"Hardly," he resumes, "has the female Nicolai reached Stockholm, when she begins with her insipid comparisons. 'The golden brilliancy of Naples and the magic spell of Venice are here entirely wanting.' Is it possible? Only see what striking remarks this witty and travelled dame does make! In the next page she says:—'Upon this very day, exactly one year since, I was in Barcelona; but here there is nothing that will bear comparison with the land of the aloe and the orange. Three years ago I was on the Lake of Como, in that fairy garden beyond the Alps! Five years ago in Vienna, amongst the rose-groves of Laxenburg;' &c. Who cares in what places the Countess has been? Surely it is enough that she has written long wearisome books about them. Every possible corner of Italy, Spain, and Switzerland is dragged laboriously in, to furnish forth comparisons; and soon, no doubt, a similar use will be made of Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. These comparisons are invariably shown to be to the disadvantage of Sweden; and although the lady is oftentimes compelled to confess to the beauty of a Swedish landscape, she never forgets to qualify the admission, by observing how much more beautiful such or such a place was. For example, she is standing one night at her window, looking out on the Maeler lake. 'I wrapped my mantilla shiveringly around me, stepped back from the window, shut it, and said with a slight sigh: In Venice the moonlight nights were very different.' Really this would be hardly credible, did any other than a countess assure us of it."
"Every thing in Sweden is disagreeable and adverse to her; roads, houses, food, people, and money; rocks, trees, rivers and flowers; but especially sun, sky, and air. She talks without ceasing of heavy clouds and pouring rains, but even this abundance of water is insufficient to mitigate the dryness of her book."
"I am always sorry," says a witty French writer, "when a woman becomes an author: I would much rather she remained a woman." Does Mr Boas, perchance, partake this implied opinion, that authorship unsexes; and is it therefore that he allows himself to deal out such hard measure to the Countess Ida? Even if we agreed with his criticisms, we should quarrel with his want of gallantry. But it is tolerably evident that if Madame Hahn-Hahn, finding herself on the shores of the Baltic, in a July that might have answered to December in the sunny climes she had so recently left, allowed her account of Swedes and Sweden to be shaded a little en noir by her own physical discomforts; it is evident, we say, that on the other hand, our present author, either more favoured by the season, or less susceptible of its influence, sins equally in the contrary extreme, and throws a rosy tint over all that he portrays. Though equally likely to induce into error, it is the pleasanter fault to those persons who merely read the tour for amusement, without proposing to follow in the footsteps of the tourist. Your complaining, grumbling travellers are bores, whether on paper or in a post-chaise; and, truth to tell, we have noticed in others of the Countess's books a disposition to look on the dark side of things. But this is not always the case, and, when she gets on congenial ground, she shines forth as a writer of a very high order. Witness her Italian tour, and her book upon Turkey and Syria, with which latter, English readers have recently been made acquainted through an admirable translation, by the accomplished author of Caleb Stukely. She has her little conceits, and her little fancies; rather an overweening pride of caste, and contempt for the plebeian multitude, and an addiction to filling too many pages of her books with small personal and egotistical details about herself, and her sensations, and what dresses she wears, and how thin she is, and so on. But with all her faults, she is unquestionably a very accomplished and clever writer. Her criticisms on subjects relating to art, and especially her original and sparkling remarks on painting and architecture, although qualified by Mr Boas as twaddle, stamp her at once as a woman of no common order. She has profound and poetical conceptions of Beauty, and at times a felicity of expression in presenting the effects of nature and art upon her own mind, that strikes and startles by its novelty and power. As a delineator of men and manners, she is remarkable for shrewdness, subtle perception, and truthfulness that cannot be mistaken. Should our readers doubt our statements, or haply Mr Boas turn up his nose at the eulogium, we would simply refer them and him to the last work that has fallen from her pen, the Letters from the Orient, and bid them open it at the page which brings them to a Bedouin encampment—a scene described with the vigour that belongs to a masculine understanding, and all the fascination which a feminine mind can bestow.
Still we are free to confess that the Countess has written perhaps rather too much for the time she has been about it, and thus laid herself open to an accusation of bookmaking, the prevailing vice of the present race of authors. The incorrigible and merciless Mr Boas does not let this pass.
"The question now remains to be asked," says he; "Why did Ida Hahn-Hahn, upon leaving a country in which she had passed a couple of weeks—a country of the language of which she confesses herself ignorant, and with which she was in every respect thoroughly displeased, deem it incumbent on her forthwith to write a thick book concerning it? The answer is this: her pretended impulse to authorship is merely feigned, otherwise she would not have troubled herself any further about such a wearisome country as Sweden. Through three hundred and fifty pages does she drag herself, grumbling as she goes; a single day must often fill a score of pages, for travelling costs money, and the honorarium is not to be despised. If I thus accuse the Countess of bookmaking, I also feel that such an accusation should be supported by abundant proof, and such proof am I ready to give."
Oh fye, Boas! How can you be so ruthless? Besides the impolicy of exposing the tricks of your trade, all this is very spiteful indeed. You would almost tempt us, were it worth while, to take up the cudgels in earnest in defence of the calumniated Countess, and to give you a crack on the pate, which, as Maga is regularly translated into German for the benefit and improvement of your countrymen, would entirely finish your career, whether as poet, tour-writer, or any thing else. But seeing that your conceits and lucubrations have afforded us one or two good laughs, and considering, moreover, that you are of the number of those small fry with which it is almost condescension for us to meddle, we will let you off, and close this notice of your book, if not with entire approbation, at least with a moderate meed of praise.
