Once when Liston was down I longed to see him in Lubin Log; for some reason I could not manage it, and Mrs Harry let me go to her private box. He had been Tony Lumpkin in the Play, and we were talking him over, waiting for his appearance in the farce. ‘I have heard,’ said I, ‘of his giving a look with that queer face of his, not uttering a word, yet sending people into convulsions of laughter not to be checked while he remained in sight.’ ‘Hush,’ said Mrs Harry, ‘here he comes.’ Enter Lubin from the Coach with all his parcels. Between his first two inquiries for his ‘numbrella’ and his ‘’at,’ he threw up at our hidden box, at me, the look—perfectly oversetting; there never could be such another grotesque expression of fun since the days of fauns and satyrs, and when composure in a degree returned, a sly twinkle of one squinting eye, or the buck tooth interrupting a smile, or some indescribable secret sign of intelligence, would reach us and set us off again. We were ill with laughing. He played that whole farce to us, to Mrs Harry and me, and not to the House, and every one agreed he had surpassed himself.11
The early part of the next summer, 1819, passed much in the same way as the one before; sociable small parties among our friends in town, and visits to those in the country. Messages to the Abbey of course, and we were always the messengers. My Mother was very careful of the servants; Johnny declared that one extremely rainy day when it was proper the Newcastle Chronicle should be returned to Mrs General Maxwell, my Mother called out to him, ‘Johnny, my dear, I wish you would run to George Street with this; it’s such a dreadful day I don’t like sending out poor Richard’—a colossus of a footman, weighing heavier every day from having too little to do. Poor Johnny! I can’t somehow separate him in boyhood, dear Jack, from you. My recollection of him is so like you while he was little, before he grew to six foot one. This very spring he, may be, thought with regret of even Mrs Maxwell’s newspaper, for my father took him up to town with himself and sent him to Eton. They first paid a visit to the Electors of Tavistock, and on their way spent a day or two with Dugald Stewart, who lived then near the Duke of Bedford’s cottage at Endsleigh. The old philosopher predicted the boy’s future eminence, although we at home had not seen through his reserve. He was idle, slow, quiet, passing as almost stupid beside his brilliant brother. Take care of that boy, Grant,’ said Dugald Stewart at their parting; ‘he will make a great name for himself, or I am much mistaken.’ And has he not? Quiet he has remained, indolent too, and eccentrick, but in his own field of action where is his parallel? My Mother and I thought of no honourable future when our pet left us. We watched him from the window, stepping into the travelling chariot after my father in the new great coat that had been made for him, the little tearful face not daring to venture a last glance back to us. He was small of his age, and from being the youngest he was childish. We did not see him for fifteen months. He came back to us an Eton boy; how much those three small words imply. My poor Mother, I can understand now the sob with which she threw herself back upon the sofa, exclaiming, as the carriage rolled away ‘I have lost my Johnny!’ His cousin John Frere went to Eton at the same time, and our John spent all short holidays at Hampstead, only coming home to the highlands once a year in the summer. The two cousins remained attached friends ever, and though widely separated, never lost sight of one another till poor John Frere died.
