If you go out, you never find a dirty staircase, nor one in which the lighting serves only to make darkness visible. Throughout the house, day and night, reign the greatest order and decency; and in some hotels every spacious set of apartments has its own staircase, so that no one comes in contact with others. At table, the guest is furnished with a corresponding profusion of white table linen, and brilliantly polished table utensils; with a well-filled ‘plat de ménage,’ and an elegance of setting out which leaves nothing to wish for. The servants are always there when you want them, and yet are not intrusive: the master of the house generally makes his appearance with the first dish, and inquires whether everything is as you desire;—in short, the best inns afford everything that is to be found in the house of a travelled gentleman, and the attendance is perhaps more perfect and respectful. It is true the reckoning is of a piece with the rest, and you must pay the waiters nearly as much as you would a servant of your own. In the first hotels, a waiter is not satisfied with less than two pounds a-week for his own private fees. Such gifts or vales are more the order of the day in England than in any other country, and are asked with the greatest shamelessness even in the churches.
I visited the bazaars to-day. These establishments have come very much into fashion within the last few years, and afford great facilities to buyers. The so-called horse bazaar is built on a very large scale, and daily draws together a very motley assemblage. It includes several extensive buildings, where hundreds of carriages and harness of every kind, new and old (the latter made to look like new), are exposed to sale, at all prices, in a very long gallery. In other rooms are porcelain wares, articles of dress, glass mirrors, ‘quincaillerie,’ toys, and even collections of foreign birds and butterflies, all for sale. At length you reach a coffee-room in the centre of the establishment, with a glazed gallery running round an open space. Here, while comfortably seated at breakfast (in rather mixed company it is true), you see a number of horses led out from the extensive stables where they are well taken care of, and to which any one who has a horse to sell may send it for a certain fee. They are then put up to auction. When a horse is warranted sound by the auctioneer, you may buy it with tolerable safety, since the proprietor of the establishment is responsible for the warranty. The best are certainly not to be found here, but the cheapest are; and to many this is a great recommendation: perhaps a still greater is the being able to get all one wants in the same place. There are already, as I said, several of these bazaars, and they are worth a visit. The convenient walking on the excellent ‘trottoirs,’ the gay and ever-changing groups, and the numerous splendid shops, make the streets of London, especially in the evening, a very agreeable walk to a foreigner.
Besides the brilliant gas-lights, there are large globes of glass in the druggists’ shops, filled with liquid of a deep red, blue, or green colour, the splendid light of which is visible for miles, and often serves as a beacon, though sometimes as an ‘ignis fatuus,’ if you are unlucky enough to mistake one for another.
Of all the shops, the most attractive are those in which the beautiful English crystal is sold. Real diamonds can scarcely glitter more dazzlingly than the far-gleaming collections of some manufacturers. I observed too some articles of rose or other coloured glass, but I was surprised to see how little the forms were changed. The crown lustres, for instance, are just the same as ever; and yet I should think that they might be made in the form of suns with diverging rays, or of bouquets of flowers, instead of this eternal crown; or that small lustres of gay colours, set like ‘bijous’ of various gems, and fixed against the walls of rooms of appropriate, perhaps oriental, decorations, would produce a new and striking effect.
Other very interesting shops contain all the newest implements of agriculture and the mechanic arts, from huge drilling machines and an apparatus for uprooting old trees, to small delicate garden shears, all set out in extensive premises, all arranged with a certain elegance, which is universal, even among the dealers in meat, fish and vegetables. The shops of ironmongers and dealers in lamps well deserve a visit; affording, as they do, a display of the new and the useful, which it would not be easy to find on the whole Continent, either to the same extent or in the same exact perfection. The traveller, however, who confines himself to the ‘salons’ and the like, and who wants to see only genteel sights, had better stay at home.
I closed the day with a walk to Chelsea, the hospital for invalid soldiers, where one rejoices to see the old warriors well taken care of, inhabiting a palace, and enjoying gardens with the most beautiful smooth-mowed ‘bowling-green’ and lofty avenues of horse-chestnut trees, of which a little sovereign might be proud.
I dined at the —— ambassador’s at eight o’clock. The dinner was remarkable not only for the amiability of the host, but for genuine Metternich-Johannisberg; for which nectar, even the most inveterate liberal must allow justice to be done to the great minister. At table I found friend B——, the youth of forty, who charged me with abundance of compliments to you. He is the same as ever, and entertained me with a long conversation about his toilet; he declared that he had grown dreadfully thin in England from ennui.
I must here give you notice that I can say nothing about London society till a longer residence and ‘the season’ have enabled me to speak with more confidence on the subject. So long as London remains desert as Palmyra, as to the fashionable world, I shall confine myself to a description of places.
October 10th.
A few days ago I took advantage of rather brighter weather to visit Chiswick, a villa of the Duke of Devonshire’s, which is esteemed the most elegant specimen of garden decoration, of its kind, in England. I had seen it some years ago at a fête given by the Duke but only superficially. I could not, even now, see the pictures, as the house was inhabited by a visitor.