HOUSE-HUNTING IN WALES.
"Change of air! change of air!" Every body was in the same story. "Medicine is of no use," said the doctor; "a little change of scene will set all to rights again." I looked in the child's face—she was certainly very pale. "And how long do you think she should stay away from home?" "Two or three months will stock her with health for a whole year." Two or three months!—oh, what a century of time that is, now that we have railroads all over the world, and steam to the Pyramids—where in all the wide earth are we to go? So we got maps of all countries, and took advice from every one we saw. We shall certainly go among hills, wherever we go; beautiful scenery if we can—but hills and fresh air at all events. We heard of fine open downs, and an occasional tempest, in the neighbourhood of Rouen. A steamer goes from Portsmouth to Havre, and another delightful little river-boat up the Seine. For a whole day we had determined on a visit to the burial-place of William the Norman—the death-place of Joan of Arc; we had devised little tours and detours all over the mysterious land that sent forth the conquerors of England; but soon there cane "a frost, a nipping frost,"—are we to be boxed up in an hotel in a French town the whole time? No, we must go somewhere, where we can get a country-house—a place on the swelling side of some romantic hill, where we can trot about all day upon ponies, or ramble through fields and meadows at our own sweet will. So we gave up all thoughts of Rouen. "I'll tell you what, sir," said a sympathizing neighbour: "when I came home on my three years' leave, I left the prettiest thing you ever saw, a perfect paradise, and a bungalow that was the envy of every man in the district." "Well?" I said with an enquiring look. "It's among the Neilgherries; and as for bracing air, there isn't such a place in the whole world. I merely mention it, you know; it's a little too far off, perhaps; but if you like it, it is quite at your service, I assure you." It was very tempting, but three months was scarcely long enough. So we were at a nonplus. Scotland we thought of; and the Cumberland lakes; and the Malvern hills; and the Peak of Derbyshire; and where we might finally have fixed can never be known, for our plans were decided by the advice of a friend, which was rendered irresistible by being backed by his own experience. "Go to Wales," he said. "I lived in such a beautiful place there three or four years ago—in the Vale of Glasbury—a lovely open space, with hills all round it—admirable accommodation at the Three Cocks, and the most civil and obliging landlord that ever offered good entertainment for man and beast." Out came the maps again; the route was carefully studied; and one day at the end of May, we found ourselves, eight people in all, viz., four children and two maids, in a railway coach at Gosport, fizzing up to Basingstoke. There is such a feeling of life and earnestness about a railway carriage;—the perpetual shake, and the continual swing, swing, on and on, without a moment's pause, with the quick, bustling, breathless sort of tramp of the engine—all these things, and forty others, put me in such a state of intense activity that I felt as if I kept a shop—or was a prodigious man upon 'Change—or was flying up to make a fortune—or had suddenly been called to form an administration—or had become a member of the prize ring, and was going up to fight white-headed Bob. However, on this occasion I was not called upon either to overthrow white-headed Bob of the ring, or long-headed Bob of the administration; and at Basingstoke we suddenly found ourselves, bag and baggage, wife, maids, and children, standing in a forlorn and disconsolate manner, at the door of the station-house; while the train pursued its course, and had already disappeared like a dream, or rather like a nightmare. There were at least half-a-dozen little carriages, each with one horse; and the drivers had, each and all of then, the audacity to offer to convey us—luggage and all—sixteen miles across, to Reading. Why, there was not a vehicle there that would have held the two trunks; and as to conveying us all, it would have taken the united energies of all the Flies in Basingstoke, with the help of the Industrious Fleas to boot, to get us to our destination within a week. While in this perplexing situation, wondering what people could possibly want with such an array of boxes and bags, a quiet-looking man, who had stood by, chewing the lash of a driving-whip in a very philosophical manner, said, "Please sir, I'll take you all." "My good friend, have you seen the whole party?" "Oh yes, sir, I brought a bigger nor yourn for this here train—we have a fly on purpose." What a sensible man he must have been who devised a vehicle so much required by unhappy sires that are ordered to remove their Lares for change of air! "Bring round the ark," we cried; and in a minute came two very handsome horses to the door, drawing a thing that was an aggravated likeness of the old hackney coaches, with a slight cross of an omnibus in its breed. It held seven inside with perfect ease, and would have held as many more as might be required; and it carried all the luggage on the top with an air of as much ease as if it had only been a bonnet, and it was rather proud than otherwise of its head-dress. The driving seat was as capacious as the other parts of the machine, and we had much interesting conversation with the Jehu—whose epithets, we are sorry to say, as applied to railroads, were of that class of adjectives called the emphatic. There is to be a cross line very shortly between Basingstoke and Reading, uniting the South-Western and Great Western Railways—and then, what is to become of the tremendous vehicle and its driver? The coach, to be sure, may be retained as a specimen of Brobdignaggian fly, but my friend Jehu must appear in the character of Othello, and confess that "his occupation's gone." Thank heaven! people wear boots, and many of them like to have them cleaned, so, with the help of Day and Martin, you may live. "That's the Duke's gate, sir," he said, pointing with his whip to a plain lodge and entrance on the left hand. "The lodge-keeper was his top groom at the time Waterloo was—and a very nice place he has." This was Strathfieldsaye: there were miles and miles of the most beautiful plantations, all the fences in excellent order, the cottages along the road clean and comfortable, and every symptom of a good landlord to be seen as far as the eye could reach.