The next event was the arrival of Uncle Ralph, his wife, daughter Eliza, and sister Fanny, to have just a peep of us before settling again at Tennochside. They had tired of England and were glad to return home, leaving Edmund behind at School. Jane, who was a great favourite with Mrs Ralph, went to see them soon afterwards, and spent a very happy three weeks at that comfortable place. During her absence we had a visit from Aunt Leitch and our cousin Kate. Kate had been with us before, which I have neglected to mention. Uncle Edward, soon after his marriage, invited her out to India, funds were sent home for her equipment and passage, and it was decided by the family that Aunt Leitch should have the charge of all matters concerning her departure. She was to spend the winter in Glasgow, and the following spring proceed to London to be outfitted before embarking. She came direct from Houghton to us, and remained with us two months, going to any parties that offered, and very much admired. She was not pretty, in spite of fine eyes, but the expression of her countenance was very bright; she was clever and natural and lively, with modest, simple manners, and she was tall and her figure was good. She dressed very becomingly, scanty and plain as her wardrobe was when she arrived; it increased in size and value considerably during her stay at Picardy Place. We were all quite sorry when she left us, the more so that she sadly deteriorated during her visit to Glasgow. Aunt Leitch’s temper ruffled Kate’s, want of exercise destroyed her looks. She returned to us fat, and dark, and pert, and quite unlike herself. This all went off after she reached India, although Mrs Edward Ironside’s humours tried her impatience sorely. She married very happily, and as Mrs Barn wall was one of the most agreeable women in all Bombay. Glasgow was not a place to improve in. We were there once, I forget in what year. My father went to collect evidence in some political business, my Mother and I with him, as a cloke I suppose. We were at Aunt Leitch’s pretty new house in St Vincent Street, and she took a great deal of trouble for us in making up parties at home, engagements abroad, and even directed an Assembly. We were not very refined in manners in Edinburgh, some of us, but there were brains with us, abilities of a high order, turned to a more intellectual account than could be the general employment of them in a mere manufacturing seaport town, for into that had Glasgow sunk. Its College, as to renown, was gone; its merchants no longer the Cadets of the neighbouring old County families, but their clerks of low degree shot up into the high places. ‘Some did remain who in vain mourned the better days when they were young,’ but as a whole the Society was indescribably underbred. I should have been very much out of my element in that Assembly had it not been for an accidental meeting with the little merry sailor Houston Steuart, and Dick Honeyman, a son of Lord Armidale’s.
About July the Scots Grays got the route for Ireland. Tom Walker was in despair. He was a fine looking young man, truly amiable, played the flute to Jane’s pianoforte, a performance suitable in every respect and unimprovable, for in spite of daily very lengthened practisings neither artist made much progress. He had a handsome private fortune. Altogether, Annie Need had hoped this favourite nephew of her general’s would have brought them a Scotch niece back; but his knowledge of history was so defective! It was not possible for a moment to think seriously of a companion for life with whom there could be no rational conversation! So the handsome Cavalry officer walked away—no, rode. I daresay the Band master was glad, for most of his spare time had been occupied copying out Waltzes. An Irish love soon replaced the ‘bonnie Jean’ so honestly wooed. A Miss Constantia Beresford made no educational difficulties. She caused a few, however, of many another kind, and poor Tom Walker bore them.
General Need had returned home very soon after his marriage to our dear Annie. They had settled amidst his rich manufacturing relations near Nottingham, who had all received her most kindly. We heard from her constantly and were always planning to meet, yet never managed it. My father had seen her with her two nice little boys, and found her perfectly happy; her General no genius, but an excellent man.
I cannot recollect much else that is worthy of note before our little tour upon the Continent. We set out in August, and were two months and a half away. My father was not inclined for such a movement at all, it was probably very inconvenient to the treasury, but my mother had so set her heart upon it, he, as usual, good naturedly gave way. Johnny was to spend his holidays with the Freres. Miss Elphick went to the Kirkman Finlays,12 her parting was quite a dreadful scene, screams, convulsions, sobs, hystericks. The poor woman was attached to some of us, and had of late been much more agreeable to the rest; but she was a plague in the house, did a deal of mischief, and was no guide, no help. She had been seven years with us, so there was a chain of hab
it to loosen at any rate.
1. This is the only mention of Henry Cockburn, author of the indispensable Memorials of his Time.
2. He was ‘the best surgeon that Scotland had then produced’(Cockburn); he died in 1820 aged 57.
3. John Gillies (1747−1836) was, in fact, not a M.D.; he was an historian who succeeded Principal Robertson as Historiographer Royal for Scotland.
4. Margaret Gillies (1803−87) earned a reputation as a miniaturist and water-colour painter. Her sister Mary, the author of many books for children (often using the pseudonym Harriet Myrtle), died in 1860.
5. Brewster’s Treatise on the Kaleidoscope was published in 1819—he had invented it in 1816, but the patents were faulty so it was pirated.
