But her woman’s heart could not resist the men in regimentals; she was determined, too, to have a good look at them, as her journal tells.
“I went one morning to the park, in hopes to see the Duke review a troop of the Horse Guards, but he was not there; but the Guards were very pretty. Sall Blackwood and Miss Buller were with me; they were afraid to push near for the crowd, but I was resolved to get forward, so pushed in. They were very surly, and one of them asked me where I would be,—would I have my toes trod off? ‘Is your toes trode off?’ said I. ‘No,’ said he. ‘Then give me your place, and I’ll take care of my toes.’ ‘But they are going to fire,’ said he. ‘Then it’s time for you to march off,’ said I, ‘for I can stand fire. I wish your troops may do as well.’ On which he sneaked off, and gave me his place.”
A few other sketches we give for the sake of their succinctness. Greenwich Hospital “is a ridiculous fine thing.” The view from the hill, there, “is very pretty, which you see just as well in a raree-show glass. No wonder the English are transported with a place they can see about them in.”
We give also as a curiosity, because we wonder how the lady ventured to present to us,—King George the Second in his bedroom at Kensington.
“There are a small bed with silk curtains, two satin quilts, and no blanket; a hair mattress; a plain wicker basket stands on a table, with a silk night-gown and night-cap in it; a candle with an extinguisher; some billets of wood on each side of the fire. He goes to bed alone, rises, lights his fire, and tends it himself, and nobody knows when he rises, which is very early, and he is up several hours before he calls anybody. He dines in a small room adjoining, in which there is nothing but very common things. He sometimes, they say, sups with his daughters and their company, and is very merry, and sings French songs; but at present he is in low spirits.”
Finally, let us show how Mrs. Calderwood brings her acutely haggis-loving mind to bear upon the English ignorance of what is good for dinner.
“As for their victuals, they make such a work about, I cannot enter into the tastes of them, or rather, I think they have no taste to enter into. The meat is juicy enough, but has so little taste that if you shut your eyes, you will not know, by either taste or smell, what you are eating. The lamb and veal look as if they had been blanched in water. The smell of dinner will never intimate that it is on the table. No such effluvia as beef and cabbage was ever found in London! The fish, I think, have the same fault.”
At the want of a sufficiently high smell to the fish eaten by the English, we are very well content to stop, and stop accordingly.
THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.
THE SHOW OFFICER.