Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume I Part 30

Here follows a description of the voyage, and he continues:--

"Yesterday we anch.o.r.ed off the Floating Light, sixteen miles from the city, unable to reach the dock on account of the wind, but the post-office steamboat (or steamer, as they call them here) came to us from Liverpool to take the letter-bags, and I with other pa.s.sengers got on board, and at twelve o'clock I once more placed my foot on English ground.

"The weather is true English weather, thick, smoky, and damp. I can see nothing of the general appearance of the city. The splendid docks, which were building when I was here before, are now completed and extend along the river. They are really splendid; everything about them is solid and substantial, of stone and iron, and on so large a scale.

"I have pa.s.sed my baggage through the custom-house, and on Monday I proceed on my journey to London through Birmingham and Oxford. Miss Leslie, a sister of my friend Leslie of London, is my _compagnon de voyage_. She is a woman of fine talents and makes my journey less tedious and irksome than it would otherwise be.... I have a long journey before me yet ere I reach Rome, where I intended to be by Christmas Day, but my long voyage will probably defeat my intention."

CHAPTER XV

DECEMBER 6, 1829--FEBRUARY 6, 1830

Journey from Liverpool to London by coach.--Neatness of the cottages.-- Trentham Hall.--Stratford-on-Avon.--Oxford.--London.--Charles R. Leslie.

--Samuel Rogers.--Seated with Academicians at Royal Academy lecture.-- Was.h.i.+ngton Irving.--Turner.--Leaves London for Dover.--Canterbury Cathedral.--Detained at Dover by bad weather.--Incident of a former visit.--Channel steamer.--Boulogne-sur-Mer.--First impressions of France.--Paris.--The Louvre.--Lafayette.--Cold in Paris.--Continental Sunday.--Leaves Paris for Ma.r.s.eilles in diligence.--Intense cold.-- Dijon.--French funeral.--Lyons.--The Hotel Dieu.--Avignon.--Catholic church services.--Ma.r.s.eilles.--Toulon.--The navy yard and the galley slaves.--Disagreeable experience at an inn.--The Riviera.--Genoa.

Morse was now thirty-eight years old, in the full vigor of manhood, of a spare but well-knit frame and of a strong const.i.tution. While all his life, and especially in his younger years, he was a sufferer from occasional severe headaches, he never let these interfere with the work on hand, and, by leading a sane and rational life, he escaped all serious illnesses. He was not a total abstainer as regards either wine or tobacco, but was moderate in the use of both; a temperance advocate in the true sense of the word.

His character had now been moulded both by prosperity and adversity. He had known the love of wife and children, and of father and mother, and the cup of domestic happiness had been dashed from his lips. He had experienced the joy of the artist in successful creation, and the bitterness of the sensitive soul irritated by the ignorant, and all but overwhelmed by the struggle for existence. He had felt the supreme joy of swaying an audience by his eloquence, and he had endured with fort.i.tude the carping criticism of the envious. Through it all, through prosperity and through adversity, his hopeful, buoyant nature had triumphed.

Prosperity had not spoiled him, and adversity had but served to refine.

He felt that he had been given talents which he must utilize to the utmost, that he must be true to himself, and that, above all, he must strive in every way to benefit his fellow men.

This motive we find recurring again and again in his correspondence and in his ultimate notes. Not, "What can I do for myself?" but "What can I do for mankind?" Never falsely humble, but, on the contrary, properly proud of his achievements, jealous of his own good name and fame and eager _honestly_ to acquire wealth, he yet ever put the public good above his private gain.

He was now again in Europe, the goal of his desires for many years, and he was about to visit the Continent, where he had never been. Paris, with her treasures of art, Italy, the promised land of every artist, lay before him.

We shall miss the many intimate letters to his wife and to his parents, but we shall find others to his brothers and to his friends, perhaps a shade less unreserved, but still giving a clear account of his wanderings, and, from a ma.s.s of little notebooks and sketch-books, we can follow him on his pilgrimage and glean some keen observations on the peoples and places visited by him. It must be remembered that this was still the era of the stage-coach and the diligence, and that it took many days to accomplish a journey which is now made in almost the same number of hours.