6. This is explained on 1, p.258.
7. Margaret Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith (1788−1867) married Auguste Charles Joseph, Comte de Flahault de la Billardrie, in Edinburgh in 1817. A natural son of Tallyrand, he became aide-decamp to Napoleon. He was exiled but returned to favour after the Restoration, becoming ambassador in Rome, Vienna and London.
8. See 1, pp. 198−9 for the great Sarah Siddons ‘triumphant ’final’ appearance as Lady Macbeth in 1812. After her son Henry’s death in 1815, she returned ten times to the stage of the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh (on which he had taken a twenty-one year lease in 1809) in benefit performances for her grand-children.
9. Henry VIII, iv,69.
10. Mother of Coriolanus; Arthur’s mother in King John.
11. John Liston (1776?−1846) is described by the D.N.B. as the highest paid comic actor of his day; it adds he was ‘unjustly charged with a mere power of grimace’. Lubin Log was a rôle he created in Love, Law& Physic (1812); Goldsmith’s Tony Lumpkin appears in She Stoops to Conquer.
12. Kirkman Finlay (1773−1842) was a famous Glasgow merchant, who prospered in the difficult conditions after the American War to become Lord Provost in 1812 and one of the M.P.S for the city 1812−18.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1819
IN the month of August, then, of this year 1819 we set out on our foreign travels, my father, my Mother, William, Jane, Mary and I; rather too large a party as we found when we had more experience, particularly as we were attended by a man, a maid, and a dog. The maid, a thoroughly stupid creature, and the dog, poor Dowran, went with us; the man, a black, and a deal too clever, joined us in Holland, for to the Netherlands we were bound. My father had always had a passion for Dutch and Flemish paintings, farming, buildings, and politicks; besides, he was so very kind as to wish to take me to the waters at Aix la Chapelle. I had been attacked in the Spring with the same son of strange suffering that has fallen upon me several times since, at intervals often of years, after any disturbance of mind, a failure as it seemed of all powers of body, the whole system paralysed, as it were, without any apparent cause other than that reserve of disposition inherited from my Mother, which threw all grief back inwardly while the outward manner was unchanged. She never told me that anxiety for me made her anxious for the complete change of scene we were entering on. I only guessed it many years afterwards.
We embarked at Leith in a common trading vessel, a tub, with but moderate accommodation, the Van Egmont, bound for Rotterdam. Its very slow rate of sailing kept us nine days at sea; luckily the weather the whole time was beautiful, and our few fellow passengers accommodating, with the exception of one unhappy looking man, a merchant in some embarrassment with regard to his affairs. He used to watch the wind so nervously, it being of consequence to him to appear before a certain day in the Counting House of his Dutch Correspondent. We had some difficulty in sweetening the disturbed moments of this anxious minded poor man, but we succeeded in a degree, the wind, the last few days, aiding us. His father was a light hearted very old man, taking the voyage for pleasure, probably unaware of the full extent of his son’s perplexities. A very grave Merchant’s Clerk and two young Officers completed our party. One of the Officers, now Colonel Clunie, has been to India and back, found Jane out in Edinburgh, and has several times dined with her in York Place, recurring with delight to the happy nine days on board the Van Egmont. We all did our best to make them pass cheerfully. We watched the land, the sea, the sky, the day’s work. Our skipper was extremely civil; his mate, a merry scapegrace, inventing all sorts of fun to amuse every body; the fare was good, the Cabin clean, and living out on deck in the open air even I regained an appetite.
