“Were you at the drawing-room,” asked Sir —— ——, of me, a fortnight since. I had not been. “You were wise, for, really, these things occur so rarely, now, that the press is nearly insupportable. Many were compelled to wait hours for their carriages, and some were obliged to trudge it afoot, both going and coming.” I mentioned that I had been told this difficulty would have been obviated by my going through rooms less thronged. “You mean by the private entrance.—Oh! But that is a privilege excessively difficult to be obtained, I do assure you; Lady ——, who went that way, had to exert all her influence; and it is a thing not to be had without a ridiculous degree of favour.”—“I was told by our chargé that if I went, he would take me by some private entrance that is devoted to the diplomatic corps. You will remember that I should have to be presented.”—“Ah! true; in that way it might possibly have been done.” And he looked ridiculously envious of a foreigner who enjoyed this small privilege.
There is a diplomatic tradition that one of our ministers complained to our own government, of the treatment his wife received at court even, and a pithy anecdote is current concerning the mode in which Mr. Jefferson avenged her. It is not easy to see in what manner a minister can resent the slights of ordinary society; perhaps the best method would be to send his family to Paris, where it would be certain to meet with good breeding, at least, and ask permission to visit it, from time to time, in a way that would leave no doubt of the cause. But a slight that proceeded from the court, ought to be met promptly. If a spirited remonstrance did not procure redress, the minister should ask his recall, and assign his reason. Were such a thing to occur once, in a case that was clear, and our government were to decline filling the mission, because it could ask no citizen to take a family into a country where its feelings were not properly regarded, the principle would be settled forever. If there ever was a nation that can afford to take high ground, in a matter like this, it is our own; for we are above fear, have no need of favour, and cannot accept of rewards. No people was ever more independent in its facts; would to heaven it were equally so in its opinions! If a case of this nature should occur, the trading part of the community would raise an outcry, lest it should derange commerce, the administration would probably be frightened by their clamour and the dignity of the republic would be abandoned, although the bone and sinew of the nation, when properly called on, would be ready and willing to maintain it. Still the dignity and the policy of a country are inseparable.
LETTER IX.
TO JAMES STEVENSON, ESQ.
Some favourable accidents have thrown me lately, more than I had a right to expect, in the circumstances under which I have visited England, into the society of the leading whigs. At dinner at Lord Grey’s, I have met Lord Holland, Lord Lauderdale, Lord John Russell, Lord Duncannon, Lord Althorp, Lord Durham, and many men of less note, though all of the same way of thinking. Were it permitted to relate what passes when one is admitted within the doors of a private house, I could amuse you, beyond a question, by repeating the conversation and remarks of men of whom it is matter of interest to learn any thing authentic, but neither of us has been educated in a gossiping school. Still, without violating propriety, I may give you some notions of my distinguished host.
Lord Grey, notwithstanding his years, for he is no longer young, retains much of the lightness and grace of a young man, in his form. He is tall, well-proportioned, and I should think had once been sufficiently athletic, and there is an expression of suavity and kindness in his face, that report had not prepared me to see. He struck me as being as little of an actor in society, as any public man I have ever seen. Simple and well-bred, such a man could hardly escape being, but in Lord Grey’s simplicity, there is a nature one does not always meet. He is not exactly as playful as Lord Holland, who seems to be all bonhomie, but he sits and smiles at the sallies of those around him, as if he thoroughly enjoyed them. I thought him the man of the most character in his set, though he betrayed it quietly, naturally, and, as it were, as if he could not help it. The tone of his mind and of his deportment was masculine. I find that the English look upon this statesman with a little social awe, but I have now met him several times, and have dined twice with him at his own table, and so far from seeing, or rather feeling any grounds for such a notion, I have been in the company of no distinguished man in Europe, so much my senior, with whom I have felt myself more at ease, or who has appeared to me better to understand the rights of all in a drawing-room. I can safely say that his house is one of the very few in England, in which something has not occurred to make me feel that I was not only a foreigner, but an American. Lord Grey expressed no surprise that I spoke English, he spared me explanations of a hundred things that are quite as well understood with us as they are here, manifested liberality of sentiment without parade, and, on all occasions, acted and expressed himself precisely as if he never thought at all of national differences. His company was uniformly good, and as it was generally composed of men of rank, perhaps I fared all the better for the circumstance. Castes have a tendency to depress all but the privileged, and the losers are a little apt to betray the “beggar-on-horseback” disposition, when they catch one whom they can patronise or play upon. There was not the least of this about the manner of Lord Grey.
You may be curious to know in what the difference consists between the manner of living in a house like this, of which I am speaking, and in one of our own that corresponds to it, in social position. We have essentially larger and better houses than many of the town residences of the English nobility. Our rooms are, however, too apt to want height and dimension, for where we increase the number of the apartments these people increase the size. Almost every dwelling of any pretensions in London has a stone stair-case, and, although they are not to be compared to those of Paris, (the few great houses here, excepted) they give the arrangements a certain air of solidity and richness. In the other marbles, I think, on the whole, we have the advantage; though regular architects controlling that, which, with us, is too often left to a mere mechanic, I should think violations of taste and propriety do not as often occur in the domestic ornaments of the English, as in our own.
Our old practice of having the reception rooms on the first floor, and the dining-room below, is very general in London, the only exceptions being in the comparatively few houses whose size admits of rooms en suite. Of course the stairs are more in use here than with us. This sadly impairs the effect, for nothing can be worse than to be obliged to climb and descend a long narrow flight of steps, in going to or from the table: I am wrong; it is worse to eat in a room that is afterwards used to receive in.
The English furnish their houses essentially as ours are furnished. French bronzes, clocks, &c., and, indeed, all continental and Chinese ornaments are perhaps less common, but they use much more furniture. The country practice of arranging the furniture, in a prim and starched manner, along the walls, is, I believe, rather peculiar to America, for both in France and England a negligent affluence of ottomans, sofas, divans, screens and tables of all sorts, appears to be the prevailing taste. I was lately in a drawing-room, here, in which I counted no less than fourteen sofas, causeuses, chaises longues, and ottomans, scattered about the room, in orderly confusion. The ottoman appears to be almost exclusively English, for it is rarely seen in Paris, whereas a drawing-room is seldom without one in London. I do not remember ever to have met with one in America, at all. In the wood and silks of furniture, think we rather excel the English, although it is not as usual to find magnificence of this sort, carried out with us, as it is here. Capt. Hall is unquestionably right, when he says our mode of furnishing is naked, compared to that of England, though the little we have is usually as handsome as any thing here.
I have been much struck with the great number and with the excellence of the paintings one sees in the English dwellings, for, in Paris, a good picture is rarely to be found out of the galleries and the palaces. I should think Rome, alone, can surpass London in this particular.