Churchill owed, then, only to a common hand what the pride of a friend refused – the safety of his burial-place. Wilkes only sought the gratification of his vanity. While he consigned his friend’s last relics to the keeping of a tablet, he consigned his own pride in such a friend to the keeping of a column in his own grounds. Yet I do not know whether the scene was not more moving, though no vainly pompous inscription pointed out the spot where this poet was buried.
There were two authors; one, the most distinguished of his age; another, whose name is rising rapidly; (and a third, ambitious for literary distinction). What a lesson it was for them when, having asked the sexton if he knew why so many came to see this tomb, he said: ‘I cannot tell; I had not the burying of him.’
We then returned home, where, having delivered my play into their hands, I had to hear it laughed at – (an author has always a salvo) partly, I think, from the way in which it was read. One of the party, however – to smoothe, I suppose, my ruffled spirits – took up my play, and apparently read part with great attention, drawing applause from those who before had laughed. He read on with so much attention that the others declared he had never been so attentive before.
I afterwards went out, and did a very absurd thing, which I told; and found I had not only hurt myself but might possibly hurt others for whom I cared much more.
26 April We embarked at 9 o’clock, much hurried, with three servants.
When at a distance, we waved our hands and hats, bidding adieu. The wind was completely in our teeth, but we made the passage in sixteen hours. The coast of Dover is very striking, though miserably barren-looking. The cliff is steep, though not such as Shakespeare paints. The castle – at a distance, which is the only way I viewed it – is miserable. Sailing from England, I for a long time kept my eye upon its stern white cliffs, thinking on her who bade me join her remembrance with the last sight of my native soil.
They at last faded from my sight, and all on board looked dreary; the sea dashed over us, and all wore an aspect of grief. Towards night a most beautiful spectacle was seen by myself, who alone remained on deck. The stars shedding merely a twilight enabled me to see the phosphoric light of the broken foam in all its splendour. But the most beautiful moment was that of its first appearance: no sound around save the sullen rushing of the vessel, and the hoarse cries of the heaving sailor; no light save a melancholy twilight, which soothed the mind into forgetfulness of its grief for a while – a beautiful streak following the lead through the waves. We arrived at Ostend at 2 o’clock in the morning.
26 April We passed through the gates, paying a franc a head, and went to the Cour Imperiale. We were astonished at the excellent inn and good treatment, except that I got a dreadful headache from the smell of paint in my bedroom, and that the tea was perfumed. As soon as he reached his room, Lord Byron fell like a thunderbolt upon the chambermaid.
Arising in the morning, I went upon a stroll round the town. Saw little girls of all ages with head-dresses; books in every bookseller’s window of the most obscene nature; women with wooden shoes; men of low rank basking in the sun as if that would evaporate their idleness. The houses generally good old style, very like a Scotch town, only not quite so filthy. Very polite custom-house officers, and very civil waiters. Fine room painted as a panorama, all French-attitudinised. Went into a shop where no one spoke French. Tried German; half-a-dozen women burst out laughing at me. Luckily for myself, in a good humour; laughed with them. Obliged to buy two books I did not want because I let a quarto fall upon a fine girl’s head while looking at her eyes. Coaches of the most horrid construction; apparently some fine horses, others small. Fortifications look miserable. Once stood a fine siege, when 40,000 on one side and 80 on the other fed fowls and manured the fields. What for? For religion? No – for money. There was the spring of all. As long as only religion and rights were affected, bigoted religionists and wild republicans were alone concerned; but a step too far, and all was ruined.
We set off at 3, with four horses. Postillion with boots to his hips, nankeens, leather hat with quaker brim, only neatly rounded with black riband; a blue and red coat, joined to which a most rascally face, with lips that went a few lines beyond the brim of this hat. A dreadful smacker of his whip, and a driver of four horses from the back of one of the hindmost. We were obliged to hire a calèche to send with our luggage. The rascal made us pay three times too much at each of his barriers; but, after having (on account of the horses not being ready at the next post) gone beyond his beat, he allowed the toll-keepers to be honest, and only take a few centimes instead of a franc. The country was very flat, highly cultivated; sand, no waste. Roads paved in the middle, with trees on each side. Country, from the interspersion of house, spires, cottages, etc., delightful; everything comfortable, no appearance of discontent.
