Gleanings in Europe

by James Fenimore Cooper

In the course of the same week I was indebted to the attention of Mr. Spencer for another visit, which led to more agreeable consequences. The author of the Pleasures of Memory was my near neighbour in St. James’s Place, and, induced by Mr. Spencer, he very kindly sought me out. His visit was the first I actually received from the “list,” and it has been the means of my seeing most of what I have seen, of the interior of London. It was followed by an invitation to breakfast for the following morning.

I certainly have no intention to repay Mr. Rogers for his many acts of kindness, by making him and his friends the subject of my comments, but, to a certain degree he must pay the penalty of celebrity, and neither he nor any one else has a right to live in so exquisite a house, and expect every body to hold their tongues about it.

It was but a step from my door to that of Mr. Rogers, and you may be certain I was punctual to the appointed hour. I found with him Mr. Carey, the translator of Dante, and his son. The conversation during breakfast was general. The subject of America being incidentally introduced. Our host told many literary anecdotes, in a quiet and peculiar manner that gave them point. I was asked if the language of America differed essentially from that of England. I thought not so much in words and pronunciation, as in intonation and in the signification of certain terms. Still I thought I could always tell an Englishman from an American, in the course of five minutes’ conversation. The two oldest gentlemen professed not to be able to discover any thing in my manner of speaking to betray me for a foreigner, but the young gentleman fancied otherwise. “He thought there was something peculiar—provincial—he did not know what exactly.” I could have helped him to the word—“something that was not cockney.” The young man however was right in the main, for I could myself have pronounced that all three of my companions were not Americans, and I do not see why they might not have said that I was no Englishman. The difference between the enunciation of Mr. Rogers and Mr. Carey and one of our educated men of the middle states, it is true, was scarcely perceptible, and required a nice ear and some familiarity with both countries to detect, but the young man could not utter a sentence, without showing his origin.

Mr. Rogers had the good nature to let me see his house, after breakfast. It stands near the head of the place, there being a right-angle between his dwelling and mine, and its windows, in the rear, open on the Green Park. In every country in which men begin to live for enjoyment and taste, it is a desideratum to get an abode that is not exposed to the noise and bustle of a thoroughfare. One who has intellectual resources, and elegant accomplishments, in which to take refuge, scarcely desires to be a street gazer, and I take it to be almost a test of the character of a population, when its higher classes seek to withdraw from publicity, in this manner. One can conceive of a trader who has grown rich wishing to get a “good stand,” even for a house, but I am now speaking of men of cultivated minds and habits.

On this side of the Green Park there is no street between the houses and the field. The buildings stand in a line, even with the place on one side, and having small gardens between them and the park. Of course, all the good rooms overlook the latter. The Green Park, and St. James’s Park, are, in fact, one open space, the separation between them being merely a fence. The first is nothing but a large field, cropped down like velvet, irregularly dotted with trees, and without any carriage way. Paths wind naturally across it, cows graze before the eye, and nursery maids and children sprinkle its uneven surface, whenever the day is fine. There is a house and garden belonging to the ranger, on one of its sides, and the shrubbery of the latter, as well as that of the small private gardens just mentioned, help to relieve the nakedness. I should think there must be sixty or eighty acres in the Green Park, while St. James’s is much larger. On one side the Green Park is open to Piccadilly; on another it is bounded by a carriage way in St James’s; a third joins St James’s, and the fourth is the end on which stands the house of Mr. Rogers.

It strikes me the dwellings which open on these two parks, (for more than half of St. James’s Park is bounded by houses in the same manner) are the most desirable in London. They are central as regards the public edifices, near the court, the clubs, and the theatres, and yet they are more retired than common. The carriage-way to them is almost always by places, or silent streets, while their best windows overlook a beautiful rural scene interspersed with the finer parts of a capital. As a matter of course, these dwellings are in great request. On the side of the Green Park is the residence of Sir Francis Burdett, Spenser-house, Bridgewater-house, so celebrated for its pictures, and many others of a similar quality, while a noble new palace stands at the point where the two parks meet, that was constructed for the late Duke of York, then heir presumptive of the crown.

The house of Mr. Rogers is a chef d’œuvre for the establishment of a bachelor. I understood him to say that it occupied a part of the site of a dwelling of a former Duke of St. Albans, and so well is it proportioned that I could hardly believe it to be as small as feet and inches demonstrate. Its width cannot be more than eighteen feet, while its depth may a little exceed fifty. The house in which we lodge is even smaller. But the majority of the town-houses, here, are by no means distinguished for their size. Perhaps the average of the genteel lodging-houses, of which I have spoken, is less than that of Mr. Rogers’s dwelling.

This gentleman has his drawing-room and dining-room lined with pictures, chiefly by the old masters. Several of them are the studies of larger works. His library is filled with valuable books; curiosities, connected principally with literature, history, and the arts, are strewed about the house, and even some rare relics of Egyptian sculpture find a place in this tasteful abode. Among other things of the sort, he has the original agreement for the sale of Paradise Lost! The price, I believe, was twenty-five pounds. It is usual to rail at this meanness, but I question if there is a bookseller, now in London, who would pay as much for it.

I was much interested with a little circumstance connected with these rarities. In the drawing-room stands a precious antique vase, on a handsome pedestal of carved wood. Chantry was dining with the poet, as a group collected around the spot, to look at the vase. “Do you know who did this carving?” asked the sculptor, laying his hand on the pedestal. Mr. Rogers mentioned the carver he employed. “Yes, yes, he had the job, but I did the work,”—being then an apprentice, or a journeyman, I forget which.