Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century

by George Paston

The prince took advantage of the dead season to explore the city and other unfashionable quarters of the town. He was delighted with the excellent side-pavements, the splendid shops, the brilliant gas-lamps, and above all (like Miss Edgeworth's Rosamund) with 'the great glass globes in the chemists' windows, filled with liquid of a deep red, blue or green, the light of which is visible for miles(!)' Visits to the Exchange, the Bank, and the Guildhall were followed by a call on Rothschild, 'the Grand Ally of the Grand Alliance,' at his house of business. 'On my presenting my card,' says our hero, 'he remarked ironically that we were lucky people who could afford to travel about, and take our pleasure, while he, poor man, had such a heavy burden to bear. He then broke out into bitter complaints that every poor devil who came to England had something to ask of him.... After this the conversation took a political turn, and we of course agreed that Europe could not subsist without him; he modestly declined our compliments, and said, smiling, 'Oh no, you are only jesting; I am but a servant, with whom people are pleased because he manages their affairs well, and to whom they allow some crumbs to fall as an acknowledgment.'

On October 19 the prince went to Newmarket for the races. During his stay he was introduced to a rich merchant of the neighbourhood, who invited him to spend a couple of days at his country-house. He gives Lucie a minute account of the manners and customs of an English ménage, but these are only interesting to the modern reader in so far as they have become obsolete. For example: 'When you enter the dining-room, you find the whole of the first course on the table, as in France. After the soup is removed, and the covers are taken off, every man helps the dish before him, and offers some to his neighbour; if he wishes for anything else, he must ask across the table, or send a servant for it, a very troublesome custom.... It is not usual to take wine without drinking to another person. If the company is small, and a man has drunk with everybody, but happens to wish for more wine, he must wait for the dessert, if he does not find in himself courage to brave custom.'

On his return to town the prince, who had been elected a member of the Travellers' Club, gives a long dissertation on English club life, not forgetting to dwell on the luxury of all the arrangements, the excellent service, and the methodical fashion in which the gaming-tables were conducted. 'In no other country,' he declares, 'are what are here emphatically called "business habits" carried so extensively into social and domestic life; the value of time, of order, of despatch, of routine, are nowhere so well understood. This is the great key to the most striking, national characteristics. The quantity of material objects produced and accomplished--the work done--in England exceeds all that man ever effected. The causes that have produced these results have as certainly given birth to the dulness, the contracted views, the inveterate prejudices, the unbounded desire for, and deference to wealth which characterise the great mass of Englishmen.'

During this first winter in London the prince was a regular attendant at the theatres, and many were the dramatic criticisms that he sent to his 'friend' at Muskau. He saw Liston in the hundred and second representation of Paul Pry, and at Drury Lane found, to his amazement that Braham, whom he remembered as an elderly man in 1814, was still first favourite. 'He is the genuine representative of the English style of singing,' writes our critic, 'and in popular songs is the adored idol of the public. One cannot deny him great power of voice and rapidity of execution, but a more abominable style it is difficult to conceive.... The most striking feature to a foreigner in English theatres is the natural coarseness and brutality of the audiences. The consequence is that the higher and more civilised classes go only to the Italian Opera, and very rarely visit their national theatre. English freedom has degenerated into the rudest licence, and it is not uncommon in the midst of the most affecting part of a tragedy, or the most charming cadenza of a singer, to hear some coarse expression shouted from the gallery in a stentor voice. This is followed, either by loud laughter and applause, or by the castigation and expulsion of the offender.'

The poor prince saw Mozart's Figaro announced for performance at Drury Lane, and looked forward to hearing once more the sweet harmonies of his Vaterland. 'What, then, was my astonishment,' he exclaims, in justifiable indignation, 'at the unheard-of treatment which the masterpiece of the immortal composer has received at English hands! You will hardly believe me when I tell you that neither the count, the countess, nor Figaro sang; these parts were given to mere actors, and their principal airs were sung by other singers. To add to this the gardener roared out some interpolated English popular songs, which suited Mozart's music just as a pitch-plaster would suit the face of the Venus de' Medici. The whole opera was, moreover, arranged by a certain Mr. Bishop; that is, adapted to English ears by means of the most tasteless and shocking alterations. The English national music, the coarse, heavy melodies of which can never be mistaken for an instant, has to me, at least, something singularly offensive, an expression of brutal feeling both in pain and pleasure that smacks of "roast-beef, plum-pudding, and porter."'

Another entertainment attended by our hero about this time was the opening of Parliament by George IV., who had not performed this ceremony for several years. 'The king,' we are told, 'looked pale and bloated, and was obliged to sit on the throne for a considerable time before he could get breath enough to read his speech. During this time he turned friendly glances and condescending bows towards some favoured ladies. On his right stood Lord Liverpool, with the sword of state and the speech in his hand, and the Duke of Wellington on his left. All three looked so miserable, so ashy-grey and worn out, that never did human greatness appear to me so little worth.... In spite of his feebleness, George IV. read his banale speech with great dignity and a fine voice, but with that royal nonchalance which does not concern itself with what his Majesty promises, or whether he is sometimes unable to decipher a word. It was very evident that the monarch was heartily glad when the corvée was over.'

