Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century

by George Paston

'What is Southey's manner of life?'

'Walter Scott said of him that he lived too much with women. He is secluded in the country, and surrounded by a circle of admiring friends, who glorify every literary project he undertakes, and persuade him, in spite of his natural modesty, that he can do nothing wrong. He has great genius, and is a most estimable man.'

On the same day that he breakfasted with Wilson, this fortunate tourist dined with Jeffrey, with whom Lord Brougham was staying. Unluckily, Brougham was absent, at a public dinner given to Lord Grey, who also happened to be in Edinburgh at the time. Willis was charmed with Jeffrey, with his frank smile, hearty manner, and graceful style of putting a guest at his ease. But he cared less for the political conversation at table. 'It had been my lot,' he says, 'to be thrown principally among Tories (Conservatives is the new name) since my arrival in England, and it was difficult to rid myself at once of the impressions of a fortnight passed in the castle of a Tory earl. My sympathies on the great and glorious occasion [the Whig dinner to Lord Grey] were slower than those of the rest of the company, and much of their enthusiasm seemed to me overstrained. Altogether, I entered less into the spirit of the hour than I could have wished. Politics are seldom witty or amusing; and though I was charmed with the good sense and occasional eloquence of Lord Jeffrey, I was glad to get upstairs to chasse-café and the ladies.'

Willis aggravated a temporary lameness by dancing at the ball that followed the Whig banquet, and was compelled to abandon a charming land-route north that he had mapped out, and allow himself to be taken 'this side up' on a steamer to Aberdeen. Here he took coach for Fochabers, and thence posted to Gordon Castle. At the castle he found himself in the midst of a most distinguished company; the page who showed him to his room running over the names of Lord Aberdeen and Lord Claude Hamilton, the Duchess of Richmond and her daughter, Lady Sophia Lennox, Lord and Lady Stormont, Lord and Lady Mandeville, Lord and Lady Morton, Lord Aboyne, Lady Keith, and twenty other lesser lights. The duke himself came to fetch his guest before dinner, and presented him to the duchess and the rest of the party. In a letter to Lady Blessington Willis says: 'I am delighted with the duke and duchess. He is a delightful, hearty old fellow, full of fun and conversation, and she is an uncommonly fine woman, and, without beauty, has something agreeable in her countenance. Pour moi-méme, I get on better everywhere than in your presence. I only fear I talk too much; but all the world is particularly civil to me, and among a score of people, no one of whom I had ever seen yesterday, I find myself quite at home to-day.'

The ten days at Gordon Castle Willis afterwards set apart in his memory as 'a bright ellipse in the usual procession of joys and sorrows.' He certainly made the most of this unique opportunity of observing the manners and customs of the great. The routine of life at the castle was what each guest chose to make it. 'Between breakfast and lunch,' he writes, 'the ladies were usually invisible, and the gentlemen rode, or shot, or played billiards. At two o'clock a dish or two of hot game and a profusion of cold meats were set on small tables, and everybody came in for a kind of lounging half meal, which occupied perhaps an hour. Thence all adjourned to the drawing-room, under the windows of which were drawn up carriages of all descriptions, with grooms, outriders, footmen, and saddle-horses for gentlemen and ladies. Parties were then made up for driving or riding, and from a pony-chaise to a phaeton and four, there was no class of vehicle that was not at your disposal. In ten minutes the carriages were all filled, and away they flew, some to the banks of the Spey or the seaside, some to the drives in the park, and all with the delightful consciousness that speed where you would, the horizon scarce limited the possessions of your host, and you were everywhere at home. The ornamental gates flying open at your approach; the herds of red deer trooping away from the sound of your wheels; the stately pheasants feeding tamely in the immense preserves; the stalking gamekeepers lifting their hats in the dark recesses of the forest--there was something in this perpetual reminder of your privileges which, as a novelty, was far from disagreeable. I could not, at the time, bring myself to feel, what perhaps would be more poetical and republican, that a ride in the wild and unfenced forest of my own country would have been more to my taste.'

Willis came to the conclusion that a North American Indian, in his more dignified phase, closely resembled an English nobleman in manner, since it was impossible to astonish either. All violent sensations, he observes, are avoided in high life. 'In conversation nothing is so "odd" (a word that in English means everything disagreeable) as emphasis, or a startling epithet, or gesture, and in common intercourse nothing is so vulgar as any approach to "a scene." For all extraordinary admiration, the word "capital" suffices; for all ordinary praise, the word "nice"; for all condemnation in morals, manners, or religion, the word "odd.".... What is called an overpowering person is immediately shunned, for he talks too much, and excites too much attention. In any other country he would be considered amusing. He is regarded here as a monopoliser of the general interest, and his laurels, talk he never so well, overshadow the rest of the company.'

On leaving Gordon Castle, Willis crossed Scotland by the Caledonian Canal, and from Fort William jolted in a Highland cart through Glencoe to Tarbet on Lomond. Thence the regulation visits were paid to Loch Katrine, the Trossachs and Callander. Another stay at Dalhousie Castle gave the tourist an opportunity of seeing Abbotsford, where he heard much talk of Sir Walter Scott. Lord Dalhousie had many anecdotes to tell of Scott's school-days, and Willis recalled some reminiscences of the Wizard that he had heard from Moore in London. 'Scott was the soul of honesty,' Moore had said. 'When I was on a visit to him, we were coming up from Kelso at sunset, and as there was to be a fine moon, I quoted to him his own rule for seeing "fair Melrose aright," and proposed to stay an hour and enjoy it. "Bah," said Scott. "I never saw it by moonlight." We went, however, and Scott, who seemed to be on the most familiar terms with the cicerone, pointed to an empty niche, and said to him: "I think I have a Virgin and Child that will just do for your niche. I'll send it to you." "How happy you have made that man," I said. "Oh," said Scott, "it was always in the way, and Madam Scott is constantly grudging it house-room. We're well rid of it." Any other man would have allowed himself at least the credit of a kind action.'

After a stay at a Lancashire country-house, Willis arrived at Liverpool, where he got his first sight of the newly-opened railway to Manchester. In the letters and journals of the period, it is rather unusual to come upon any allusion to the great revolution in land-travelling. We often read of our grandfathers' astonishment at the steam-packets that crossed the Atlantic in a fortnight, but they seem to have slid into the habit of travelling by rail almost as a matter of course, much as their descendants have taken to touring in motor-cars. Willis the observant, however, has left on record his sensations during his first journey by rail.

'Down we dived into the long tunnel,' he relates, 'emerging from the darkness at a pace that made my hair sensibly tighten, and hold on with apprehension. Thirty miles in the hour is pleasant going when one is a little accustomed to it, it gives one such a pleasant contempt for time and distance. The whizzing past of the return trains, going in the opposite direction with the same degree of velocity--making you recoil in one second, and a mile off the next--was the only thing which, after a few minutes, I did not take to very kindly.'

Willis adds to our obligations by reporting the cries of the newsboys at the Elephant and Castle, where all the coaches to and from the South stopped for twenty minutes. On the occasion that our traveller passed through, the boys were crying 'Noospipper, sir! Buy the morning pippers, sir! Times, Herald, Chrinnicle, and Munning Post, sir--contains Lud Brum's entire innihalation of Lud Nummanby--Ledy Flor 'Estings' murder by Lud Melbun and the Maids of Honour--debate on the Croolty-Hannimals Bill, and a fatil catstrophy in conskens of loosfer matches! Sixpence, only sixpence!'