"Cottenham and the Fen-country in 1763. "Your father and I both agreed we would not spend a summer at Cottenham to have the Dean's parsonage; it is surrounded with fens, and you are teased beyond expression by the gnats. When we got here, about nine on Saturday, the Dean's butler came to your father with a pair of leathern stockings to draw on so as to protect his legs; which in hot weather is dreadful. Besides this, the beds have a machine covered with a silk net which lets down after you are in bed, and covers you all over. With out this, there could be no sleping; for notwithstanding all these precautions, we were most miserably stung. There are 1,400 cows kept in the parish of Cottenham, which feed on the fens in the summer. The water is, in this dry season, up to their bellies. The natives dry the cow-dung for firing in the winter, so 'tis kept in heaps about the fields, as is also the dung of their yards. So when you walk the stink is inconceivable. Mr. Harris.. talked with the natives, who told him that during the winter the water was constantly above their ancles in their houses." "A Bon Mot of Wilkes's (1763). "Mr. Wilkes never loses an opportunity of ridiculing the Scotch. Some one observing that as there were no trees in Scotland there could be no birds, he replied, 'G-d, sir, not at all, I have seen three magpies perched on one thistle." " "A Bath Riot of Ladies and Gentlemen (1769). "A Horsey' Squire (1771). "The day after we spent at Dinton. Nothing is done there, except disparking a pretty park which his father had made. The squire came into the court to survey our horses not us; the first salutation he gave us was, "You have broke one of your splinter-bars," fixed his eyes on the horses, and left us to get out of the coach as we could. .. Not a single person at dinner but we five; our conversation was chiefly of grass and dogs. We were relieved soon after dinner by the arrival of a Parson Waterman, who is a droll kind of animal, was perfectly easy, and was as soon acquainted with us as if he had been a Frenchman. He is well versed in all the Salisbury journals, but he says by living so much out of the world he is at a loss to fill up all the blanks relative to the scandal in that [sic] paper, so we gave him all the proper information on that head. So much for rural felicity!" 66 "Ladies' Feathers (1775). were expected home in a few days, and then he hoped to accommodate her ladyship." Lady Harriet Stanhope. . . . has lately been in France with Lady Ailesbury and Mrs. "There has been a most violent combustion Damer; they have returned in fine feathers, at the Bath; & Major Brereton and a Mr. but the Duchess of Devonshire has still the highPlomer were candidates to succeed Mr. Der- est. One lady tried all places to get one longer rick" [as Master of the ceremonies]; "Brere-than the Duchess, but without success, till she ren was chosen, and Mr. Plomer's friends pro-luckily thought of sending to an undertaker: tested against it; the subscription was opened he sent word his hearses were all out, but they again, and Plomer was chosen. I am not clear as to the particulars, but there was a prodigious riot in the rooms last Tuesday se'nnight, in which the ladies joined as well as the gentlemen. Mrs. Hillman, our acquaintance, and Mrs. Orme (Lady Townshend's daughter) had a fight, and Mrs. Hillman was knocked down; in short, things were carried to such a pitch, that the Mayor, his brethren, and a number of constables entered the room. The proclamation was read three times; 'tis said that the last reading was to the ladies only.” "Masquerades (1771). "Your sisters and I were last night at the masquerade at the theatre in the Haymarket, given by the gentlemen of Arthur's.. I, by choice, like always to go where they go, but I make no merit of attending them to a masquerade, for it amuses me more than any diversion, thanks to my friends in my younger days; for had I been permitted to go to them at that time, my relish for them would have been ended long before this." "Dr. Johnson and Bozzy' (1775). "Tuesday, Dr. Johnson, his fellow-traveller through the Western Isles, Mr. Boswell, and Sir Joshua Reynolds dined here. I have long wished to be in company with this said Johnson; his conversation is the same as his writing, but a dreadful voice and manner. He is certainly amusing as a novelty, but seems not possessed of any benevolence, is beyond all description awkward, and more beastly in his dress and person than anything I ever beheld. He feeds nastily and ferociously, and eats quantities most unthankfully. As to Boswell, he appears a low-bred kind of being." "An Incident of the Duchess of Kingston's Trial (1776). "Mrs. Egerton spared nobody. She said that the night before the last day of trial, after Sir Francis Molyneux" [Usher