116. LETTER CXVI.
Spent my first day in London in wandering about
the finest part of the West End. It is nonsense to
compare it to any other city in the world. From the
Horse-Guards to the Regent's Park alone, there is
more magnificence in architecture than in the whole
of any other metropolis in Europe, and I have seen
the most and the best of them. Yet this, though a
walk of more than two miles, is but a small part even
of the fashionable extremity of London. I am not
easily tired in a city; but I walked till I could scarce
lift my feet from the ground, and still the parks and
noble streets extended before and around me as far as
the eye could reach, and strange as they were in reality,
the names were as familiar to me as if my childhood
had been passed among them. “Bond Street,”
“Grosvenor Square,” “Hyde Park,” look new to my
eye, but they sound very familiar to my ear.
The equipages of London are much talked of, but
they exceed even description. Nothing could be more
perfect, or apparently more simple than the gentleman's
carriage that passes you in the street. Of a
modest color, but the finest material, the crest just visible
on the panels, the balance of the body upon its
springs true and easy, the hammercloth and liveries of
the neatest and most harmonious colors, the harness
slight and elegant, and the horses “the only splendid
thing” in the establishment—is a description that answers
the most of them. Perhaps the most perfect
thing in the world, however, is a St. James's-street
stanhope or cabriolet, with its dandy owner on the
whip-seat, and the “tiger” beside him. The attitudes
of both the gentleman and the “gentleman's gentleman”
are studied to a point, but nothing could be
more knowing or exquisite than either. The whole
affair, from the angle of the bell-crowned hat (the
prevailing fashion on the steps of Crockford's at present),
to the blood legs of the thorough-bred creature
in harness, is absolutely faultless. I have seen many
subjects for study in my first day's stroll, but I leave
the men and women and some other less important features
of London for maturer observation.
In the evening I kept my appointment with Lady
Blessington. She had deserted her exquisite library
for the drawing-room, and sat, in fuller dress, with six
or seven gentlemen about her. I was presented immediately
to all, and when the conversation was resumed,
I took the opportunity to remark the distinguished
coterie with which she was surrounded.
Nearest me sat Smith, the author of “Rejected Addresses”—a
hale, handsome man, apparently fifty,
with white hair, and a very nobly-formed head and
physiognomy. His eye alone, small and with lids
contracted into an habitual look of drollery, betrayed
the bent of his genius. He held a cripple's crutch in
his hand, and though otherwise rather particularly
well dressed, wore a pair of large Indiarubber shoes—
the penalty he was paying doubtless for the many good
dinners he had eaten. He played rather an aside in
the conversation, whipping in with a quiz or a witticism
whenever he could get an opportunity, but more a listener
than a talker.
On the opposite side of Lady B. stood Henry Bulwer,
the brother of the novelist, very earnestly engaged
in a discussion of some speech of O'Connell's.
He is said by many to be as talented as his brother,
and has lately published a book on the present state
of France. He is a small man, very slight and gentleman-like,
a little pitted with the smallpox, and of
very winning and persuasive manners. I liked him at
the first glance.
His opponent in the argument was Fonblanc, the
famous editor of the Examiner, said to be the best
political writer of his day. I never saw a much worse
face—sallow, seamed, and hollow, his teeth irregular,
his skin livid, his straight black hair uncombed and
straggling over his forehead—he looked as if he might
be the gentleman
Whose “coat was red, and whose breeches were blue.”
A hollow, croaking voice, and a small, fiery black eye,
with a smile like a skeleton's, certainly did not improve
his physiognomy. He sat upon his chair very awkwardly,
and was very ill-dressed, but every word he
uttered showed him to be a man of claims very superior
to exterior attraction. The soft musical voice,
and elegant manner of the one, and the satirical sneering
tone and angular gesture of the other, were in
very strong contrast.
A German prince, with a star on his breast, trying
with all his might, but, from his embarrassed look,
quite unsuccessfully, to comprehend the drift of the
argument, the Duke de Richelieu, whom I had seen
at the court of France, the inheritor of nothing but
the name of his great ancestor, a dandy and a fool,
making no attempt to listen; a famous traveller just
returned from Constantinople; and the splendid person
of Count D'Orsay in a careless attitude upon the
ottoman, completed the cordon.
I feel into conversation after a while with Smith,
who, supposing I might not have heard the names of
the others, in the hurry of an introduction, kindly
took the trouble to play the dictionary, and added a
graphic character of each as he named him. Among
other things he talked a great deal of America,
and asked me if I knew our distinguished countryman,
Washington Irving. I had never been so
fortunate as to meet him. “You have lost a great
deal,” he said, “for never was so delightful a fellow.
I was once taken down with him into the country by a
merchant, to dinner. Our friend stopped his carriage
at the gate of his park, and asked us if we would walk
through his grounds to the house. Irving refused
and held me down by the coat, so that we drove on to
the house together, leaving our host to follow on foot.