On Christmas Day, 1829, he begins a letter from Dover to a favorite cousin, Mrs. Margaret Roby, of Utica, New York:--

"When I left Liverpool I took my seat upon the outside of the coach, in order to see as much as possible of the country through which I was to pa.s.s. Unfortunately the fog and smoke were so dense that I could see objects but a few yards from the road. Occasionally, indeed, the fog would become less dense, and we could see the fine lawns of the seats of the n.o.bility and gentry, which were scattered on our route, and which still retained their verdure. Now and then the spire and towers of some ancient village church rose out of the leafless trees, beautifully simple in their forms, and sometimes clothed to the very tops with the evergreen ivy. It was severely cold; my eyebrows, hair, cap, and the fur of my cloak were soon coated with frost, but I determined to keep my seat though I suffered some from the cold.

"Their fine natural health, or the frosty weather, gave to the complexions of the peasantry, particularly the females and children, a beautiful rosy bloom. Through all the villages there was the appearance of great comfort and neatness,--a neatness, however, very different from ours. Their nicely thatched cottages bore all the marks of great antiquity, covered with brilliant green moss like velvet, and round the doors and windows were trained some of the many kinds of evergreen vines which abound here. Most of them also had a trim courtyard before their doors, planted with laurel and holly and box, and sometimes a yew cut into some fantastic shape. The whole appearance of the villages was neat and venerable; like some aged matron who, with all her wrinkles, her stooping form, and grey locks, preserves the dignity of cleanliness in her ancient but becoming costume.

"At Trentham we pa.s.sed one of the seats of the Marquis of Stafford, Trentham Hall. Here the Marquis has a fine gallery of pictures, and among them Allston's famous picture of 'Uriel in the Sun.'

"I slept the first night in Birmingham, which I had no time to see on account of darkness, smoke, and fog: three most inveterate enemies to the seekers of the picturesque and of antiquities. In the morning, before daylight, I resumed my journey towards London. At Stratford-on-Avon I breakfasted, but in such haste as not to be able to visit again the house of Shakespeare's birth, or his tomb. This house, however, I visited when in England before. At Oxford, the city of so many cla.s.sical recollections, I stopped but a few moments to dine. I was here also when before in England. It is a most splendid city; its spires and domes and towers and pinnacles, rising from amid the trees, give it a magnificent appearance as you approach it.

"Before we reached Oxford we pa.s.sed through Woodstock and Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, whose splendid estates are at present suffering from the embarra.s.sment of the present Duke, who has ruined his fortunes by his fondness for play.

"Darkness came on after leaving Oxford; I saw nothing until arriving in the vicinity of the great metropolis, which has, for many miles before you enter it, the appearance of a continuous village. We saw the brilliant gas-lights of its streets, and our coach soon joined the throng of vehicles that rattled over its pavements. I could scarcely realize that I was once more in London after fourteen years' absence.

"My first visit was to my old friend and fellow pupil, Leslie, who seemed overjoyed to see me and has been unremitting in his attentions during my stay in London. Leslie I found, as I expected, in high favor with the highest cla.s.ses of England's n.o.blemen and literary characters. His reputation is well deserved and will not be ephemeral.

"I received an invitation to breakfast from Samuel Rogers, Esq., the celebrated poet, which I accepted with my friend Leslie. Mr. Rogers is the author of 'Pleasures of Memory,' of 'Italy,' and other poems. He has not the proverbial lot of the poet,--that of being poor,--for he is one of the wealthiest bankers and lives in splendid style. His collection of pictures is very select, chosen by himself with great taste.

"I attended, a few evenings since, the lecture on anatomy at the Royal Academy, where I was introduced to some of the most distinguished artists; to Mr. Shee, the poet and author as well as painter; to Mr.