In one of his early letters the traveller gives his friend the following account of the manner in which he passes his day: 'I rise late, read three or four newspapers at breakfast, look in my visiting-book to see what visits I have to pay, and either drive to pay them in my cabriolet, or ride. In the course of these excursions, I sometimes catch the enjoyment of the picturesque; the struggle of the blood-red sun with the winter fogs often produces wild and singular effects of light. After my visits I ride for several hours about the beautiful environs of London, return when it grows dark, dress for dinner, which is at seven or eight, and spend the evening either at the theatre or some small party. The ludicrous routs--at which one hardly finds standing-room on the staircase--have not yet commenced. In England, however, except in a few diplomatic houses, you can go nowhere in the evening without a special invitation.' The prince seems to have been bored at most of the parties he attended; partly, perhaps, out of pique at finding himself, so long accustomed to be the principal personage in his little kingdom of Muskau, eclipsed in influence and wealth by many a British commoner. Few persons that he met in the London of that day amused him more than the great Rothschild, with whom he dined more than once at the banker's suburban villa. Of one of these entertainments he writes: 'Mr. Rothschild was in high good-humour, amusing and talkative. It was diverting to hear him explain to us the pictures round his room (all portraits of the sovereigns of Europe, presented through their ambassadors), and talk of the originals as his very good friends, and in a certain sense his equals. "Yes," said he, "the Prince of ----- once pressed me for a loan, and in the same week on which I received his autograph letter, his father wrote to me also from Rome, to beg me, for Heaven's sake, not to have any concern in it, for that I could not have to do with a more dishonest man than his son...." He concluded by modestly calling himself the dutiful and generously paid agent and servant of these high potentates, all of whom he honoured equally, let the state of politics be what it might; for, said he, laughing, "I never like to quarrel with my bread and butter." It shows great prudence in Mr. Rothschild to have accepted neither title nor order, and thus to have preserved a far more respectable independence. He doubtless owes much to the good advice of his extremely amiable and judicious wife, who excels him in tact and knowledge of the world, though not, perhaps, in acuteness and talents for business.'

Although the prince had not as yet entered the ranks of authors, he was always interested in meeting literary people, such as Mr. Hope, author of Anastasius, Mr. Morier of Hadji Baba fame, and Lady Charlotte Bury, who had exchanged the celebrity of a beauty for that of a fashionable novelist. 'I called on Lady Charlotte,' he says, 'the morning after meeting her, and found everything in her house brown, in every possible shade; furniture, curtains, carpets, her own and her children's dresses, presented no other colour. The room was without looking-glasses or pictures, and its only ornaments were casts from the antique.... After I had been there some time, the celebrated publisher, Constable, entered. This man has made a fortune by Walter Scott's novels, though, as I was told, he refused his first and best, Waverley, and at last gave but a small sum for it. I hope the charming Lady Charlotte had better cause to be satisfied with him.' Towards the end of December, his Highness's head-gardener, Rehde, a very important functionary at Muskau, arrived in London to be initiated into the mysteries of English landscape-gardening. Together the two enthusiasts, master and man, made a tour of some of the principal show-places of England, including Stanmore Priory, Woburn Abbey, Cashiobury, Blenheim, Stowe, Eaton, Warwick, and Kenilworth, besides many of lesser note. At the end of the excursion, which lasted three weeks, the prince declared that even he was beginning to feel satiated with the charms of English parks. On his return to London he was invited to spend a few days with Lord Darnley at Cobham, and writes thence some further impressions of English country-house life. He was a little perturbed at being publicly reminded by his elderly host that they had made each other's acquaintance thirty years before.

'Now, as I was in frocks at the time he spoke of,' observes the prince, 'I was obliged to beg for a further explanation, though I cannot say I was much delighted at having my age so fully discussed before all the company, for you know I claim to look not more than thirty. However, I could not but admire Lord Darnley's memory. He recollected every circumstance of his visit to my parents with the Duke of Portland, and recalled to me many a little forgotten incident.'

The vie de château the traveller considered the most agreeable side of English life, by reason of its freedom, and the absence of those wearisome ceremonies which in Germany oppressed both host and guests. The English custom of being always en évidence, however, occasioned him considerable surprise. 'Strangers,' he observes, 'have generally only one room allotted to them, and Englishmen seldom go into this room except to sleep, and to dress twice a day, which, even without company, is always de rigueur; for all meals are usually taken in public, and any one who wants to write does it in the library. There, also, those who wish to converse, give each other rendezvous, to avoid the rest of the society. Here you have an opportunity of gossiping for hours with the young ladies, who are always very literarily inclined. Many a marriage is thus concocted or destroyed between the corpus juris on the one side, and Bouffler's works on the other, while fashionable novels, as a sort of intermediate link, lie on the tables in the middle.