of the Black Rod] "had been some hours in bed (for he slept at Kingston house), he got up in a most violent fright, ran out of his room with nothing on but his shirt, caught a housemaid in his arms, crying out, The Duchess is gone off!' The maid said he might see the Duchess, for she was not undressed, as the Councillors had just left her, but recommended his putting on some other garment. So, in his hurry, he threw his powdering dress over his shoulders, and went to the Duchess's room, after which he went down and saw that all his tall beastly fellows were on duty,' and then went to bed again." the editing of this work. Of course, there is We will extract no further, but simply add that the reflex action of the mother's fresh cheerfulness may be observed in her son himself, whose letters to her are often positively lively, though such a quality is by no means characteristic of his general correspondence, and altogether vanishes in later days. It must, indeed, be observed that but few private letters from the first Earl during his diplomatic career abroad are recorded, the editor assigning this cuFrom The Pall Mall Gazette. rious reason for their scarcity, "that at that "PASSAGES FROM THE ENGLISH NOTEtime our Ministers abroad dared only to BOOKS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.” write the most insignificant matter by post, FOR the sake of the author as well as of and that the Foreign Office had a depart- the subject, these volumes deserve and will ment through which all letters brought by doubtless obtain a hearty welcome in this official messengers passed an ordeal. Our country. Mr. Hawthorne as a writer of public servants could write freely to one an-fiction reminds us of Charles Lamb as an other at their respective missions by their essayist. Both authors have produced work couriers, but were very shy of the Cabi- of first-rate quality, but of a kind which is net noir' at home, and corresponded in England chiefly through chance travellers." Though we have been obliged to leave the second volume on one side, we cannot help recommending to our readers the able and lively letters of Captain (now Sir George) Bowles, sole survivor, the editor tells us, of the writers as well as of the recipients of the published correspondence from the Peninsula. Those to whom the Duke's Peninsular career, as seen in the To our thinking these Passages from Mr. light of the Wellington Despatches, appears Hawthorne's Note-books are even more inbut as one trail of glory, may perhaps be teresting than the work which he published surprised at seeing the shadow cast upon it, during his lifetime under the title of “Our to the eyes of his contemporaries and fel- Old Home." There is a freshness about low-soldiers, by such operations as the dis- the notes that is missing in the finished astrous siege of Burgos, undertaken, against work, while in both it is easy to trace the all advice, with three eighteen-pounders personal characteristics of the writer - hiş and four howitzers. Some letters of an sensitiveness, his love of all natural beauty, early date from Lord Palmerston are also his tender and reverent feeling for what is very curious and interesting, particularly old, combined with an appreciation, scarcely those relating to his declining the Chancel- a part of himself perhaps, but forced upon lorship of the Exchequer, and even a seat him by his nationality, for the forms of life in the Cabinet with the War Depart- and government prevailing in the States. ment (which he eventually took) under If Hawthorne had been born among us, his Perceval in 1809, as well as one on the at-heart, if not his intellect would have been tempt to assassinate him in 1818, - an inci- in favour of whatever is established and of dent in his life which will be new to most readers. caviare to the multitude. Neither Elia ” nor Hawthorne will ever be as popular as Scott, and Dickens, and Trollope are popular. To enjoy them keenly a special taste is needed, but let the flavour of their genius be once appreciated, and it will ever afterwards be pronounced exquisite. Lamb in his own line is unapproachable, and the author of the "Scarlet Letter" is not likely to meet with a rival in his peculiar field. "Passages from the English Note-books of We are afraid we cannot say much for and Co. 1870.) Nathaniel Hawthorne." 