Howard, the secretary of the Academy; to Mr. Hilton, the keeper; to Mr.

Stothard, the librarian; and several others. I expected to have met and been introduced to Sir Thomas Lawrence, the president, but he was absent, and I have not had the pleasure of seeing him. I was invited to a seat with the Academicians, as was also Mr. Cole, a member of our Academy in New York. I was gratified in seeing America so well represented in the painters Leslie and Newton. The lecturer also paid, in his lecture, a high compliment to Allston by a deserved panegyric, and by several quotations from his poems, ill.u.s.trative of principles which he advanced.

"After the lecture I went home to tea with Newton, accompanied by Leslie, where I found our distinguished countryman, Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, our Secretary of Legation, and W.E. West, another American painter, whose portrait of Lord Byron gave him much celebrity. I pa.s.sed a very pleasant evening, of course.

"The next day I visited the National Gallery of pictures, as yet but small, but containing some of the finest pictures in England. Among them is the celebrated 'Raising of Lazarus' by Sebastian del Piombo, for which a n.o.bleman of this country offered to the late proprietor sixteen thousand pounds sterling, which sum was refused. I visited also Mr.

Turner, the best landscape painter living, and was introduced to him....

"I did not see so much of London or its curiosities as I should have done at another season of the year. The greater part of the time was night-- literally night; for, besides being the shortest days of the year (it not being light until eight o'clock and dark again at four), the smoke and fog have been most of the time so dense that darkness has for many days occupied the hours of daylight....

"On the 22d inst., Tuesday, I left London, after having obtained in due form my pa.s.sports, for the Continent, in company with J. Town, Esq., and N. Jocelyn, Esq., American friends, intending to pa.s.s the night at Canterbury, thirty-six miles from London. The day was very unpleasant, very cold, and snowing most of the time. At Blackheath we saw the palace in which the late unfortunate queen of George IV resided. On the heath among the bushes is a low furze with which it is in part covered. There were encamped in their miserable blanket huts a gang of gypsies. No wigwams of the Oneidas ever looked so comfortless. On the road we overtook a gypsy girl with a child in her arms, both having the stamp of that singular race strongly marked upon their features; black hair and sparkling black eyes, with a nut-brown complexion and cheeks of russet red, and not without a shrewd intelligence in their expression.

"At about nine o'clock we arrived at the Guildhall Tavern in the celebrated and ancient city of Canterbury. Early in the morning, as soon as we had breakfasted, we visited the superb cathedral. This stupendous pile is one of the most distinguished Gothic structures in the world. It is not only interesting from its imposing style of architecture, but from its numerous historical a.s.sociations. The first glimpse we caught of it was through and over a rich, decayed gateway to the enclosure of the cathedral grounds. After pa.s.sing the gate the vast pile--with its three great towers and innumerable turrets, and pinnacles, and b.u.t.tresses, and arches, and painted windows--rose in majesty before us. The grand centre tower, covered with a grey moss, seemed like an immense ma.s.s of the Palisades, struck out with all its regular irregularity, and placed above the surrounding ma.s.ses of the same grey rocks. The bell of the great tower was tolling for morning service, and yet so distant, from its height, that it was scarcely heard upon the pavement below.

"We entered the door of one of the towers and came immediately into the nave of the church. The effect of the long aisles and towering, cl.u.s.tered pillars and richly carved screens of a Gothic church upon the imagination can scarcely be described--the emotion is that of awe.

"A short procession was quickly pa.s.sing up the steps of the choir, consisting of the beadle, or some such officer, with his wand of office, followed by ten boys in white surplices. Behind these were the prebendaries and other officers of the church; one thin and pale, another portly and round, with powdered hair and sleepy, dull, heavy expression of face, much like the face that Hogarth has chosen for the 'Preacher to his Sleepy Congregation.' This personage we afterward heard was Lord Nelson, the brother of the celebrated Nelson and the heir to his t.i.tle.