`I make it a principle,' said Irving, `never to walk
with a man through his own grounds. I have no idea
of praising a thing whether I like it or not. You and I
will do them to-morrow morning by ourselves.”' The
rest of the company had turned their attention to
Smith as he began his story, and there was a universal
inquiry after Mr. Irving. Indeed the first questions
on the lips of every one to whom I am introduced
as an American, are of him and Cooper. The
latter seems to me to be admired as much here as
abroad, in spite of a common impression that he dislikes
the nation. No man's works could have higher
praise in the general conversation that followed, though
several instances were mentioned of his having shown
an unconquerable aversion to the English when in England.
Lady Blessington mentioned Mr. Bryant, and
I was pleased at the immediate tribute paid to his delightful
poetry by the talented circle around her.
Toward twelve o'clock, “Mr. Lytton Bulwer” was
announced, and enter the author of Pelham. I had
made up my mind how he should look, and between
prints and descriptions thought I could scarcely be
mistaken in my idea of his person. No two things
could be more unlike, however than the ideal Mr.
Bulwer in my mind and the real Mr. Bulwer who followed
the announcement. Imprimis, the gentleman
who entered was not handsome. I beg pardon of the
boarding-schools—but he really was not. The engraving
of him published some time ago in America is as
much like any other man living, and gives you no idea
of his head whatever. He is short, very much bent
in the back, slightly knock-kneed, and, if my opinion
in such matters goes for anything, as ill-dressed a man
for a gentleman, as you will find in London. His figure
is slight and very badly put together, and the only
commendable point in his person, as far as I could
see, was the smallest foot I ever saw a man stand upon.
Au reste, I liked his manners extremely. He
ran up to Lady Blessington, with the joyous heartiness
of a boy let out of school; and the “how d'ye, Bulwer!”
went round, as he shook hands with everybody,
in the style of welcome usually given to “the best fellow
in the world.” As I had brought a letter of introduction
to him from a friend in Italy, Lady Blessington
introduced me particularly, and we had a long
conversation about Naples and its pleasant society.
Bulwer's head is phrenologically a fine one. His
forehead retreats very much, but is very broad and
well marked, and the whole air is that of decided mental
superiority. His nose is aquiline, and far too large
for proportion, though he conceals its extreme prominence
by an immense pair of red whiskers, which entirely
conceal the lower part of his face in profile.
His complexion is fair, his hair profuse, curly, and of
a light auburn, his eye not remarkable, and his mouth
contradictory, I should think, of all talent. A more
good-natured, habitually-smiling, nerveless expression
could hardly be imagined. Perhaps my impression
is an imperfect one, as he was in the highest spirits,
and was not serious the whole evening for a minute—
but it is strictly and faithfully my impression.
I can imagine no style of conversation calculated
to be more agreeable than Bulwer's. Gay, quick, various,
half-satirical, and always fresh and different from
everybody else, he seemed to talk because he could
not help it, and infected everybody with his spirits. I
can not give even the substance of it in a letter, for it
was in a great measure local or personal. A great
deal of fun was made of a proposal by Lady Blessington,
to take Bulwer to America and show him at so
much a head. She asked me whether I thought it
would be a good speculation. I took upon myself to
assure her ladyship, that, provided she played showman,
the “concern,” as they would phrase it in America,
would be certainly a profitable one. Bulwer said he
would rather go in disguise and hear them abuse his
books. It would be pleasant, he thought, to hear the
opinions of people who judged him neither as a member
of parliament nor a dandy—simply a book-maker.
Smith asked him if he kept an amanuensis. “No,”
he said, “I scribble it all out myself, and send it to
the press in a most ungentlemanlike hand, half print
and half hieroglyphic, with all its imperfections on its
head, and correct in the proof—very much to the dissatisfaction
of the publisher, who sends me in a bill
of sixteen pounds six shillings and fourpence for extra
corrections. Then I am free to confess I don't know
grammar. Lady Blessington, do you know grammar?
I detest grammar. There never was such a thing
heard of before Lindley Murray. I wonder what they
did for grammar before his day! Oh, the delicious
blunders one sees when they are irretrievable! And
the best of it is, the critics never get hold of them.
Thank Heaven for second editions, that one may scratch
out his blots, and go down clean and gentleman-like
to posterity!” Smith asked him if he had ever reviewed
one of his own books. “No—but I could!
And then how I should like to recriminate and defend
myself indignantly! I think I could be preciously
severe. Depend upon it nobody knows a book's defects
half so well as its author. I have a great idea
of criticising my works for my posthumous memoirs.
Shall I, Smith? Shall I, Lady Blessington?”
Bulwer's voice, like his brother's, is exceedingly
lover-like and sweet. His playful tones are quite delicious,
and his clear laugh is the soul of sincere and
careless merriment.
It is quite impossible to convey in a letter scrawled
literally between the end of a late visit and a tempting
pillow, the evanescent and pure spirit of a conversation
of wits. I must confine myself, of course, in such
sketches, to the mere sentiment of things that concern
general literature and ourselves.
“The Rejected Addresses” got upon his crutches
about three o'clock in the morning, and I made my
exit with the rest, thanking Heaven, that, though in a
strange country, my mother-tongue was the language
of its men of genius.