2 vols. (London: Strahan I 2 whatever bears upon it the mossy greenness I question whether any part of the world looks of age. He lacks language to express his so beautiful as England this part of England delight in our cathedrals, in the quaint at least on a fine summer morning. It makes architectural charms of such cities as Ox- one think more cheerfully of human life to see ford, Chester, and Warwick; in the old such a bright, universal verdure; such sweet, customs that still prevail in those rural dis-rural, peaceful, flower-bordered cottages-not tricts; in the respect shown in England cottages of gentility, but dwellings of the labouring poor; such nice villas along the roadside, so for whatever carries with it an authority tastefully contrived for comfort and beauty, that originated in bygone ages. "It is and adorned more and more, year after year, wicked," he writes, "to look at these sol- with the care and afterthought of people who emn, old churches in a hurry;" and again mean to live in them a great while, and feel as he says: if their children might live in them also; and so they plant trees to overshadow their walks, and train ivy and all beautiful vines up against their walls, and thus live for the future in another sense than we Americans do. And the climate helps them out, and makes everything moist and green and full of tender life, instead of dry and arid, as human life and vegetable life is so apt to be with us. Certainly, England can present a more attractive face than we can. Cathedrals often make me miserable from my inadequacy to take them wholly m; and, above all, I despise myself when I sit down to describe them. And again, I admire this in Gothic architecture, that you cannot master it all at once, that it is not a naked outline, but as deep and rich as human nature itself. Of all English things that I have seen methinks the churches disappoint me least. I feel, too, that there is something much more wonderful in them than I have yet had time to know and experi ence. Then he notes with admiration and, we fear, gives us on this account more praise than we deserve the careful manner in which our meadow paths and footways are preserved from generation to generation. An American farmer, he says, would plough them over without a thought. Mr. Hawthorne observes somewhere that it is impossible to describe scenery, but his Eng No The next passage we mean to quote was written from Newby Bridge: The roads give us beautiful walks along the riverside, or wind away among the gentle hills; and if we had nothing else to look at in these walks, the hedges and stone fences would afford interest enough, so many and pretty are the flowers, roses, honey-suckles, and other sweet things, and so abundantly does the moss and ivy grow among the old stones of the fences, which would never have a single shoot of vege tation on them in America till the very end of time. But here, no sooner is a stone fence built than Nature sets to work to make it a part of herself. She adopts it and adorns it as if it were her own child. A little sprig of ivy may be seen creeping up the side and clinging fast with its many feet; a tuft of grass roots itself between two of the stones where a little dust from the road has been moistened into soil for it; a small bunch of fern grows in another such crevice; a deep, soft, green moss spreads itself over the top and all along the sides of the fence; and wherever nothing else will grow lichens adhere to the stones and variegate their hues. Finally, a great deal of shrubbery is sure to cluster along its extent, and take away all hardness from the outline; and so the whole stone fence looks as if God had had as least as much lish note-books belie the assertion. writer that we know of has ever described the special, and in a sense peerless, charms of English landscape with greater accuracy or with more tenderness of feeling. His accuracy is that of the draughtsman, his tenderness that of the poet; and it is curious to observe as he passes over the country how the landscape, although new to him, is not strange, but rather a familiar adjunct to the Old Home which he had seen in visions and dreamt of in dreams, and gained acquaintance with from many books in the new country of his birth. Of one beautiful spot he writes:-"It is entirely English, and like nothing that one sees in America, yet I feel as if I might have lived here a In another place he remarks in the same Nature is certainly a more genial long while ago, and had now come back because I retained pleasant recollections of playfellow in England than in my own it." The contrast between the scenery of country. She is always ready to lend her America and that of England strikes him aid to any beautifying purpose." It would at every turn, and almost always to the be easy to multiply passages like these, and advantage of our country. Two or three others in which, with passionate enthusiasm, instances of this may be worth quoting; in Mr. Hawthorne dilates upon the rare charms language as well as in thought, they are of English landscape, and of the art which "The singularly characteristic of the writer. The has grown incorporate with it. following passage was written in the Eng- beauty