It is pleasant to recognize the mould and fashion of English features through the marble of many of the statues and busts in the Abbey, even though they may be clad in Roman robes. I am inclined to think them, in many cases, faithful likenesses; and it brings them nearer to the mind, to see these original sculptures,—you see the man at but one remove, as if you caught his image in a looking-glass. The bust of Gay seemed to me very good,—a thoughtful and humorous sweetness in the face. Goldsmith has as good a position as any poet in the Abbey, his bust and tablet filling the pointed arch over a door that seems to lead towards the cloisters. No doubt he would have liked to be assured of so conspicuous a place. There is one monument to a native American, "Charles Wragg, Esq., of South Carolina,"—the only one, I suspect, in Westminster Abbey, and he acquired this memorial by the most un-American of qualities, his loyalty to his king. He was one of the refugees leaving America in 1777, and being shipwrecked on his passage the monument was put up by his sister. It is a small tablet with a representation of Mr. Wragg's shipwreck at the base. Next to it is the large monument of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, which I think Addison ridicules,—the Admiral, in a full-bottomed wig and Roman dress, but with a broad English face, reclining with his head on his hand, and looking at you with great placidity. I stood at either end of the nave, and endeavored to take in the full beauty and majesty of the edifice; but apparently was not in a proper state of mind, for nothing came of it. It is singular how like an avenue of overarching trees are these lofty aisles of a cathedral.
Leaving the Abbey about one o'clock, I walked into the city as far as Grace Church Street, and there called on the American Consul, General ———, who had been warmly introduced to me last year by a letter from the President. I like the General; a kindly and honorable man, of simple manners and large experience of life. Afterwards I called on Mr. Oakford, an American connected in business with Mr. Crosby, from whom I wanted some information as to the sailing of steamers from Southampton to Lisbon. Mr. Crosby was not in town. . . .
At eight o'clock Mr. ——— sent his carriage, according to previous arrangement, to take us to spend the evening socially. Miss L——— received us with proper cordiality, and looked quite becomingly,—more sweet and simple in aspect than when I have seen her in full dress. Shortly the ambassador appeared, and made himself highly agreeable; not that he is a brilliant conversationist, but his excellent sense and good-humor, and all that he has seen and been a part of, are sufficient resources to draw upon. We talked of the Queen, whom he spoke of with high respect; . . . . of the late Czar, whom he knew intimately while minister to Russia,—and he quite confirms all that has been said about the awful beauty of his person. Mr. ———'s characterization of him was quite favorable; he thought better of his heart than most people, and adduced his sports with a school of children,—twenty of whom, perhaps, he made to stand rigidly in a row, like so many bricks,—then, giving one a push, would laugh obstreperously to see the whole row tumble down. He would lie on his back, and allow the little things to scramble over him. His Majesty admitted Mr. ——— to great closeness of intercourse, and informed him of a conspiracy which was then on foot for the Czar's murder. On the evening, when the assassination was to take place, the Czar did not refrain from going to the public place where it was to be perpetrated, although, indeed, great precautions had been taken to frustrate the schemes of the conspirators. Mr. ——— said, that, in case the plot had succeeded, all the foreigners, including himself, would likewise have been murdered, the native Russians having a bitter hatred against foreigners. He observed that he had been much attached to the Czar, and had never joined in the English abuse of him. His sympathies, however, are evidently rather English than Russian, in this war. Speaking of the present emperor, he said that Lord Heytebury, formerly English ambassador in Russia, lately told him that he complimented the Czar Nicholas on the good qualities of his son, saying that he was acknowledged by all to be one of the most amiable youths in the world. "Too amiable, I fear, for his position," answered the Czar. "He has too much of his mother in him."
September 27th.—Yesterday, much earlier than English people ever do such things, General ——— made us a call on his way to the Consulate, and sat talking a stricken hour or thereabouts. Scarcely had he gone when Mrs. Oakford and her daughter came. After sitting a long while, they took U—— to their house, near St. John's Wood, to spend the night. I had been writing my journal and official correspondence during such intervals as these calls left me; and now, concluding these businesses, S——-, J——-, and I went out and took a cab for the terminus of the Crystal Palace Railway, whither we proceeded over Waterloo Bridge, and reached the palace not far from three o'clock. It was a beautifully bright day, such as we have in wonderful succession this month. The Crystal Palace gleamed in the sunshine; but I do not think a very impressive edifice can be built of glass,—light and airy, to be sure, but still it will be no other than an overgrown conservatory. It is unlike anything else in England; uncongenial with the English character, without privacy, destitute of mass, weight, and shadow, unsusceptible of ivy, lichens, or any mellowness from age.