We got out of our carriage at a place where the horses ate bread and hay, and walked on to a church-yard, where we found no tombstones, no funeral – pomp, no flattering eulogy, but simply a wooden cross at each grave’s head and foot. On the side of the church-steeple, at a little height, was made a niche wherein statues formed a crucifixion, as an object to excite reverence and adoration of God in every passenger. We passed on, and arrived at Bruges at the fall of the evening. Our passports were dispensed with on our mentioning that we were not stopping. We entered one of the most beautiful towns I ever saw; every house seemed substantial – had some ornament either of fretwork or lines – all seem clean and neat. We stopped at the post. We were shown into the postmaster’s parlour on our asking for something to eat – well furnished – better even than a common middleman’s house in London. N.B. – Everywhere 6 francs for a bottle of Rhenish. Women generally pretty. Flemish face has no divinity – all pleasing more than beautiful – a sparkling eye in a full round. Their pictures of every age have the mark of their country.
As we went from Bruges, twilight softened all the beauty, and I do not know how to describe the feeling of pleasure we felt in going through its long roof-fretted streets, bursting on to spots where people were promenading amidst short avenues of trees. We passed on. At the gates I saw a boy with sand in his hand let it through his fingers laughingly, heedless of the myriads whose life hung upon each sand.
We passed on at 10. We came to a village where we heard the sound of music. The innkeeper, on our enquiring what it was, asked us politely in to hear a concert of amateurs. We descended, and were gratified and surprised at hearing, in a village of 5000 souls, a full band playing difficult though beautiful music. One march particularly struck us. But what was our surprise, when the door opened, to view the group: none apparently above the rank of labourers, yet they met three times a week. In our country the amusement is to reel drunk as many. There was one figure manifestly consumptive, yet he was blowing an enormous trombone.
Within a few miles of Gand, I was wakened from a pleasant fireside in England by my companion saying ‘They have lost their way’; and, seeing a house near me, I jumped out to enquire, when to my great fear I saw it was deserted. I immediately suspected something, and went back for a pistol, and then thundered at the door; no one came. Looking round, I saw other houses; towards which upon my moving the postillion got off, and, telling me in French, as a consolation, that he could not understand it, went with me towards a house where there was light, and suddenly ran off. I immediately went to the carriage, and we gave sabres to the servants; when he ran back from out of sight, and knocked again at the door and roused two, who told us the way. By the by, we had crossed several times the bridge, and from the road and back again, whereas we had nothing to do but to go straight on, instead of which he crossed over and was going back in the direction of Bruges, when our servant stopped him. I cannot explain his conduct; he was dreadfully frightened.
We arrived at Ghent at 3 in the morning, and knocked some time at the gates, but at last, by means of a few francs, got through – passports not asked for. Got to the Hotel des Pays Bas, where Count Artois resided whil
e at Ghent. We were ushered into a splendid room, got excellent Rhenish, butter, cheese, etc., and went to bed.
27 April At Gand Charles the 1st of Spain was born. It was here he really showed the insufficiency of ambition and all the joys of manhood. After having at Brussels resigned to Philip his extensive dominions, he came here, and enjoyed many days while passing over the scenes of his youth, which neither the splendour attached to a European or an Indian crown nor to the conquests of his powerful and noble views could efface. He did not seek Pavia; no, it was at Gand that he sought for his last draught of worldly joy. The town was worthy of it, if beauty and antiquity, if riches and liberty with all their train, could render it worthy of him. This town has all the beauty of Bruges, but more extensive: finer houses perhaps, fine cathedral, fine paintings, fine streets, fine canal. The streets are perhaps the finest I have seen; not so unpleasantly regular as London, not so high, but more rich in outside.
