feast & festivities. A most bloated pomp, to be sure. Went down to the bridge to see the people crowding there. Crossed by Westminster, thro’ the Parks to the Edgeware Road, & found the walk delightful, the sun coming out a little, and the air not cold. While on one of the bridges, the thought struck me again that a fine story might be written about a Blue Monday in November London—a City of Dis (Dante’s) Cloud of Smoke—the damned, etc., coal boxes, oily waters, etc.—its marks are left upon you, etc., etc., etc.”

In Israel Potter (1855) Melville devoted one chapter to a description of London Bridge: a chapter entitled: “In the City of Dis.” The description begins: “It was late on a Monday morning in November—a Blue Monday—a Fifth of November—Guy Fawkes’ Day!—very blue, foggy, doleful and gunpowdery, indeed.” Melville had been husbanding for six years the impressions gathered on November 9, 1849.

On November 10, Melville received a reply to the note he had sent to Bentley announcing his presence in London. Bentley expressed a willingness to come up from Brighton to see Melville at any time convenient to Melville. Melville appointed “Monday noon, in New Burlington Street,” and went forth again to explore the city. He visited the Temple Courts. By way of Cock Lane—reflecting on Dr. Johnson’s Ghost—he walked on to the Charter House, “where I had a sociable chat with an old pensioner who guided me through some fine old cloisters, kitchens, chapels.” Saturday night, with Adler, he strolled over to Holborn “vagabonding thro’ the courts and lanes and looking in at windows. Stopped at a penny theatre—very comical. Adler afraid. To bed early.” On Sunday Melville went “down to Temple Church to hear the music,” looked in at St. Paul’s, and then, with Adler, “took a bus for Hampton Court.” They enjoyed the ride down, the pictures at Hampton Court, and then dinner at the Adelphi in the evening.

On Monday, Melville saw Bentley. “Very polite,” says Melville. “Gave me his note for £100 at ten days for Redburn. Couldn’t do better, he said. He expressed much anxiety and vexation at the state of the copyright question. Proposed my new book White-Jacket to him and showed him the table of contents. He was much pleased with it, and notwithstanding the vexatious and uncertain state of the copyright matter, he made me the following offer: To pay me £200 for the first thousand copies of the book (the privilege of publishing that number) and as we might afterwards arrange concerning subsequent editions. A liberal offer. But he could make no advance—left him and called upon Mr. Murray. Not in. Out of town.... Walked to St. Paul’s and sat over an hour in a dozy state listening to the chanting of the choir. Felt homesick and sentimentally unhappy.”

To sweeten his blood, he sallied forth, with Adler, early on the morrow, “to see the last end of the Mannings. An innumerable crowd in all the streets. Police by hundreds. Men and women fainting. The man and wife were hung side by side—still unreconciled to each other—what a change from the time they stood up to be married together! The mob was brutish. All in all, a most wonderful, horrible, and unspeakable scene.—Breakfasted about 11 A. M. and went to the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park. Very pretty. Fine giraffes. Dreary and rainy day.”

On the morrow “Rigged up again, and in my green jacket called upon Mr. Murray in Albemarle Street. He was very civil, much vexed about copyright matters. I proposed White-Jacket to him—he seemed decidedly pleased and has since sent for the proof sheets, according to agreement. That evening we went to the New Strand Theatre, to see Coleman’s The Clandestine Marriage.” Melville’s comment upon Leigh Murray, who played Melvil, would do credit to the lost diary of Mrs. Pepys: “the finest leg I ever saw on a man—a devilishly well turned-out man, upon my soul.”

The day following—November 15—was by the Queen appointed as a day of special thanksgiving. Melville again sallied forth sight-seeing. On the morrow he made two attempts to see Murray; the second found him in. “Very polite—but would not be in his line to publish my book.” On November 17, Colbour declined Melville’s offer of £200 for a thousand copies of White-Jacket, “and principally because of the cussed state of the copyright. Bad news enough—I shall not see Rome—I’m floored—appetite unimpaired, however.” On the 19th, he saw Longman, to be told “they bided by the original terms.” On the twentieth, he saw Moxen, the publisher. “Found him in—sitting alone in a back room. He was at first very stiff, cold, clammy and clumsy. Managed to bring him to, tho, by clever speeches. Talked of Charles Lamb—he warmed up and ended by saying he would send me a copy of his works. He said he had often put Lamb to bed—drunk. He spoke of Dana—he published D’s book here.” Moxen sent Melville copies of Lamb’s works: but Moxen did not accept Melville’s invitation to publish White-Jacket.