of English scenery," he says, “makes lish lake district: me desperate; it is so impossible to de - to do with it as man. strain, I am in despair about the architecture and old edifices of these Oxford colleges it is so impossible to express them in words. They are themselves as the architect left them, and as time has modified and improved them, the expression of an idea which does not admit of being otherwise expressed or translated into anything else. Those old battlemented walls around the quadrangles, many gables, the windows with stone pavilions, so very antique, yet some of them adorned with fresh flowers in pots-a very sweet contrast; the ivy mantling the grey stone, and the infinite repose, both in sunshine and shadow, it is as if half a dozen bygone centuries had set up their rest here, and as if nothing of the present time ever passed through the deeply recessed archway that shuts in the college from the street. Not but what people have very free admittance, and many parties of young men and girls and children came into the gardens while we were there. not for that of the public; and the responsibility of the published statements rests, therefore, with the editor. It is difficult to say exactly how far it is wise and right to sons whom he met with in society, and who produce a man's private opinion of perare still living among us. albeit an American, had no taint of what he Mr. Hawthorne, terms American obtrusiveness. He was a thorough gentleman, and would never for the sake of literary capital have betrayed the confidences of private life. That this is done to any great extent in these volumes we do not say; but there is occasionally a freedom of expression with regard to the character and personal peculiarities of living men and women which we think Mr. Hawthorne would have avoided if he could have foreseen this publication of his Notes. From The Saturday Review. SHAKSPEARE ON BEAUTY. All this is charming writing and delight- THE admiration that we render to the ful reading; but it is impossible by brief genius of Shakspeare is not all consciously extracts to give an adequate notion of the paid. As with a great building, so with a picturesque interest of these volumes. It great genius, wherever excellence or curiis pleasant through the unrestrained utter-osity in the parts is lost in the harmony or ances of this diary to gain a knowledge of perfectness of the whole, admiration is unthe thoughts and feelings of an accomplished consciously or tacitly expressed. In ShakAmerican gentleman and a great literary speare, overpowered by his dramatic force artist with regard to the land of his fore- and completeness, we often lose sight of his fathers. We Englishmen are so apt to dis- reasoning ability and his analytical acuteregard that which lies nearest to us that it ness. No man leaves behind him in quanmay be well to be reminded by a foreigner tity so large an intellectual legacy as Shakof the treasures we possess in this island. speare left, especially when the quality is Home-travel no doubt has its draw-backs; rare and the variety great, without having but that it has an infinite charm for those put on record incidentally many marks of who will pursue it leisurely and are not in the detailed workings of his mind; and not too great a hurry for enjoyment is evident only of his special intellectual processes or from these delightful volumes. Mr. Haw- principles, but also of his tastes and sympathorne, like every man of strong feelings, thies. But who can say much on these has very decided predilections and anti- matters respecting Shakspeare? Who does pathies. He can see little beauty in Eng- not feel himself to be better informed about lishwomen. He acknowledges that although the likes and dislikes of Falstaff, Romeo, there are some Englishmen whom he likes, Othello, or even Hamlet, than he is about "a cold thin medium intervenes between the views and sentiments of their originator? our most intimate approaches." He de- The reason is that the genius of Shakspeare clares, which may possibly be true also of was not only profoundly dramatic, but prothe States, that our nation is prone to arro-foundly faithful to dramatic requirement. gance and conceit. He thinks that Americans possess a quicker and more subtle recognition of genius than the English people; and, in short, as is perfectly reasonable and fitting, he prefers his own land and countrymen to ours. In conclusion, we have a remark to make with regard to the publication of these private journals. Mr. Hawthorne, be it remembered, wrote them for his own benefit, And thus he becomes individually lost; lost doubly, in the completeness and the variety of his dramatic creations. But though lost to surface study and undiscriminating observation-lost, in short, to