We visited the Cathedral; and, after having been accustomed to the tinselly ornaments of our Catholic chapels, and the complete want of any in the Scotch and English churches, we were much pleased with the Cathedral’s inside dress: paintings that were by the hand of masters; the fortune of a bishop expended in building the part near the altar in marble and statues not contemptible, united with the airy, high fretted roof and little light, impressive of awe. Under this Cathedral is the first Belgian church that was built in the reign of Charlemagne, 800 years, I think, after Christ. It is low-roofed, but so strong it bears the weight of the Cathedral upon it. There were several paintings preserved in it (before the date of oil-painting), where the colours are mixed with white of egg. Some curious tombs, where the different styles are evident. In the earliest tomb some of the draperies on the relief are in a bold fine style. One of the earliest has a bishop, where all his robes are carved out, with almost the threads of his vest. Others, however, are for general effect. We mounted 450 steps to the top of the steeple; whence we saw a complete horizon of plain, canals, intersecting trees, and houses and steeples thrown here and there, with Gand below at our feet. The sea at a distance, bound by the hands of man, which pointed ‘So far shall ye go and no further.’ Bruges held in the horizon its steeples to our view, and many hamlets raised from out their surrounding wood their single spires to sight.
Treading again the iron-plated 450 stairs, we came into the street; and, mounting into a fiacre, we went to the Ecole de Dessin, where we found a well-provided gallery of paintings, with two students, unmoved by the visitors around, painting with the patience if not the genius of Dutch masters. They were rather a nuisance on the present occasion, as one covered with his machine a chef d’oeuvre of Rubens, the St Roch amongst the Sick of Plague. There were two more by the same, of St Roch and his Dog, etc. They were in a different style of colouring – sombre and grey; none of his gay draperies that I, no connoisseur, thought were constituents of Rubens. I saw – I do not remember whose, but – a picture that struck me much, The Beheading of St Jean, where all the interest and beauty consisted in a dog smelling the dead body. There were two of Van Eyck, the first (according to the Flemish) who invented painting in oil; where the colouring was splendid and very like the stiffness of glass, but the faces were very good. Kruger had many here in honour of Charles the Vth. Amongst the others, one rather (though probably not meant as such) satirical: Charles, landing, takes hold of Dame Africa, who quietly points to a lion at her feet. Query – to drive him away? There was a Judgment of Solomon by the same, where the child was painted dead with most perfect nature; so much so that my companion, who is a father, could not bear its sight. Teniers has here a Temptation of St Anthony: strange caricature – what a satire! If mere deceit is the acme of perfection, some Dutchmen may snatch the palm from either Apelles or Parrhasius. They paint boards with an engraving upon them, or a door, or aught else, so inimitably that it deceived my friend. We went into the Academy of Casts, of Design, etc. There are generally 400 pupils in this town: many fall off annually without great advancement, and are trod on the heels by others.
We thence proceeded to another (we might say) cathedral. The steeple is not yet finished: the model is exhibited, with the curses of the Flemish exhibitors upon the ‘grande nation’ for having taken the funds for its finishing. There are more good pictures than even in the Cathedral: the columns also please me more, being round, with a Gothic approach to Corinthian capital. The most beautiful painting I have yet seen is here (though I probably shall not be held out in my opinion by connoisseurs) – by Pollent, representing the trial of the true Cross upon a sick lady. The harmony of colouring, the soberness (without the commonly accompanying dullness) of the colouring, the good design and grouping, are, in my opinion, beautiful. Not even the splendid colouring of Rubens can make his pictures, in my eyes, equal to it.
There is one standing by it, of Vandyck, which has some sublimity in it, perhaps arising from indistinctness. It represents the effect of Christ’s last sigh. By this altar stood twelve small pictures, hung out at this time for people to tread the ‘way of Calvary’, representing the different stages of our Saviour’s sufferings. There were many more pictures, but I cannot remember; seeing so many crowded in the Gallery put others out of my head. But there were painted in the Cathedral of St Bavon, on the marble in the style of reliefs, different subjects of Scripture in a most masterly style; and so well were the shades managed that we could hardly believe the cicerone when he assured us they were paintings.
