All the Americans resident here give the same account of the matter, whatever may be their own feelings towards England. Captain Hall, I see, virtually admits the same, and although occasionally one meets with an Englishman who is disposed to deny it, I think there are few who do not allow the existence of the dislike, when they are on terms of sufficient intimacy to speak frankly. I lay stress on this matter, because any mistake on our part would be peculiarly awkward, and because a knowledge of the truth, in this particular, may clear the way to our inquiries on other subjects.
LETTER VII.
TO THOMAS FLOYD-JONES, ESQ. FORT NECK.
When we first arrived here from Paris, I was disposed to deny that the streets of London were as crowded as it is usual to pretend. My opinion was formed too soon. What was then true, is so no longer. London, or rather Westminster, in the height of the season, and Westminster out of the season, so far as the movement in the streets is concerned, are not the same town. When I was here in 1826, I saw no essential difference between Regent street and Broadway, as regards the crowd, but now, that we have passed the Easter holidays, every one appears to be at his post, and so far from having ever seen, any where else, the crowds of people, the display of rich equipages, the incessant and grand movement that adorn and bewilder the streets of London, I had never even pictured such a sight in my imagination. They who have not been here at this season of the year, know nothing of the place. There is a part of the day, between one and six, when it is actually a matter of risk for a pedestrian to cross the streets. I live near Piccadilly, which is not wider than Broadway, if quite as wide, and I have occasion to cross it frequently. You know I am no laggard, and am not deficient in activity, and yet I find it convenient to make my first run towards a stand of coaches in the middle of the street, protected by which I take a fresh departure for the other side. Regent street is still worse, and there is a place at Charing Cross, that would be nearly impracticable, but for a statue of Charles II., which makes a capital lee for one on foot. As for Broadway, and its pretended throng, I have been in the current of coaches in what is called the city, here, for an hour at a time, when the whole distance was made through a jam, as close as any you have ever seen in that street for the space of a hundred yards. Broadway will compare with the more crowded streets of London, much as Chestnut street will compare with Broadway.
I frequently stop and look about me in wonder, distrusting my eyes, at the exhibition of wealth and luxury that is concentrated in such narrow limits. Our horses have none of the grand movement that the cattle are trained to in Europe generally, and these of London seem, as they dash furiously along, as if they were trampling the earth under their feet. They are taught a high carriage, and as they are usually animals of great size as well as fleetness, their approach is sometimes terrific. By fleetness, however, I do not mean that you, as a Queen’s county man, and one who comes of a sporting stock, would consider them as doing a thing “in time,” but merely the fleetness of a coach horse. As to foot, I have little doubt that we can match England any day. I think we could show as good a stock of roadsters, both for draught and the saddle, but we appear to want the breed of the English carriage horse; or, if we possess it at all, it is crossed, dwindled, and inferior.
The English coachmen do not rein in the heads of their cattle towards each other, as is practised with us, but each animal carries himself perfectly straight, and in a line parallel to the pole. I found this unpleasant to the eye, at first, but it is certainly more rational than the other mode, and by the aid of reason and use I am fast losing my dislike. The horses travel easier and wider in this way than in any other, and when one gets accustomed to it, I am far from certain the action does not appear nobler. The superiority of the English carriages is equal to that of their horses. Perhaps they are a little too heavy; especially the chariots; but every thing of this sort is larger here than with us. The best French chariot is of a more just size, though scarcely so handsome. You see a few of these carriages in New York, but, with us, they are thought clumsy and awkward. One of our ordinary carriages, in Regent street, I feel persuaded would have a mob after it, in derision. There is something steam-boatish in the motion of a fine English carriage—I mean one that is in all respects well appointed—but their second class vehicles do no better than our own, though always much heavier.
The men, here, are a great deal in the saddle. This they call “riding;” going in a vehicle of any sort is “driving.” The distinction is arbitrary, though an innovation on the language. Were one to say he had been “riding” in the park, the inference would be inevitable, that he had been in the saddle, as I know from a ludicrous mistake of a friend of my own. An American lady, who is no longer young, nor a feather-weight, told an acquaintance of hers, that she had been riding in the Bois de Boulogne, at Paris. “Good Heavens!” said the person who had received this piece of news, to me, “does Mrs. —— actually exhibit her person on horseback, at her time of life, and in so public a place as the Bois de Boulogne?” “I should think not, certainly; pray why do you ask?” “She told me herself that she had been ‘riding’ there all the morning.” I defended our countrywoman, for our own use of the word is undeniably right. “Why if you ride in a coach, what do you do when you go on a horse?” demanded the lady. “And if you drive in a carriage, what does the coachman do, out of it?”
The English frequently make the abuse of words the test of caste. Dining with Mr. William Spencer, shortly before we left Paris, the subject of the difference in the language of the two countries was introduced. We agreed there was a difference, though we were not quite so much of a mind, as to which party was right, and which was wrong. The conversation continued good humouredly, through a tête-à-tête dinner, until we came to the dessert. “Will you have a bit of this tart?” said Mr. Spencer. “Do you call that a tart,—in America we should call it a pie.” “Now, I’m sure I have you—here, John,” turning to the footman behind his chair, “what is the name of this thing?” The man hesitated and finally stammered out that he “believed it was a pie.” “You never heard it called a pie, sir, in good society in England, in your life.” I thought it time to come to the rescue, for my friend was getting to be as hot as his tart, so I interfered by saying—“Hang your good society—I would rather have the opinion of your cook or your footman, in a question of pasty, than that of your cousin the Duke of Marlborough.”
To put him in good humour, I then told him an anecdote of a near relative of my own, whom you may have known, a man of singular readiness and of great wit. We have a puerile and a half-bred school of orthoepists in America who, failing in a practical knowledge of the world, affect to pronounce words as they are spelt, and who are ever on the rack to give some sentimental or fanciful evasion to any thing shocking. These are the gentry that call Hell Gate, Hurl Gate, and who are at the head of the rooster school. A person of this class appealed to my kinsman to settle a disputed point, desiring to know whether he pronounced “quality,” “qual-i-ty,” or “quol-i-ty.” “When I am conversing with a person of quality,” she answered gravely, “I say quol-i-ty, and when with a person of qual-i-ty, I say qual-i-ty.” As the wit depended in a great degree, on the voice, you will understand that he pronounced the first syllable of qual-i-ty, as Sal is pronounced in Sally.
You will be very apt to call this digression bolting, a qual-i-ty that a true Long Islandman cordially detests. Revenons à nos moutons.