that hasty and unsatisfactory character known as the "general reader”. there is no reason why he should not be found, if carefully searched after. In other words, the works of Shakspeare do actually contain traces, more or less distinct, of what he thought | It "provoketh thieves sooner than gold"; and felt on a great variety of subjects, and it often makes women proud, and men by setting these indications side by side a effeminate. On the other hand, it can and united whole may be gained which tells us ought to exercise a sovereignty for gooda good deal about his mind and heart in this sovereignty, because it is itself hedged or that. We propose in these remarks to round with a kind of regal divinity. examine how he wrote, and to infer as nearly as may be how he thought, on the subject of personal beauty. Confounds the tongue and makes the senses If it drove Angelo into insane and reckless A withered hermit, fivescore winters worn, 66 We think it was Lord Chesterfield who once described personal beauty as "a good letter of introduction." Good looks certainly do the work of such letters very well in a great number of instances; but the description will be felt to be mean, feeble, and inadequate. Shakspeare would not have endured it for a moment. He might bave put it for dramatic purposes into the mouth of a calculating fago or a cynical Jaques; but it is the last thing that he himself would have accepted as a description We have so far spoken only of the relaof beauty, for his thoughts ran altogether tions and the influence of beauty. There is on another level. They may not win gen- no dramatic poet who writes so clearly, so eral acceptance just now. It is possible consistently (within reasonable limits), and that they may incline some readers to ask, so nobly as Shakspeare does about its naas George III. once asked of Miss Burney ture and quality. Every now and then it (in confidence), "Was there ever such suits him to write hyperbolically, as when stuff as a great part of Shakspeare ? But the servant in Troilus and Cressida calls, they are, notwithstanding, on a level which not beauty in the abstract only, but the actual embodied Helen, love's invisible no one would be the worse for trying to reach once more. Beauty, in his concepsoul." But Shakspeare's own thought and tion, was, in the first place, one of the great feeling about the nature of beauty was exprime gifts of life. He is continually given actly the opposite of this. A score of pasto rank it among these. He classes it with sages show that he habitually conceived of it as a kind of semi-corporeal essence, the Wit, soul or vital principle of which is goodness. High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, We do not care to inquire how far this was Love, friendship, charity, . . . due to the higher influences of Euphuism, or to the mysticism of Italian poets. For, with education, youth, honesty, worth, cour-like everything else that he touched, he had age, and wisdom. Like all of these, it is to be regarded more as a trust than as a gift. It may be disfigured and wasted, a thing which it is criminal to allow; or increased and transmitted, which is not a matter of caprice, but a duty. Whatever view may be held about the Sonnets in general, no one who knows well that exquisite and difficult series of poems will have much doubt that the reiterated injunctions to perpetuate the great endowment of beauty by transmission, which abound in the first twenty or thirty sonnets, are something more than the expression of a wish regarding a particular case, and represent general and permanent persuasions. Like those other prime personal faculties or acquisitions, beauty is also, in Shakspeare's view, a potent influencer. It is sometimes mysteriously powerful for evil. made these thoughts essentially his own; and they had been removed by him (though at this time of day they may look almost too delicate for common use) out of the region of the transcendental, and worked into the relations of actual and practical life. In Measure for Measure, the loftiest in some respects of all the Shakspearian dramas, the Duke tells Isabella that "the goodness that is cheap in beauty (in other and less appo. site words, venality in beauty) makes beauty brief in goodness (shortlived); but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it fair for ever. Antonio, in Twelfth Night, mistaking Viola for Sebastian, and bitterly believing himself disowned, tells the supposed fair traitor that he has done good feature shame": In nature there's no blemish but the mind; None can be called deform'd but the unkind; Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous evil Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. Are empty trunks o'erflourish'd by the devil. Beauty is a witch |