Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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by the men who had acted such important parts talking to me in the most frank manner.
In the evening to Princess Galitzin, where were a whole covey of Princesses of Russia arrayed in tartan! with music and singing to boot. The person in whom I was most interested was Mad. de Boufflers, upwards of eighty, very polite, very pleasant, and with all the agrémens of a French Court lady of the time of Mad. Sévigné, or of the correspondent rather of Horace Walpole. Cooper was there, so the Scotch and American lions took the field together. — Home, and settled our affairs to depart.
November 7. — Off at seven; breakfasted at Beaumont, and pushed on to Airaines. This being a forced march, we had bad lodgings, wet wood, uncomfortable supper, damp beds, and an extravagant charge. I was never colder in my life than when I waked with the sheets clinging round me like a shroud.
November 8. — We started at six in the morning, having no need to be called twice, so heartily was I weary of my comfortless couch. Breakfasted at Abbeville; then pushed on to Boulogne, expecting to find the packet ready to start next morning, and so to have had the advantage of the easterly tide. But, lo ye! the packet was not to sail till next day. So after shrugging our shoulders — being the solace à la mode de France — and recruiting ourselves with a pullet and a bottle of Chablis à la mode d’Angleterre, we set off for Calais after supper, and it was betwixt three and four in the morning before we got to Dessein’s, when the house was full, or reported to be so. We could only get two wretched brick-paved garrets, as cold and moist as those of Airaines, instead of the comforts which we were received with at our arrival. But I was better prepared. Stripped off the sheets, and lay down in my dressing-gown, and so roughed it out — tant bien que mal.
November 9. — At four in the morning we were called; at six we got on board the packet, where I found a sensible and conversible man — a very pleasant circumstance. The day was raw and cold, the wind and tide surly and contrary, the passage slow, and Anne, contrary to her wont, excessively sick. We had little trouble at the Custom House, thanks to the secretary of the Embassy, Mr. Jones, who gave me a letter to Mr. Ward. [At Dover] Mr. Ward came with the Lieutenant-Governor of the castle, and wished us to visit that ancient fortress. I regretted much that our time was short, and the weather did not admit of our seeing views, so we could only thank the gentlemen in declining their civility.
The castle, partly ruinous, seems to have been very fine. The Cliff, to which Shakespeare gave his immortal name, is, as all the world knows, a great deal lower than his description implies. Our Dover friends, justly jealous of the reputation of their cliff, impute this diminution of its consequence to its having fallen in repeatedly since the poet’s time. I think it more likely that the imagination of Shakespeare, writing perhaps at a period long after he may have seen the rock, had described it such as he conceived it to have been. Besides, Shakespeare was born in a flat country, and Dover Cliff is at least lofty enough to have suggested the exaggerated features to his fancy. At all events, it has maintained its reputation better than the Tarpeian Rock; — no man could leap from it and live.
Left Dover after a hot luncheon about four o’clock, and reached London at halfpast three in the morning. So adieu to la belle France, and welcome merry England.
[Pall Mall,] November 10. — Ere I leave la belle France, however, it is fit I should express my gratitude for the unwontedly kind reception which I met with at all hands. It would be an unworthy piece of affectation did I not allow that I have been pleased — highly pleased — to find a species of literature intended only for my own country has met such an extensive and favourable reception in a foreign land where there was so much a priori to oppose its progress.
For my work I think I have done a good deal; but, above all, I have been confirmed strongly in the impressions I had previously formed of the character of Nap., and may attempt to draw him with a firmer hand.
The succession of new people and unusual incidents has had a favourable effect [on my mind], which was becoming rutted like an ill-kept highway. My thoughts have for some time flowed in another and pleasanter channel than through the melancholy course into which my solitary and deprived state had long driven them, and which gave often pain to be endured without complaint, and without sympathy. “For this relief,” as Francisco says in Hamlet, “much thanks.”
To-day I visited the public offices, and prosecuted my researches. Left inquiries for the Duke of York, who has recovered from a most desperate state. His legs had been threatened with mortification; but he was saved by a critical discharge; also visited the Duke of Wellington, Lord Melville, and others, besides the ladies in Piccadilly. Dined and spent the evening quietly in Pall Mall.
November 11. — Croker came to breakfast, and we were soon after joined by Theodore Hook, alias “John Bull”; he has got as fat as the actual monarch of the herd. Lockhart sat still with us, and we had, as Gil Blas says, a delicious morning, spent in abusing our neighbours, at which my three neighbours are no novices any more than I am myself, though (like Puss in Boots, who only caught mice for his amusement) I am only a chamber counsel in matters of scandal. The fact is, I have refrained, as much as human frailty will permit, from all satirical composition. Here is an ample subject for a little black-balling in the case of Joseph Hume, the great Æconomist, who has [managed] the Greek loan so egregiously. I do not lack personal provocation (see 13th March last), yet I won’t attack him — at present at least — but qu’il se garde de moi:
“I’m not a king, nor nae sic thing,
My word it may not stand;
And Joseph may a buffet bide,
Come he beneath my brand.”
At dinner we had a little blow-out on Sophia’s part: Lord Dudley, Mr. Hay, Under Secretary of State, [Sir Thomas Lawrence, etc.] Mistress (as she now calls herself) Joanna Baillie, and her sister, came in the evening. The whole went off pleasantly.
November 12. — Went to sit to Sir T.L. to finish the picture for his Majesty, which every one says is a very fine one. I think so myself; and wonder how Sir Thomas has made so much out of an old weatherbeaten block. But I believe the hard features of old Dons like myself are more within the compass of the artist’s skill than the lovely face and delicate complexion of females. Came home after a heavy shower. I had a long conversation about — — — with Lockhart. All that was whispered is true — a sign how much better our domestics are acquainted with the private affairs of our neighbours than we are. A dreadful tale of incest and seduction, and nearly of blood also — horrible beyond expression in its complications and events — ”And yet the end is not;” — and this man was amiable, and seemed the soul of honour — laughed, too, and was the soul of society. It is a mercy our own thoughts are concealed from each other. Oh! if, at our social table, we could see what passes in each bosom around, we would seek dens and caverns to shun human society! To see the projector trembling for his falling speculations; the voluptuary rueing the event of his debauchery; the miser wearing out his soul for the loss of a guinea — all — all bent upon vain hopes and vainer regrets — we should not need to go to the hall of the Caliph Vathek to see men’s hearts broiling under their black veils. Lord keep us from all temptation, for we cannot be our own shepherd!
We dined to-day at Lady Stafford’s [at West-hill]. Lord S. looks very poorly, but better than I expected. No company, excepting Sam Rogers and Mr. Grenville, — the latter is better known by the name of Tom Grenville — a very amiable and accomplished man, whom I knew better about twenty years since. Age has touched him, as it has doubtless affected me. The great lady received us with the most cordial kindness, and expressed herself, I am sure, sincerely, desirous to be of service to Sophia.
November 13. — I consider Charles’s business as settled by a private intimation which I had to that effect from Sir W.K.; so I need negotiate no further, but wait the event. Breakfasted at home, and somebody with us, but the whirl of visits so great that I have already forgot the party. Lockhart and I dined at an official person’s, where there was a little too much of that sort of flippant wit, or rather smartness, which becomes the parochial Joe Miller of boards and offices. You must not be grave, because it might lead to improper