My companion led the way to a hotel, and we were introduced by English waiters (I had not seen such a thing in three years, and it was quite like being waited on by gentlemen), to two blazing coal fires in the "coffee room" of the "Ship." Oh what a comfortable place it appeared! A rich Turkey carpet snugly fitted, nice-rubbed mahogany tables, the morning papers from London, bellropes that would ring the bell, doors that would shut, a landlady that spoke English, and was kind and civil; and, though there were eight or ten people in the room, no noise above the rustle of a newspaper, and positively, rich red damask curtains, neither second-hand nor shabby, to the windows! A greater contrast than this to the things that answer to them on the continent, could scarcely be imagined.
Malgré all my observations on the English, whom I have found elsewhere the most open-hearted and social people in the world, they are said by themselves and others to be just the contrary; and, presuming they were different in England, I had made up my mind to seal my lips in all public places, and be conscious of nobody's existence but my own. There were several elderly persons dining at the different tables; and one party, of a father and son, waited on by their own servants in livery. Candles were brought in, the different cloths were removed; and, as my companion had gone to bed, I took up a newspaper to keep me company over my wine. In the course of an hour, some remark had been addressed to me, provocative of conversation, by almost every individual in the room! The subjects of discussion soon became general, and I have seldom passed a more social and agreeable evening. And so much for the first specimen of English reserve!
The fires were burning brilliantly, and the coffee-room was in the nicest order when we descended to our breakfast at six the next morning. The tea-kettle sung on the hearth, the toast was hot, and done to a turn, and the waiter was neither sleepy nor uncivil—all, again, very unlike a morning at a hotel in la belle France.
The coach rattled up to the door punctually at the hour; and, while they were putting on my way-worn baggage, I stood looking in admiration at the carriage and horses. They were four beautiful bays, in small, neat harness of glazed leather, brass-mounted, their coats shining like a racer's, their small, blood-looking heads curbed up to stand exactly together, and their hoofs blacked and brushed with the polish of a gentleman's boots. The coach was gaudily painted, the only thing out of taste about it; but it was admirably built, the wheel-horses were quite under the coachman's box, and the whole affair, though it would carry twelve or fourteen people, covered less ground than a French one-horse cabriolet. It was altogether quite a study.
We mounted to the top of the coach; "all right," said the ostler, and away shot the four fine creatures, turning their small ears, and stepping together with the ease of a cat, at ten miles in the hour. The driver was dressed like a Broadway idler, and sat in his place, and held his "ribands" and his tandemwhip with a confident air of superiority, as if he were quite convinced that he and his team were beyond criticism—and so they were! I could not but smile at contrasting his silence and the speed and ease with which we went along, with the clumsy, cumbrous diligence or vetturino, and the crying, whipping, cursing and ill-appointed postillions of France and Italy. It seems odd, in a two hours' passage, to pass over such strong lines of national difference—so near, and not even a shading of one into the other.
England is described always very justly, and always in the same words: "it is all one garden." There is not a cottage between Dover and London (seventy miles), where a poet might not be happy to live. I saw a hundred little spots I coveted with quite a heart-ache. There was no poverty on the road. Everybody seemed employed, and everybody well-made and healthy. The relief from the deformity and disease of the wayside beggars of the continent was very striking.
We were at Canterbury before I had time to get accustomed to my seat. The horses had been changed twice; the coach, it seemed to me, hardly stopping while it was done; way-passengers were taken up and put down, with their baggage, without a word, and in half a minute; money was tossed to the keeper of the turnpike gate as we dashed through; the wheels went over the smooth road without noise, and with scarce a sense of motion—it was the perfection of travel.
The new driver from Canterbury rather astonished me. He drove into London every day, and was more of a "swell." He owned the first team himself, four blood horses of great beauty, and it was a sight to see him drive them! His language was free from all slang, and very gentlemanlike and well chosen, and he discussed everything. He found out that I was an American, and said we did not think enough of the memory of Washington. Leaving his bones in the miserable brick tomb, of which he had descriptions, was not, in his opinion, worthy of a country like mine. He went on to criticise Julia Grisi (the new singer just then setting London on fire), hummed airs from "Il Pirati," to show her manner; sang an English song like Braham; gave a decayed Count, who sat on the box, some very sensible advice about the management of a wild son; drew a comparison between French and Italian women (he had travelled); told us who the old Count was in very tolerable French, and preferred Edmund Kean and Fanny Kemble to all actors in the world. His taste and his philosophy, like his driving, were quite unexceptionable. He was, withal, very handsome, and had the easy and respectful manners of a well-bred person. It seemed very odd to give him a shilling at the end of the journey.
At Chatham we took up a very elegantly dressed young man, who had come down on a fishing excursion. He was in the army, and an Irishman. We had not been half an hour on the seat together, before he had discovered, by so many plain questions, that I was an American, a stranger in England, and an acquaintance of a whole regiment of his friends in Malta and Corfu. If this had been a Yankee, thought I, what a chapter it would have made for Basil Hall or Madame Trollope! With all his inquisitiveness I liked my companion, and half accepted his offer to drive me down to Epsom the next day to the races. I know no American who would have beaten that on a stage-coach acquaintance.