I arrived just in time to be present at a dinner-party at the new Premier’s, to which I received an invitation in Brighton.
This distinguished man is as remarkable for the grace and charm with which he does the honours of his house, as for the eloquence with which he carries away his auditors. ‘Bel esprit’ and statesman by turns, he wants nothing but better health: he seemed to me very unwell and suffering. Mrs. Canning is also a very intelligent woman. I have been assured that she holds the newspaper department, i. e. that she reads them, and informs her husband of all the important matter they contain; nay, even that she has occasionally written articles herself.
A concert of Countess ——’s was very fully attended. Galli and Pasta, who are arrived, and will greatly raise the state of the Opera, sang. The rooms were choke-ful, and several young men lay on the carpet at the feet of their ladies, with their heads luxuriously reclined against the cushions of the sofas on which their fair ones were seated. This Turkish fashion is really very delightful; and I wondered extremely that C—— did not introduce it in Berlin, and deposit himself for once at the feet of one of the ladies in waiting. The Berliners would have thought this ‘charmant’ (as they call it) in the English Ambassador.
April 25th.
After a long interval I re-visited the theatre. I was in good luck, for Liston acted ‘à mourir derire,’ in a little farce the scene of which is laid in Paris in the time of Louis the Fifteenth. A rich English merchant, tormented with the spleen, goes to that city for amusement. Scarcely is he fairly settled in his hotel when the minister of police is announced, and presently enters, admirably dressed in the costume of the time. He discloses to the astonished citizen that the police is on the track of a notorious gang of thieves, who, suspecting that he had a great deal of money with him, had laid a plan to break into his house that night, and to rob and murder him. The minister adds, that every thing now depends on his own behaviour; that if he shows the slightest consciousness, if he appears less cheerful than usual, or does any thing unwonted betraying anxiety, he will probably hasten the proceedings of the robbers, and in that case that the police could not be answerable for his safety—indeed that his life would probably be in the greatest danger, for that it was not sure that the people of the house were not in the plot;—he must therefore go to bed at ten o’clock as usual, and let matters take their course.
Mr. Jackson, more dead than alive at this intelligence, wants instantly to leave the house. But the minister gravely replies that this can by no means be suffered, and would be no security to him; for that the robbers would discover his new residence, and then make more sure of their prey. “Make yourself perfectly easy,” concludes Monsieur de Sartines, “all will be well if you do but put a good face upon the affair.”
You may easily imagine what ludicrous scenes are produced by the continual efforts of the old merchant to conceal the horrible fright he is in. Meanwhile his servant, a true Englishman, always thirsty, finds some wine in a closet and eagerly drinks it. It turns out to be antimonial wine, and in a few minutes he is seized with violent sickness; his master instantly concludes that the plan is to poison, instead of shooting or stabbing him. At this moment the hostess comes in with a cup of chocolate. In a transport of rage and terror, Liston seizes her by the throat, and forces her to drink the chocolate; which, after some surprise at the oddness of English manners, she very willingly does. Liston’s by-play during this, and the manner in which, suddenly recollecting his promise, he bursts into a convulsive laugh, and tries to turn it off as a jest, is unspeakably droll. At length ten o’clock arrives; and after many burlesque incidents, Mr. Jackson goes to bed in his velvet breeches, lays a sword and pistols by his side, and draws the curtains quite close. It unfortunately happens, that the daughter of the host has a love-affair, and had given her lover ‘rendezvous’ in this very room before the stranger had engaged the lodging. To avoid discovery she glides softly in, puts out the light cautiously, and goes to the window, at which her lover is already climbing in. As soon as he springs into the middle of the room, and begins to speak, groans of terror are heard from the bed: first one pistol falls down with a clatter, then another; the curtain opens; Liston makes a feeble thrust with the sword, which falls from his trembling hand, throws himself out of bed, and in his curious costume falls on his knees before the girl, who is as terrified as himself, and pitiously implores mercy, while the lover slily conceals himself behind the bed. The door is thrown open, and the minister of police enters with torches, to inform the trembling Jackson that the band of robbers is taken; and adds, with a smile, as he looks at the group, “I congratulate you that you have found so agreeable a way of passing the time.”
April 26th.
A strange place I have visited to-day! A church called the Areopagus, in which a clergyman, the Rev. Robert Taylor, preaches against Christianity, and permits anyone publicly to oppose him. He has retained only one thing of the Anglo-Christian church—to make you pay a shilling for your seat. Mr. Taylor has some learning, and is no bad speaker, but as passionate a fanatic for the destruction of Christianity as some others are for its support. He says strong things—sometimes true, often false; sometimes witty, and sometimes utterly indecorous. The place was thronged with hearers of all classes.—In a nation which is at so very low a point of religious education, it is easy to understand that a negative apostle of this sort may attract a great concourse. In Germany, where the people are far advanced in the rational path of gradual reform, an undertaking of the kind would fill some with pious horror, would attract nobody, and would justly disgust all,—even if the police did not render such an exhibition impossible.
The first Almack’s ball took place this evening: and from all I had heard of this celebrated assembly, I was really curious to see it; but never were my expectations so disappointed. It was not much better than at Brighton. A large bare room, with a bad floor, and ropes around it, like the space in an Arab camp parted off for the horses; two or three small naked rooms at the side, in which were served the most wretched refreshments; and a company into which, spite of the immense difficulty of getting tickets, a great many ‘Nobodies’ had wriggled; in which the dress was generally as tasteless as the ‘tournure’ was bad;—this was all. In a word, a sort of inn-entertainment:—the music and the lighting the only good things. And yet Almack’s is the culminating point of the English world of fashion.