Eighteenth Century Vignettes

by Austin Dobson

* Another of his remarks is of special interest in our day:—
'That same influenza, which I left at Berlin, I have had the
hard fortune again to find here; and many people die of it'
(the italics are ours). Elsewhere he says that the Prussian
quack Katterfelto—Cowper's=

'Katerfelto, with his hair on end.

At his own wonders wondering for his bread,'

whose advertisements were then in every paper, attributed
the epidemic to a minute insect, against which, of course,
he professed to protect his patients. Walpole's
correspondence contains references to the same visitation.
It was, he writes, 'universal,' but not 'dangerous or
lasting.' 'The strangest part of it,' he tells Mann in June,
'is, that, though of very short duration, it has left a
weakness or lassitude, of which people find it very
difficult to recover.'

On the second Sunday after his arrival he preaches at the German Church on Ludgate Hill for the pastor, the Rev. Mr. Wendeborn, who resides 'in a philosophical, but not unimproving retirement' at chambers in New Inn,—and he visits the Prussian Ambassador, Count Lucy, with whom, over a 'dish of coffee,' he has a learned argument upon the pending dispute 'about the tacismus or stacismus.' Then he pays à visit to Vauxhall. Comparing great things with small, he straightway traces certain superficial resemblances between the Surrey Paradise and the similar resort at Berlin,—resemblances' which are enforced by his speedy discovery of that chiefest glory of the English gardens, Roubiliac's statue of Handel. The Gothic orchestra, and the painted ruin's at the end of the walks (sometimes used by flippant playwrights as similes for beauty in decay) also come in for a share of his admiration; and he is particularly impressed by Hayman's pictures in the Rotunda. 'You here,' he adds, speaking of this last, 'find the busts of the best English authors, placed all round on the sides.

Thus a Briton again meets with his Shakespeare, Locke, Milton, and Dryden in the public places of his amusements; and there also reveres their memory.' He finds further confirmation of this honoured position of letters in the popularity of the native classics as compared with those of Germany, 'which in general are read only by the learned; or, at most, by the middle class of people. The English national authors are in all hands, and read by all people, of which the innumerable editions they have gone through, are a sufficient proof.' In Germany 'since Gellert [of the Fables], there has as yet been no poet's name familiar to the people.' But in England even his landlady studies her 'Paradise Lost,' and indeed by her own account won the affections of her husband (now deceased) 'because she read Milton with such proper emphasis:'

Another institution that delights him is the second-hand bookseller, at whose movable stall you may buy odd volumes 'so low as a penny; nay, even sometimes for an half-penny a piece.' Of one of these 'itinerant antiquaries' he buys the 'Vicar of Wakefield' in two volumes for sixpence.