"The service was read in a hurried and commonplace manner to about thirty individuals, most of whom seemed to be the necessary a.s.sistants at the ceremonies. The effect of the voices in the responses and the chanting of the boys, reverberating through the aisles and arches and recesses of the church, was peculiarly imposing, but, when the great organ struck in, the emotion of grandeur was carried to its height,--I say nothing of devotion. I did not pretend on this occasion to join in it; I own that my thoughts as well as my eyes were roaming to other objects, and gathering around me the thousand recollections of scenic splendor, of terror, of bigotry, and superst.i.tion which were acted in sight of the very walls by which I was surrounded. Here the murder of Thomas a Becket was perpetrated; there was his miracle-working shrine, visited by pilgrims from all parts of Christendom, and enriched with the most costly jewels that the wealth of princes could purchase and lavish upon it; the very steps, worn into deep cavities by the knees of the devotees as they approached the shrine, were ascended by us. There stood the tomb of Henry IV and his queen; and here was the tomb of Edward, the Black Prince, with a bronze figure of the prince, richly embossed and enamelled, reclining upon the top, and over the canopy were suspended the surcoat and casque, the gloves of mail and s.h.i.+eld, with which he was accoutred when he fought the famous battle of Crecy. There also stood the marble chair in which the Saxon kings were crowned, and in which, with the natural desire that all seemed to have in such cases, I could not avoid seating myself. From this chair, placed at one end of the nave, is seen to best advantage the length of the church, five hundred feet in extent.

"After the service I visited more at leisure the tombs and other curiosities of the church. The precise spot on which Archbishop Becket was murdered is shown, but the spot on which his head fell on the pavement was cut out as a relic and sent to Rome, and the place filled in with a fresh piece of stone, about five inches square....

"In the afternoon we left Canterbury and proceeded to Dover, intending to embark the next morning (Thursday, December 24) for Calais or Boulogne in the steamer. The weather, however, was very unpromising in the morning, being thick and foggy and apparently preparing for a storm. We therefore made up our minds to stay, hoping the next day would be more favorable; but Friday, Christmas Day, came with a most violent northeast gale and snowstorm. Sat.u.r.day the 26th, Sunday the 27th, and, at this moment, Monday the 28th, the storm is more violent than ever, the streets are clogged with snow, and we are thus embargoed completely for we know not how long a time to come.

"Notwithstanding the severity of the weather on Thursday, we all ventured out through the wind and snow to visit Dover Castle, situated upon the bleak cliffs to the north of the town....

"The castle, with its various towers and walls and outworks, has been the constant care of the Government for ages. Here are the remains of every age from the time of the Romans to the present. About the centre of the enclosure stand two ancient ruins, the one a tower built by the Romans, thirty-six years after Christ, and the other a rude church built by the Saxons in the sixth century. Other remains of towers and walls indicate the various kinds of defensive and offensive war in different ages, from the time when the round or square tower, with its loopholes for the archers and crossbowmen, and gates secured by heavy portcullis, were a substantial defence, down to the present time, when the bastion of regular sides advances from the glacis, mounted with modern ordnance, keeping at a greater distance the hostile besiegers.

"Through the glacis in various parts are sally-ports, from one of which, opening towards the road to Ramsgate, I well remember seeing a corporal's guard issue, about fifteen years ago, to take possession of me and my sketch-book, as I sat under a hedge at some distance to sketch the picturesque towers of this castle. Somewhat suspicious of their intentions, I left my retreat, and, by a circuitous route into the town, made my escape; not, however, without ascertaining from behind a distant hedge that I was actually the object of their expedition. They went to the spot where I had been sitting, made a short search, and then returned to the castle through the same sally-port.

"At that time (a time of war not only with France but America also) the strictest watch was kept, and to have been caught making the slightest sketch of a fortification would have subjected me to much trouble. Times are now changed, and had Jack Frost (the only commander of rigor now at the castle) permitted, I might have sketched any part of the interior or exterior."