On November 22—after a jovial evening spent over porter, gin, brandy, whiskey, and cigars—Melville rose late, and with a headache. So he rode out to Windsor, to inspect the state apartments,—which he found “cheerlessly damned fine”—and to view the Royal Stables. “On the way down from the town, met the Queen coming from visiting the sick Queen Dowager. Carriage and four going past with outriders. The Prince with her. My English friend bowed, so did I—salute returned by the Queen but not by the Prince. I would commend to the Queen, Rowland’s Kalydon for clarifying the complexion. She is an amiable domestic woman though, I doubt not, and God bless her, say I, and long live the ‘Prince of Whales’—The stables were splendid.”

On Friday, November 23, at quarter to eleven, Melville “had just returned from Mr. Murray’s where I dined agreeable to invitation. It was a most amusing affair. Mr. Murray was there in a short vest and dress coat, looking quizzical enough; his footman was there also, habited in small clothes and breeches, revealing a despicable pair of sheepshanks. The impudence of the fellow in showing his legs, and such a pair of legs too! in public, I thought extraordinary. The ladies should have blushed, one would have thought, but they did not. Lockhart was there also, in a prodigious white cravat (made from Walter Scott’s shroud, I suppose). He stalked about like a half galvanised ghost,—gave me the tips of two skinny fingers, when introduced to me, or rather, I to him. Then there was a round faced chap by the name of Cook—who seemed to be Murray’s factotum. His duty consisted in pointing out the portraits on the wall and saying that this or that one was esteemed a good likeness of the high and mighty ghost Lockhart. There were four or five others present, nameless, fifth-rate looking varlets and four lean women. One of them proved agreeable in the end. She had visited some time in China. I talked with her some time. Besides these there was a footman or boy in a light jacket with bell-buttons.”

The lines following, Melville has heavily crossed out. They are, in most part, decipherable, however, and they are not excessively complimentary either to his host or the guest of honour. “I managed to get through, though, somehow,” Melville continues after this blotted abuse, “by conversing with Dr. Holland, a very eminent physician, it seems,—and a very affable, intelligent man who has travelled immensely. After the ladies withdrew, the three decanters, port, sherry and claret, were kept going the rounds with great regularity. I sat next to Lockhart and seeing that he was a customer who was full of himself and expected great homage, and knowing him to be a thoroughgoing Tory and fish-blooded Churchman and conservative, and withal editor of the Quarterly—I refrained from playing the snob to him like the rest—and the consequence was he grinned at me his ghastly smiles. After returning to the drawing-room coffee and tea were served. I soon after came away.” After two more blotted lines, Melville concludes: “Oh, Conventionalism, what a ninny thou art, to be sure. And now I must turn in.”

Melville continued to interview publishers, and publishers continued to chasten him with reflections on the state of the copyright laws. Between times he amused himself as best he could; but there was little novelty, brilliancy or excitement in the amusement. He was once entertained very formally at dinner, however: a Baroness Somebody on his left, an anonymous Baron opposite him, and near him at table “a most lovely young girl, a daughter of Captain Chamier, the sea novelist.” And in these brilliant surroundings, he saw a copy of Typee on a table in the drawing room. He ran upon an old friend of Gansevoort’s, too, and as a result was betrayed into sober and sentimental reflections. “No doubt, two years ago, or three, Gansevoort was writing here in London, about the same hour as this—alone in his chamber, in profound silence, as I am now. This silence, is a strange thing. No wonder the Greeks deemed it the vestibule to the higher mysteries.”

He paid for his sentimentality, however, by passing “a most extraordinary night—one continuous nightmare—till daybreak. Hereafter, if I should be condemned to purgatory, I shall plead the night of November 25, 1849, in extenuation of the sentence.”

On November 27, he abruptly left England, to find himself, two days following, “right snugly roomed in the fifth story of a lodging house No. 12 & 14 Rue de Bussy, Paris. It is the first night I have taken possession,” he says, “and the chambermaid has lighted a fire of wood, lit the candle and left me alone, at 11 o’clock P. M. On first gazing round, I was struck by the apparition of a bottle containing a dark fluid, a glass, a decanter of water, and a paper package of sugar (loaf) with a glass basin next to it. I protest all this was not in the bond. But tho if I use these things they will doubtless be charged to me, yet let us be charitable, so I ascribe all this to the benevolence of Madame Capelle, my most polite, pleasant and Frenchified landlady below. I shall try the brandy before writing more—and now to resume my Journal.” The account of Israel Potter’s first night in Paris, after Benjamin Franklin shows him into lodgings in the Latin Quarter, is certainly built upon Melville’s experience on this occasion. Israel finds in his room a heavy plate glass mirror; and among the articles genially reflected therein, he notes: “seventh, one paper of loaf sugar, nicely broken into sugar-bowl size; eighth, one silver teaspoon; ninth, one glass tumbler; tenth, one glass decanter of cool pure water; eleventh, one sealed bottle containing a richly hued liquid, and marked ‘Otard.’” Melville makes a chapter out of Israel’s adventures with this bottle of Otard,—a chapter in which Benjamin Franklin unburdens himself of much almanac moralising upon the almanac virtues.