After Vauxhall follows, as a matter of course, a visit to the equally popular Ranelagh. Like most people, the traveller had expected it to resemble its rival, and until he actually entered the Great Room, was grievously disappointed. 'But,' he continues, 'it is impossible to describe, or indeed to conceive, the effect it had on me, when, coming out of the gloom of the garden, I suddenly entered a round building, illuminated by many hundred lamps, the splendour and beauty of which surpassed everything of the kind I had ever seen before. Everything seemed here to be round; above, there was a gallery, divided into boxes, and in one part of it an organ with a beautiful choir, from which issued both instrumental and vocal music. All around, under this gallery, are handsome painted boxes for those who wish to take refreshments. The floor was covered with mats; in the middle of which are four high black pillars, within which are neat fire-places for preparing tea, coffee, and punch; and all around also there are placed tables, set out with all kinds of refreshments. Within [he means 'without'] these four pillars, in a kind of magic rotundo, all the beau-monde of London move perpetually round and round.' This, as may be seen by a glance at Parr's print of 1751 after Canaletto, or the better-known plate in Stowe's 'Survey' of 1754, is a fairly faithful description of the Ranelagh of Walpole and Chesterfield. After a modest consommation, which, to his astonishment, he finds is covered by the half-crown he paid at the door, he mounts to the upper regions. 'I now went up into the gallery, and seated myself in one of the boxes there: and from thence, becoming, all at once, a grave and moralizing spectator, I looked down on the concourse of people who were still moving round and round in the fairy circle; and then I could easily distinguish several stars, and other orders of knighthood; French queues and bags contrasted with plain English heads of hair, or professional wigs; old age and youth, nobility and commonalty, all passing each other in the motley swarm. An Englishman who joined me, during this my reverie, pointed out to me, on my inquiring, princes, and lords with their dazzling stars; with which they eclipsed the less brilliant part of the company.' His next experiences are Of the House of Commons. Here he had like to have been disappointed from his unhappy ignorance of an enlightened native formula. Having made his way to Westminster Hall, a 'very genteel man in black' informed him he must be introduced by a member, an announcement which caused him to retire 'much chagrined.' Something unintelligible was mumbled behind him about a bottle of wine, but it fell on alien ears. As soon as he returned home, his intelligent landlady solved the difficulty, sending him back next day with the needful douceur, upon which the 'genteel man,' with much venal urbanity, handed him into a select seat in the Strangers' Gallery. The building itself strikes him as rather mean, and not a little resembling a chapel. But the Speaker and the mace; the members going and coming, some cracking nuts and eating oranges, others in their greatcoats and with boots and spurs; the cries of 'Hear,' and 'Order,' and 'Question,' speedily absorb him. On his first visit he is fortunate. The debate turns on the reward to Admiral Rodney for his victory over De Grasse at Guadaloupe, and he hears Fox, Burke, and Rigby speak. 'This same celebrated Charles Fox,' he says, 'is a short, fat, and gross man, with a swarthy complexion, and dark; and in general he is badly dressed. There certainly is something Jewish in his looks. But upon the whole, he is not an ill-made nor an ill-looking man: and there are many strong marks of sagacity and fire in his eyes.... Burke is a well-made, tall, upright man, but looks elderly and broken. Rigby is excessively corpulent, and has a jolly rubicund face.'

Pastor Moritz repeated his visits to the Parliament House, frankly confessing that he preferred this entertainment to most others; and, indeed, it was a shilling cheaper than the pit of a theatre. When, after his tour in the country, he came back to London, he seems at once to have gravitated to Westminster, for he gives an account of the discussion on the Barré pension which followed the death of Lord Rockingham in July. He heard Fox, with great eloquence, vindicate his resignation; he heard Horace Walpole's friend, General Conway; he heard Burke, in a passion, insisting upon the respect of the house; he heard the youthful Pitt, then scarcely looking more than one-and-twenty, rivet universal attention. A little earlier he had been privileged to witness that most English of sights, the Westminster election in Covent Garden, with its boisterous finale. 'When the whole was over, the rampant spirit of liberty, and the wild impatience of a genuine English mob, were exhibited in perfection. In a very few minutes the whole scaffolding, benches, and chairs, and everything else, was completely destroyed; and the mat with which it had been covered torn into ten thousand long strips or pieces, or strings; with which they encircled or inclosed multitudes of people of all ranks. These they hurried along with them, and everything else that came in their way, as trophies of joy; and thus, in the midst of exultation and triumph, they paraded through many of the most populous streets of London.'

To the British Museum he paid a flying visit of little more than an hour, with a miscellaneous and 'personally conducted' party,—a visit scarcely favourable to minute impressions. But of the Haymarket Theatre, to which he went twice (Covent Garden and Drury Lane being closed as usual for the summer months), he gives a fairly detailed account. Foote's 'Nabob' was the play on the first night; that on the second, the 'English Merchant,' adapted by the elder Colman from the 'Ecossaise' of Voltaire. With this latter he was already familiar in its German dress, having seen it at Hamburg. On both occasions the performance wound up with O'Keeffe's once-famous ballad farce of 'The Agreeable Surprise.' That excellent bur-letta singer, John Edwin, took the part of 'Lingo' the schoolmaster (which he had created), * to the entire satisfaction of Moritz, who thought him, with his 'Amo, amas, I love a lass,' etc., and his musical voice, 'one of the best actors of all that he had seen,' notwithstanding that Jack Palmer (Lamb and Goldsmith's Palmer!) acted the Nabob.