The train of carriages stops within the domain of the palace, where there is a long ascending corridor up into the edifice. There was a very pleasant odor of heliotrope diffused through the air; and, indeed, the whole atmosphere of the Crystal Palace is sweet with various flower-scents, and mild and balmy, though sufficiently fresh and cool. It would be a delightful climate for invalids to spend the winter in; and if all England could be roofed over with glass, it would be a great improvement on its present condition.
The first thing we did, before fairly getting into the palace, was to sit down in a large ante-hall, and get some bread and butter and a pint of Bass's pale ale, together with a cup of coffee for S——-. This was the best refreshment we could find at that spot; but farther within we found abundance of refreshment-rooms, and John Bull and his wife and family at fifty little round tables, busily engaged with cold fowl, cold beef, ham, tongue, and bottles of ale and stout, and half-pint decanters of sherry. The English probably eat with more simple enjoyment than any other people; not ravenously, as we often do, and not exquisitely and artificially, like the French, but deliberately and vigorously, and with due absorption in the business, so that nothing good is lost upon them. . . . It is remarkable how large a feature the refreshment-rooms make in the arrangements of the Crystal Palace.
The Crystal Palace is a gigantic toy for the English people to play with. The design seems to be to reproduce all past ages, by representing the features of their interior architecture, costume, religion, domestic life, and everything that can be expressed by paint and plaster; and, likewise, to bring all climates and regions of the earth within these enchanted precincts, with their inhabitants and animals in living semblance, and their vegetable productions, as far as possible, alive and real. Some part of the design is already accomplished to a wonderful degree. The Indian, the Egyptian, and especially the Arabian, courts are admirably executed. I never saw or conceived anything so gorgeous as the Alhambra. There are Byzantine and mediaeval representations, too,— reproductions of ancient apartments, decorations, statues from tombs, monuments, religious and funereal,—that gave me new ideas of what antiquity has been. It takes down one's overweening opinion of the present time, to see how many kinds of beauty and magnificence have heretofore existed, and are now quite passed away and forgotten; and to find that we, who suppose that, in all matters of taste, our age is the very flower-season of the time,—that we are poor and meagre as to many things in which they were rich. There is nothing gorgeous now. We live a very naked life. This was the only reflection I remember making, as we passed from century to century, through the succession of classic, Oriental, and mediaeval courts, adown the lapse of time,—seeing all these ages in as brief a space as the Wandering Jew might glance along them in his memory. I suppose a Pompeian house with its courts and interior apartments was as faithfully shown as it was possible to do it. I doubt whether I ever should feel at home in such a house.
In the pool of a fountain, of which there are several beautiful ones within the palace, besides larger ones in the garden before it, we saw tropical plants growing,—large water-lilies of various colors, some white, like our Concord pond-lily, only larger, and more numerously leafed. There were great circular green leaves, lying flat on the water, with a circumference equal to that of a centre-table. Tropical trees, too, varieties of palm and others, grew in immense pots or tubs, but seemed not to enjoy themselves much. The atmosphere must, after all, be far too cool to bring out their native luxuriance; and this difficulty can never be got over at a less expense than that of absolutely stewing the visitors and attendants. Otherwise, it would be very practicable to have all the vegetable world, at least, within these precincts.
The palace is very large, and our time was short, it being desirable to get home early; so, after a stay of little more than two hours, we took the rail back again, and reached Hanover Square at about six. After tea I wandered forth, with some thought of going to the theatre, and, passing the entrance of one, in the Strand, I went in, and found a farce in progress. It was one of the minor theatres, very minor indeed; but the pieces, so far as I saw them, were sufficiently laughable. There were some Spanish dances, too, very graceful and pretty. Between the plays a girl from the neighboring saloon came to the doors of the boxes, offering lemonade and ginger-beer to the occupants. A person in my box took a glass of lemonade, and shared it with a young lady by his side, both sipping out of the same glass. The audience seemed rather heavy,—not briskly responsive to the efforts of the performers, but good-natured, and willing to be pleased, especially with some patriotic dances, in which much waving and intermingling of the French and English flags was introduced. Theatrical performances soon weary me of late years; and I came away before the curtain rose on the concluding piece.
September 28th.—8—— and I walked to Charing Cross yesterday forenoon, and there took a Hansom cab to St. Paul's Cathedral. It had been a thick, foggy morning, but had warmed and brightened into one of the balmiest and sunniest of noons. As we entered the cathedral, the long bars of sunshine were falling from its upper windows through the great interior atmosphere, and were made visible by the dust, or mist, floating about in it. It is a grand edifice, and I liked it quite as much as on my first view of it, although a sense of coldness and nakedness is felt when we compare it with Gothic churches. It is more an external work than the Gothic churches are, and is not so made out of the dim, awful, mysterious, grotesque, intricate nature of man. But it is beautiful and grand. I love its remote distances, and wide, clear spaces, its airy massiveness; its noble arches, its sky-like dome, which, I think, should be all over light, with ground-glass, instead of being dark, with only diminutive windows.