Despite the Otard, and the snug quarters, and the diversions of Paris—diversions somewhat restricted by Melville’s complete inability to speak French—Melville was not happy every moment he was in France. “Fire made, and tried to be comfortable. But this is not home and—but no repinings.” Adler was in Paris at the time, however, and this somewhat cheered his solitude. Yet on December 2, when Melville left Adler after an evening of eau de vie and cigars, he “strolled out into a dark rainy night and made my melancholy way across the Pont (rather a biscuit’s toss of the Morgue) to my sixth story apartment.” And once safely in his room, he complained: “I don’t like that mystic door tapestry leading out of the closet.” On the following day he “looked in at the Morgue,” and “bought two pair of gloves and one pair of shoes for Lizzie.” That night, he dined with Adler, and “talked high German metaphysics till ten o’clock.”

He visited the Hotel de Cluny, and found “the house just the house I’d like to live in.” He made a half-hearted effort to see Rachel at the Theatre FranÇaise, but failed. He saw the obvious sights and on December 6 hurried away from Paris. He closes the record of his departure with a “Selah!” Even in Paris, he speaks of taking his “usual bath” upon getting up in the morning.

He touched at Brussels: and despite its architecture, “a more dull, humdrum place I never saw:” he hurried through Cologne, where he found “much to interest a pondering man like me.” From Cologne he was headed for Coblenz: but he looked forward to the voyage with little eagerness: “I feel homesick to be sure—being all alone with not a soul to talk to—but the Rhine is before me, and I must on.” Of Coblenz he wrote: “Most curious that the finest wine of all the Rhine is grown right under the guns of Ehrenbreitstein.” “Opposite is this frowning fortress—and some 4000 miles away is America and Lizzie. To-morrow I am homeward-bound! Hurrah and three cheers!” “In the horrible long dreary cold ride to Ostend on the coach, in a fit of the nightmare was going to stop at a way-place, taking it for the place of my destination.”

By December 13, he was back to his old chamber overlooking the Thames. Upon his arrival he was vaguely told “a gentleman from St. James called in his coach,” and “was handed, with a meaning flourish, a note sealed with a coronet.” The note was from the Duke of Rutland,—perversely called at times by Melville, Mr. Rutland—inviting Melville to visit Belvoir Castle “at any time after a certain day in January.” “Cannot go,” Melville writes—“I am homeward bound, and Malcolm is growing all the time.” He called at Bentley’s for letters. “Found one from Lizzie and Allan. Most welcome but gave me the blues most horribly. Felt like chartering a small boat and starting down the Thames embarked for New York.” So he drank some punch to cheer him, and walked down the Strand to buy a new coat, “so as to look decent—for I found my green coat plays the devil with my respectability here.” He haunted the bookshops, and “at last succeeded in getting the much desired copy of Rousseau’s Confessions,” as well as an 1686 folio of Sir Thomas Browne.

On December 15, Melville “rigged for Bentley, whom I expect to meet at 1 P. M. about White-Jacket. Called but had not arrived from Brighton. Walked about a little and bought a cigar case for Allan in Burlington Arcade. Saw some pretty things for presents—but could not afford to buy.” So back to his room he came, and filled up the time before four o’clock, when he was to call again at Bentley’s, by writing up his journal. “He does not know that I am in town,” Melville writes—“I earnestly hope that I shall be able to see him and I shall be able to do something about that ‘pesky’ book.”

At six o’clock, Melville was back again in his room. “Hurrah and three cheers! I have just returned from Mr. Bentley’s and have concluded an arrangement with him that gives me to-morrow his note for two hundred pounds (sterling). It is to be at 6 months and I am almost certain I shall be able to get it cashed at once. This takes a load off my heart. The two hundred pounds is in anticipiation, for the book is not to be published till the last of March next. Hence the long time of the note. The above mentioned sum is for the first 1000 copies, subsequent editions (if any) to be jointly divided between us. At eight to-night I am going to Mrs. Daniels’. What sort of an evening is it going to be? Mr. Bentley invited me to dinner for Wednesday at 6 P. M. This will do for a memorandum of the enjoyment. I have just read over the Duke of Rutland’s note, which I had not fully perused before. It seems very cordial. I wish the invitation was for next week, instead of being so long ahead, but this I believe is the mode here for these sort of invitations into the country. (Memo. At 1 P. M. on Monday am to call at Mr. Bentley’s.)”