"_Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, December 29, 1829._ This morning at ten o'clock, after our tedious detention, we embarked from Dover in a steamer for this place instead of Calais. I mentioned the steamer, but, cousin, if you have formed any idea of elegance, or comfort, or speed in connection with the name of steamer from seeing our fine steamboats, and have imagined that English or French boats are superior to ours, you may as well be undeceived. I know of no description of packet-boats in our waters bad enough to convey the idea. They are small, black, dirty, confined things, which would be suffered to rot at the wharves for want of the least custom from the lowest in our country. You may judge of the extent of the accommodations when I tell you that there is in them but one cabin, six feet six inches high, fourteen feet long, eleven feet wide, containing eight berths.

"Our pa.s.sage was, fortunately, short, and we arrived in the dominions of 'His Most Christian Majesty' Charles X at five o'clock. The transition from a country where one's own language is spoken to one where the accents are strange; from a country where the manners and habits are somewhat allied to our own to one where everything is different, even to the most trifling article of dress, is very striking on landing after so short an interval from England to France.

"The pier-head at our landing was filled with human beings in strange costume, from the grey _surtout_ and belt of the _gendarmes_ to the broad twilled and curiously plaited caps of the masculine women; which latter beings, by the way, are the licensed porters of baggage to the custom-house."

"_Paris, January 7, 1830._ Here have I been in this great capital of the Continent since the first day of the year. I shall remember my first visit to Paris from the circ.u.mstance that, at the dawn of the day of the new year, we pa.s.sed the Porte Saint-Denis into the narrow and dirty streets of the great metropolis.

"The Louvre was the first object we visited. Our pa.s.sports obtained us ready admittance, and, although our fingers and feet were almost frozen, we yet lingered three hours in the grand gallery of pictures. Indeed, it is a long walk simply to pa.s.s up and down the long hall, the end of which from the opposite end is scarcely visible, but is lost in the mist of distance. On the walls are twelve hundred and fifty of some of the _chefs d'oeuvre_ of painting. Here I have marked out several which I shall copy on my return from Italy.

"I have my residence at present at the Hotel de Lille, which is situated very conveniently in the midst of all the most interesting objects of curiosity to a stranger in Paris,--the palace of the Tuileries, the Palais Royal, the Bibliotheque Royale, or Royal Library, and numerous other places, all within a few paces of us. On New Year's Day the equipages of the n.o.bility and foreign amba.s.sadors, etc., who paid their respects to the King and the Duke of Orleans, made considerable display in the Place du Carrousel and in the court of the Tuileries.

"At an exhibition of manufactures of porcelain, tapestry, etc., in the Louvre, where were some of the most superb specimens of art in the world in these articles, we also saw the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri. She is the mother of the little Duc de Bordeaux, who, you know, is the heir apparent to the crown of France. She was simply habited in a blue pelisse and blue bonnet, and would not be distinguished in her appearance from the crowd except by her attendants in livery.

"I cannot close, however, without telling you what a delightful evening I pa.s.sed evening before last at General Lafayette's. He had a soiree on that night at which there were a number of Americans. When I went in he instantly recognized me; took me by both hands; said he was expecting to see me in France, having read in the American papers that I had embarked.

He met me apparently with great cordiality, then introduced me to each of his family, to his daughters, to Madame Lasterie and her two daughters (very pretty girls) and to Madame Remusat,[1] and two daughters of his son, G.W. Lafayette, also very accomplished and beautiful girls. The General inquired how long I intended to stay in France, and pressed me to come and pa.s.s some time at La Grange when I returned from Italy. General Lafayette looks very well and seems to have the respect of all the best men in France. At his soiree I saw the celebrated Benjamin Constant, one of the most distinguished of the Liberal party in France. He is tall and thin with a very fair, white complexion, and long white, silken hair, moving with all the vigor of a young man."

[Footnote 1: This was not, of course, the famous Madame de Remusat; probably her daughter-in-law.]