LETTER VI.
London.
I could copy a new leaf from my memory that would be very interesting to you, for I dined yesterday in a party of admirable talkers, and heard much that I shall remember. But, though the brilliant people themselves, whose conversation we thus record, are far from being offended at the record—the critics (who were not so fortunate as to be there too) are offended for them. The giving the talk without naming the talkers would make common-place of it, I am afraid, just as taking the wooden labels from the large trees, in the botanical park at Kew, would make the exotic groves look indigenous—but we must submit to this noisy demand of the critics notwithstanding. In a world where one might, possibly, have a real fault to be defended for by his friends, it is a pity to put them to the trouble of defending them for nothing!
I hear much said of two of our countrymen who seem to have made a strong impression on society in England. Mr. Colman, the agriculturist, is one of them, and his strong good sense, and fresh originality of mind were well suited to be relished in this country. The other is a gentleman whose peculiar talent was never before brought to its best market, popular as it is in New York—“Major Jack Downing;” and of his power as a raconteur, I hear frequent and strong expressions of admiration. This, by the way, and similar talents, which are only used for the enlivening of private society, are, in our country, like gold ingots at the mine—scarce recognised as value till brought over the water and stamped. I know more than one man in America who has gifts from nature that would be most valuable to him in English society, and are of no value to him in ours.
To-night is Taglioni’s farewell performance, before quitting the stage, and I had made up my mind to go and see her, “on her last legs,” but a more tempting engagement draws me another way. I saw her a few nights since, when she was doing her best in honor of the approbation of the King of the Netherlands. It was in the new ballet of “Diana,” but though there were certainly some beautiful overcomings of “obedience to the centre of gravity,” it was dull’d in the memory by the dancing of Cerito who followed her. May this latter dancer live and stay pretty, till you see her, my dear General!
The presence of the King of the Netherlands was quite an event at the opera, accustomed as are stall and pit to royal company. You know, that, besides being a king, he is a distinguished man—(better known as the Prince of Orange who fought in the English army at Waterloo.) He looks like a person of superior talent. His face is cleanly chiselled, and his eye is keen. He was dressed in plain clothes, and wore a white cravat, and had the air of a high-bred barrister, or of one whose constant exercise of his intellect had made its mark on his physiognomy. He was received first in the box of the Duke of Cambridge, all the ladies in the box standing till he was seated. The Duke, who talks very loud, and who makes the audience smile several times every evening, with some remark audible all over the house, kept up a conversation with him, for a while, and His Majesty then made a visit to the adjoining box, where sat the superb and influential Lady Jersey, and her very beautiful daughter, Lady Clementina Villiers. (You have seen portraits of these ladies in the annuals.) I did not envy him his reception in the first box very particularly, though one would like very well to “see how it feels” to be a king—but his reception in the second box seemed a heaven that would reward one for a great deal of virtue.
Lady Morgan was present in widows’ weeds, and thereby very much improved in appearance—(as many women are!) I had not seen her ladyship for five or six years, but time seems to have been content with taking away Sir Charles. She looks well as in 1840—a long statu quo! She had with her a very fascinating niece, and a very large bouquet.
I write my letters so hastily that I digress as one does in conversation. I began with the intention of telling a curious story that I had from no less than second hand touching the King of the Netherlands and the Princess Charlotte. It was told me, a few days since by my neighbor at dinner, a distinguished person, a great admirer of his Majesty, and who prefaced it with a wonder at the caprice of taste. The Prince of Orange, as is well known, was originally chalked off, by the “high contracting powers,” to be the husband of the lovely English princess. It was of the first moment to him, then, that he should second Destiny in its kind endeavors, and succeed in winning her royal affections. He was, however, a prince, and princes in those days, drank hard. He had the misfortune to come in tipsy from the dinner-table, when rejoining the ladies after a party at which he met his designated future. The Princess took an invincible dislike to him on that occasion. The lady who told the anecdote (to her who told it to me) was in attendance on the princess when the prince called upon his return from a campaign in which he had distinguished himself. He was received very coldly. His uniform was a red coat with green feathers in his cap, and when he took his leave, the princess walked to the window to see him go down the avenue. “Aha!” thought the lady in waiting; “if she goes to look after him, the case is not so desperate, after all!” But the remark of the princess, as she looked at his red coat and green feathers, undid the momentary illusion—“How like a radish he looks!” said the royal Charlotte. A lady often hates the man she loves, but she seldom ridicules him. The princess was resolute in her aversion, and the “forked radish” (which we all resemble according to Shakspeare) was superseded by Prince Leopold.
This being the ‘town-talk’ (as is the Dutch king at present) revives all the defunct anecdotes, of course, and greatness has to take into account what it awakes, besides homage, when it makes the world take notice of its existence! (Alas, for drawbacks!)