Under Sunday, December 16, Melville wrote: “Last night went in a cab to Lincoln’s Inn Fields and found Mrs. Daniel and daughters. Very cordial. The elder ‘daught’ remarkably sprightly and the mother as nice an old body as any one could desire. Presently there came in several ‘young gents’ of various complexions. We had some coffee, music, dancing, and after an agreeable evening I came away at 11 o’clock, and walking to the Cock near Temple Bar, drank a glass of stout and home to bed after reading a few chapters in Tristram Shandy, which I have never yet read. This morning breakfasted at 10 at the Hotel De Sabloneue (very nice cheap little snuggery being closed on Sundays). Had a sweet omelette which was delicious. Thence walked to St. Thomas’s Church, Charter House, to hear my famed namesake (almost) ‘The Reverend H. Melvill.’ I had seen him placarded as to deliver a charity sermon. The church was crowded—the sermon admirable (granting the Rev. gentleman’s premises). Indeed he deserves his reputation. I do not think that I hardly ever heard so good a discourse before—that is for an ‘orthodox’ divine. It is now 3 P. M. I have had a fire made and am smoking a cigar. Would that one I knew were here. Would that the Little One too were here,—I am in a very painful state of uncertainty. I am all eagerness to get home—I ought to be home. My absence occasions uneasiness in a quarter where I most beseech heaven to grant repose. Yet here I have before me an open prospect to get some curious ideas of a style of life which in all probability I shall never have again. I should much like to know what the highest English aristocracy really and practically is. And the Duke of Rutland’s cordial invitation to visit him at the castle furnishes me with just the thing I want. If I do not go, I am confident that hereafter I shall reprimand myself for neglecting such an opportunity of procuring ‘material.’ And Allan and others will account me a ninny.—I would not debate the matter a moment were it not that at least three whole weeks must elapse ere I start for Belvoir Castle—three weeks! If I could but get over them! And if the two images would only down for that space of time. I must light a second cigar and resolve it over again. (½ past 6 P. M.) My mind is made, rather is irrevocably resolved upon my first determination. A visit into Leicester would be very agreeable—at least very valuable, and in one respect, to me—but the three weeks are intolerable. To-morrow I shall go down to London Dock and book myself a state-room on board the good ship Independence. I have just returned from a lonely dinner at the Adelphi, where I read the Sunday papers. An article upon the ‘Sunday School Union’ particularly struck me. Would that I could go home in a steamer—but it would take an extra $100 out of my pocket. Well, it’s only thirty days—one month—and I can weather it somehow.”

On Monday, Melville concluded his arrangements with Bentley, who gave him a note for two hundred pounds sterling at six months. Melville also walked down to the London Docks to inspect the Independence. “She looks small and smells ancient,” Melville writes. “Only two or three passengers engaged. I liked Captain Fletcher, however. He enquired whether I was a relative of Gansevoort Melville and of Herman Melville. I told him I was. I engaged my passage and paid ten pounds down.... Thence home; and out again, and took a letter for a Duke to the post office and a pair of pants to be altered to a tailor.”

On Tuesday, Melville made another of his many pilgrimages to the old book stores about Great Green Street and Lincoln’s Inn. “Looked over a lot of ancient books of London. Bought one (A. D. 1766) for 3 and 2 pence. I want to use it in case I serve up the Revolutionary narrative of the beggar.” What was the title of this “ancient book of London” is not known, and hence it is impossible to know what use he put it to, when in Israel Potter he did finally “serve up the Revolutionary narrative of the beggar.” The same day he “stopped at a silversmith’s (corner of Craven St. & Strand) and bought a solid spoon for the boy Malcolm—a fork, I mean. When he arrives to years of mastication I shall invest him with this fork—as in yore they did a young knight, with his good sword. Spent an hour or so looking over White-Jacket preparatory to sending it finally to Bentley—who, tho he has paid his money has not received his wares. At 6 I dine with him.”

The dinner with Bentley went off well. Melville “had a very pleasant evening indeed” and “began to like” his publisher “very much.” Melville reported that “He seems a very fine, frank, off-handed old gentleman. We sat down in a fine old room hung round with paintings (dark walls). A party of fourteen or so. There was a Mr. Bell there—connected with literature in some way or other. At all events an entertaining man and a scholar—but looks as if he loved old Pat. Also Alfred Henry Forester (‘Alfred Crowquill’)—the comic man. He proved a good fellow—free and easy and no damned nonsense, as there is about so many of these English. Mr. Bentley has one daughter, a fine woman of 25 and married, and four sons—young men. They were all at table. Some time after 11, went home with Crowquill, who invites me to go with him Thursday and see the Pantomime rehearsal at the Surrey Theatre.”

