It would be impossible, of course, to make a full and fair record of a conversation of some hours. I have only noted one or two topics which I thought most likely to interest an American reader. During all this long visit, however, my eyes were very busy in finishing for memory, a portrait of the celebrated and beautiful woman before me.
The portrait of Lady Blessington in the Book of Beauty is not unlike her, but it is still an unfavorable likeness. A picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence hung opposite me, taken, perhaps, at the age of eighteen, which is more like her, and as captivating a representation of a just matured woman, full of loveliness and love, the kind of creature with whose divine sweetness the gazer's heart aches, as ever was drawn in the painter's most inspired hour. The original is now (she confessed it very frankly) forty. She looks something on the sunny side of thirty. Her person is full, but preserves all the fineness of an admirable shape; her foot is not crowded in a satin slipper, for which a Cinderella might long be looked for in vain, and her complexion (an unusually fair skin, with very dark hair and eyebrows), is of even a girlish delicacy and freshness. Her dress of blue satin (if I am describing her like a milliner, it is because I have here and there a reader of the Mirror in my eye who will be amused by it), was cut low and folded across her bosom, in a way to show to advantage the round and sculpture-like curve and whiteness of a pair of exquisite shoulders, while her hair dressed close to her head, and parted simply on her forehead with a rich ferroniere of turquoise, enveloped in clear outline a head with which it would be difficult to find a fault. Her features are regular, and her mouth, the most expressive of them, has a ripe fulness and freedom of play, peculiar to the Irish physiognomy, and expressive of the most unsuspicious good humor. Add to all this a voice merry and sad by turns, but always musical, and manners of the most unpretending elegance, yet even more remarkable for their winning kindness, and you have the most prominent traits of one of the most lovely and fascinating women I have ever seen. Remembering her talents and her rank, and the unenvying admiration she receives from the world of fashion and genius, it would be difficult to reconcile her lot to the "doctrine of compensation."
There is one remark I may as well make here, with regard to the personal descriptions and anecdotes with which my letters from England will of course be filled. It is quite a different thing from publishing such letters in London. America is much farther off from England than England from America. You in New York read the periodicals of this country, and know everything that is done or written here, as if you lived within the sound of Bow-bell. The English, however, just know of our existence, and if they get a general idea twice a year of our progress in politics, they are comparatively well informed. Our periodical literature is never even heard of. Of course there can be no offence to the individuals themselves in anything which a visitor could write, calculated to convey an idea of the person or manners of distinguished people to the American public. I mention it lest, at first thought, I might seem to have abused the hospitality or frankness of those on whom letters of introduction have given me claims for civility.
LETTER LXIX.
THE LITERATI OF LONDON.
Spent my first day in London in wandering about the finest part of the West End. It is nonsense to compare it to any other city in the world. From the Horse-Guards to the Regent's Park alone, there is more magnificence in architecture than in the whole of any other metropolis in Europe, and I have seen the most and the best of them. Yet this, though a walk of more than two miles, is but a small part even of the fashionable extremity of London. I am not easily tired in a city; but I walked till I could scarce lift my feet from the ground, and still the parks and noble streets extended before and around me as far as the eye could reach, and strange as they were in reality, the names were as familiar to me as if my childhood had been passed among them. "Bond Street," "Grosvenor Square," "Hyde Park," look new to my eye, but they sound very familiar to my ear.
The equipages of London are much talked of, but they exceed even description. Nothing can be more perfect, or apparently more simple than the gentleman's carriage that passes you in the street. Of a modest color, but the finest material, the crest just visible on the panels, the balance of the body upon its springs, true and easy, the hammercloth and liveries of the neatest and most harmonious colors, the harness slight and elegant, and the horses "the only splendid thing" in the establishment—is a description that answers the most of them. Perhaps the most perfect thing in the world, however, is a St. James's-street stanhope or cabriolet, with its dandy owner on the whip-seat, and the "tiger" beside him. The attitudes of both the gentleman and the "gentleman's gentleman" are studied to a point, but nothing could be more knowing or exquisite than either. The whole affair, from the angle of the bell-crowned hat (the prevailing fashion on the steps of Crockford's at present), to the blood legs of the thorough-bred creature in harness, is absolutely faultless. I have seen many subjects for study in my first day's stroll, but I leave the men and women and some other less important features of London for maturer observation.
In the evening I kept my appointment with Lady Blessington. She had deserted her exquisite library for the drawing-room, and sat, in fuller dress, with six or seven gentlemen about her. I was presented immediately to all, and when the conversation was resumed, I took the opportunity to remark the distinguished coterie with which she was surrounded.
Nearest me sat Smith, the author of "Rejected Addresses"—a hale, handsome man, apparently fifty, with white hair, and a very nobly-formed head and physiognomy. His eye alone, small and with lids contracted into an habitual look of drollery, betrayed the bent of his genius. He held a cripple's crutch in his hand, and though otherwise rather particularly well dressed, wore a pair of large India rubber shoes—the penalty he was paying, doubtless, for the many good dinners he had eaten. He played rather an aside in the conversation, whipping in with a quiz or a witticism whenever he could get an opportunity, but more a listener than a talker.
On the opposite side of Lady B. stood Henry Bulwer, the brother of the novelist, very earnestly engaged in a discussion of some speech of O'Connell's. He is said by many to be as talented as his brother, and has lately published a book on the present state of France. He is a small man, very slight and gentleman-like, a little pitted with the small-pox, and of very winning and persuasive manners. I liked him at the first glance.