On nearing the Dutch Coast the scene became very interesting. All at once we found ourselves amid a crowd of little fishing vessels, rigged with three cornered sails of a deep orange colour. We passed then a few larger boats, a merchantman or two, and then there suddenly rose upon us from the waves, steeples, treetops, towers and windmills, without any more stable foundation seemingly than the water. There was some delay in crossing the Bar, an accumulation of sand at the mouth of the Maas that can only be crossed at the full tide; once over that we sailed quietly on, the windmills and steeples closing in upon us, till the sedgy banks of the river appeared on either hand, with houses, gardens, small fields full of cattle, all as it seemed below the level of the water. It was a curious sight, and a pretty one; for as the river narrowed and so enabled us to distinguish the objects we were passing, the total difference they exhibited from any of the kind we had been accustomed to look on created the most lively feelings of surprise. The villages looked all like toys, little, formal, green, round topped trees in rows, small baby houses painted in such bright colours—red, and blue, and green, and yellow, and dazzling white—with window panes that shone like diamonds, door steps clean enough to dine on, neat gravel paths, and palings without a blemish. One could not fancy the large, heavy looking, heavily clothed men we saw in all the Craft on the river being allowed to enter such fairy premises. It now became a matter of nice piloting to get our heavy barge through the thickening throng of vessels of all sizes, but the big Dutchman in his big balloon breeches, and his big overcoat covered with great big dollars for buttons, and his red night Cap, whom we had taken on board below the Bar, carried us safe in and out and all round all obstacles, and brought us up easily to the quay in the heart of the busy and very beautiful City of Rotterdam.
The extent of the Bompjes I really don’t remember. A row of fine elms runs all along the parapet by the river’s edge.1 A broad road, so clean, is beyond, then a narrow pavement in front of the street of irregularly built houses, some high, some low, some palaces, some cottages, some with a handsome façade, and others with picturesque gable ends, portes cochères every here and there admitting to the Courtyard and the ware rooms as well as the dwelling house of the Merchants, even cranes at intervals impending over head. A large, long, low building, a capital hotel, the Badthouse, was where we were bound, gladly availing ourselves of all its name promising hot water luxuries, to refresh bodies wearied by near a fortnight of a sea toilette.
We arrived in the very midst of the Kermess, the annual fair, the most favourable of all times for the visit of strangers. The wares of all the world were exposed for sale in streets of booths tastefully decorated, lighted up brilliantly at night, and crowded at all hours by purchasers from every province in the two united kingdoms,2 all in their best and very handsome and perfectly distinct attire. Like Venice, Rotterdam is built in the water, long canals intersect it in every direction, on which the traffick is constant; there are mere footpaths on either side, with quantities of narrow bridges for the convenience of crossing. The tall houses forming the street must have been gloomy abodes, just looking over the narrow stream to one another. Outside they were gay enough from the excessive cleanliness observed, and the bright paint, and the shining brass knockers, and the old fashioned solidity of the building. It was quite amusement enough to wander all about this fine old City, every now and then getting back into the throng of the fair, where indeed I could have spent the day most agreeably, every object presented to the eye was so totally different from any ever seen at home. The people were of course the most d
issimilar, national features varying as much as national dress. The men were merely sturdy, healthy, sailor like persons, enveloped in a great quantity of substantial clothing, each coat and pair of breeches containing stuff enough for two; the women were quite superiour, the younger ones beautiful, with the loveliest of fair clear skins; even the old were agreeable from the perfect cleanliness and good order of their appearance; a rag, a tatter, is never seen, nor a speck of dirt either, and the peculiarity of the costume of every province, all so befitting the station of the wearers, made every little group we fell in with a picture. Full stuff petticoats rather short, such clean white stockings, neat, very black, polished shoes, pretty ankles too, snow white handkerchiefs, smart aprons, clear muslin caps edged with the finest lace in good quantity, varying in shape according to the district that sent it forth, and often very valuable gold ornaments about the head, round the throat, and in the ears. The north Hollanders especially were remarkable for thus adorning themselves; their style of head was particularly becoming, or else they were so pretty that whatever they wore would have suited them.
After the people came the vehicles, the queerest assortment of strangely shaped post waagens not unlike our omnibus’s with open sides, or some of the third class carriages on our railways. Quantities of these, of all sizes, were running through the paved streets all day, and for the narrow pathways by the canals there were very small carts drawn by dogs to convey such market produce as it was not worth while to send by water to every door; larger carts with or without tilts plied in the more accessible thoroughfares. It was a very busy scene, very cheerful, and very curious to us who had never been out of our own country before.
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