In the Gallery of Casts there were the statues of two English laides of London by an artist who resided thirty years there, and upon his return bestowed these as his finest works. The faces, though not perfect or Grecian, I must say for my countrywomen, pleased me almost as much as any Venus de’Medici.
I have found the people polite, so far as showing the way and then not waiting for a reward – taking off their hats as if you had done them the favour.
28 April We set off at 8 this morning to go to Anvers; but, after having proceeded some way, one of the wheels refused to turn, and, after at the next village hammering a long while, I rode off in a passing calèche to Ghent, where I put a marechal with his assistant into a voiture, and, mounting myself on horseback, returned to the coach. My horse was particularly fond of the shade; and, a house being near one of the barriers, he kindly stopped there to cool me. I, after waiting some time, began to press him to go forward, when he kicked etc. We went, while the carriage was being repaired, into a cottage, where all was extremely neat, and we saw two pictures in it that certainly would not shame the collection of many of our soi-distant cognoscenti. The old man was sick of a fever; and, upon giving him medicine, his kind half sympathetically fell ill of a toothache. Never did I see such chips of the old block as his two daughters. They were very kind. It being Sunday, we saw all the women of the village – all ugly: indeed I have not seen a pretty woman since I left Ostend.
On proceeding on our journey, we stopped for our passports, and the fellow began bullying us, thinking we were French; but, when he heard we were English, he became cap in hand, and let us go: indeed, we have not yet shown our passports.
Having eaten, I issued forth in search of the Promenade and found the canal with walks called La Copeure. Many ladies, all ugly without exception – the only pretty woman being fat and sixty. It very much resembled the Green Basin, where our West-end cits trot on one another’s heels with all possible care: not quite so crowded. Coming back, I tourised to the Roi d’Espagne, where, as in a coffee-house, I found a room full of disreputable women and card-tables. This, instead of the streets, is the lounge for such women. I went to the Café Grand, where by means of mirrors some excellent effects are produced. There also were billiards, cards, dice, etc. A cup of coffee, some centimes; a glass of lemonade, two sous: a woman presides at the end of the room.
‘Lord Byron’ was in the Ghent Gazette. Lord Byron encouraged me to write Cajetan, and to continue being a tragedian. Murray offered £150 for two plays, and £500 for my t
our.
29 April Looking from my window, I saw a native dashing about in a barouche and four. There is in the town a society of nobles, and another of literati. Mr Scamp has a fine collection of pictures, which I did not see. In Ghent, as well as in all other places where I have been, the barber’s sign is Mambrino’s helm. On the Sunday mornings there is a market for flowers in pot in the Place des Armes.
We set off at 11 in the morning, and passed through some fine villages: one of which, St Nicholas, the mistress of the inn told me Buonparte made into a town – ‘mais il n’y a pas des postes’. The country is tiresomely beautiful. Fine avenues, which make us yawn with admiration; not a single variation; no raising ground – yes, one spot raised for a windmill, The landscape is as unchangeable as the Flemish face. The houses white-washed, with a row of trees before them; the roofs tiled, and the windows large. Indeed, the appearance of comfort in the places we have passed through is much greater than any I have seen in England. We have only seen one country-villa, and that very English: its pasture had the only firs we have yet seen.
The avenues are sometimes terminated by a church or a house – the church very ugly; and both very tiresome, as they always prove much farther off than is at first expected. The ground cultivated, and without a weed – no waste ground. The plough moves as if cutting water, the soil is so light a sand. Women work in the fields as well as men. No more difference is found in the face of the inhabitants than in the face of the country. Nothing striking, all avenues, no genius, much stupidity. They seemed to spend all their fund of cleanliness upon their fields and houses, for they carry none about them.
Vampyre' and Other Writings Page 21