The following evening Melville dined with Mr. Cook—whom he had despised, at first meeting, as Murray’s factotum—in Elm Court, Temple, “and had a glorious time till noon of night. It recalled poor Lamb’s ‘Old Benchers.’ Cunningham the author of Murray’s London Guide was there and was very friendly. Mr. Rainbow also, and a grandson Woodfall, the printer of Junius, and a brother-in-law of Leslie the printer. Leslie was prevented from coming. Up in the 5th story we dined.” With a typical departure from the conventional orthography, Melville pronounced the evening, “The Paradise of Batchelors.”

In Harper’s New Monthly Magazine for April, 1854, Melville published a sketch entitled Paradise of Bachelors and Tartarus of Maids. In 1854 he was living in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in a household of women and young children—three of his sisters, his mother, his wife, and three of his own children. So surrounded, he had relinquished none of the pleasant memories of that December evening, in 1849, in those high chambers near Temple-Bar. “It was the very perfection of quiet absorption of good living, good drinking, good feeling, and good talk,” Melville wrote in 1854. “We were a band of brothers. Comfort—fraternal, household comfort, was the grand trait of the affair. Also, you could plainly see that these easy-hearted men had no wives or children to give an anxious thought. Almost all of them were travellers, too; for bachelors alone can travel freely, and without any twinges of their conscience touching desertion of the fireside.” The antithesis of this, Melville pictures in the second part of his account—The Tartarus of Maids.

Yet just on the eve of his going to these high festivities in the Temple, a letter was left him—“from home!” The letter reported: “All well and Barney (“Baby boy,” Mrs. Melville has written in annotation on the margin of the journal) more bouncing than ever, thank heaven.” On the following day, Melville began and finished the Opium Eater, and pronounced it “a most wonderful book.”

On December 24, Melville was in Portsmouth. On Christmas morning he jumped into a small boat with the Captain and a meagre company of passengers, and “pulled off for the ship about a mile and a half distant. Upon boarding her we at once set sail with a fair wind, and in less than 24 hours passed the Land’s End and the Scilly Isle—and standing boldly out on the ocean stretched away for New York. I shall keep no further diary. I here close it, with my departure from England, and my pointing for home.”

On a blank page at end of his journal, he jotted some brief “Memoranda of things on the voyage.” He noted Sir Thomas Browne’s reference to cannibals in Vulgar Errors, and the fact that Rousseau, as a school master “could have killed his scholars sometimes.” He observed that “a Dandy is a good fellow to scout and room with;” and copied out from Ben Jonson “Talk as much folly as you please—so long as you do it without blushing, you may do it with impunity.” He itemised in his journal, too, the books obtained while abroad: a 1692 folio of Ben Jonson; a 1673 folio of Davenant; a folio of Beaumont and Fletcher; a 1686 folio of Sir Thomas Browne, and a folio of Marlowe’s plays. He brought with him, also, a Hudibras, a Castle of Otranto, a Vathek, a Corinne, besides the confessions of Rousseau and of DeQuincey, and the autobiography of Goethe. The other books were guides, old maps, and other material for Israel Potter.

Melville arrived at 103 Fourth Avenue, on February 2, 1850. Mrs. Melville, in her journal, thus summarises her husband’s trip. “Summer of 1849 we remained in New York. He wrote Redburn and White-Jacket. Same fall went to England and published the above. Stayed eleven weeks. Took little satisfaction in it from mere homesickness, and hurried home, leaving attractive invitations to visit distinguished people—one from the Duke of Rutland to pass a week at Belvoir Castle—see his journal.”

Of his life after his return home, she says: “We went to Pittsfield and boarded in the summer of 1850. Moved to Arrowhead in fall—October, 1850.”

On September 27, 1850, Bayard Taylor dispatched from the Tribune Office, New York, a note to Mary Angew. “Scarcely a day passes,” Taylor wrote, “but some pleasant recognition is given me. I was invited last Friday to dine with Bancroft and Cooper; on Saturday with Sir Edward Belcher and Herman Melville. These things seem like mockeries, sent to increase the bitterness of my heart.” It is not unlikely that Melville and Taylor fed and drank and smoked together on that Saturday evening, and that they parted, each envying the other as a happy and successful man.