Part 4 (1/2)
But I had enough to keep me in countenance. I spent an hour yesterday with Lady M. getting instructions for demeaning myself.
The greatest danger was that I should be tripped up by my own sword.... The company were at length permitted one by one to pa.s.s into the presence chamber--a room with a throne and gorgeous canopy at the farther end, before which stood the little Queen of the mighty Isle and her Consort, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting.
She was rather simply dressed, but he was in a Field Marshal's uniform, and covered, I should think, with all the orders of Europe. He is a good-looking person, but by no means so good-looking as the portraits of him. The Queen is better-looking than you might expect. I was presented by our Minister, according to the directions of the Chamberlain, as the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella, in due form--and made my profound obeisance to her Majesty, who made a very dignified curtesy, as she made to some two hundred others who were presented in like manner. I made the same low bow to his Princes.h.i.+p to whom I was also presented, and so bowed myself out of the royal circle, without my sword tripping up the heels of my n.o.bility.... Lord Carlisle ... said he had come to the drawing-room to see how I got through the affair, which he thought I did without any embarra.s.sment. Indeed, to say truth, I have been more embarra.s.sed a hundred times in my life than I was here. I don't know why; I suppose because I am getting old.”
Somewhat later, while Prescott was a guest at Castle Howard, where the Queen was also entertained, he had something more to tell about her.
”At eight we went to dinner all in full dress, but mourning for the Duke of Cambridge; I, of course, for President Taylor! All wore breeches or tight pantaloons. It was a brilliant show, I a.s.sure you--that immense table with its fruits and flowers and lights glancing over beautiful plate and in that superb gallery. I was as near the Queen as at our own family table. She has a good appet.i.te and laughs merrily. She has fine eyes and teeth, but is short. She was dressed in black silk and lace with the blue scarf of the Order of the Garter across her bosom. Her only ornaments were of jet. The Prince, who is certainly a handsome and very well made man, wore the Garter with its brilliant buckle round his knee, a showy star on his breast, and the collar of a foreign order round his neck.
”In the evening we listened to some fine music and the Queen examined the pictures. Odd enough the etiquette. Lady Carlisle, who did the honours like a high-bred lady as she is, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland, were the only ladies who talked with her Majesty. Lord Carlisle, her host, was the only gentleman who did so unless she addressed a person herself. No one can sit a moment when she chooses to stand. She did me the honour to come and talk with me--asking me about my coming here, my stay in the Castle, what I was doing now in the historic way, how Everett was and where he was--for ten minutes or so; and Prince Albert afterwards a long while, talking about the houses and ruins in England, and the churches in Belgium, and the pictures in the room, and I don't know what. I found myself now and then trenching on the rules by interrupting, etc.; but I contrived to make it up by a respectful 'Your Royal Highness,' 'Your Majesty,' etc. I told the Queen of the pleasure I had in finding myself in a land of friends instead of foreigners--a sort of stereotype with me--and of my particular good fortune in being under the roof with her. She is certainly very much of a lady in her manner, with a sweet voice.”
At Oxford, Prescott was the guest of the Bishop, the well-known Wilberforce, popularly known by his sobriquet of ”Soapy Sam.” The University conferred upon the American historian the degree of D.C.L. in spite of the fact that he was a Unitarian. This circ.u.mstance was known and caused some slight difficulty, but possibly the degree given to Everett, another Unitarian, some years before in spite of great opposition, was regarded as having established a precedent; and Oxford cherishes the cult of precedent. At the Bishop's house, however, Prescott shocked a lady by telling her of his creed. He wrote to Ticknor: ”The term [Unitarian] is absolutely synonymous in a large party here with Infidel, Jew, Mohammedan; worse even, because regarded as a wolf in sheep's clothing.” The lady, however, succeeded in giving Prescott a shock in return; for when he happened to mention Dr.
Channing, she told him that she had never even heard the man's name--a sort of ignorance which to a Bostonian was quite incomprehensible.
Prescott's account of the university ceremonial is given in a letter to Mr. Ticknor.
”Lord Northampton and I were doctorised in due form. We were both dressed in flaming red robes (it was the hottest day I have felt here), and then marched out in solemn procession with the Faculty, etc., in their black and red gowns through the public streets....
We were marched up the aisle; Professor Phillimore made a long Latin exposition of our merits, in which each of the adjectives ended, as Southey said in reference to himself on a like occasion, in _issimus_; and amidst the cheers of the audience we were converted into Doctors.”
Prescott was much pleased with this Oxford degree, which rightly seemed to him more significant than the like honours which had come to him from various American colleges. ”Now,” said he, ”I am a _real_ Doctor.”
In the same letter he gives a little picture of Lord Brougham during a debate in the House of Lords. Brougham was denouncing Baron Bunsen for his course in the Schleswig-Holstein affair,--Bunsen being in the House at the time.
”What will interest you is the a.s.sault made so brutally by Brougham on your friend Bunsen. I was present and never saw anything so coa.r.s.e as his personalities. He said the individual [Bunsen] took up the room of two ladies. Bunsen _is_ rather fat as also Madame and his daughter--all of whom at last marched out of the gallery, but not until eyes and gla.s.ses had been directed to the spot to make out the unfortunate individuals, while Lord Brougham was flying up and down, thumping the table with his fists and foaming at the mouth till all his brother peers, including the old Duke, were in convulsions of laughter. I dined with Bunsen and Madame the same day at Ford's.”
Prescott met both Disraeli and Gladstone, and, among other more purely literary men, Macaulay, Lockhart, Hallam, Thirlwall, Milman, and Rogers.
Of Macaulay he tells some interesting things.
”I have met him several times, and breakfasted with him the other morning. His memory for quotations and ill.u.s.tration is a miracle--quite disconcerting. He comes to a talk like one specially crammed. Yet you may start the topic. He told me he should be delivered of twins on his next publication, which would not be till '53.... Macaulay's first draught--very unlike Scott's--is absolutely illegible from erasures and corrections.... He tells me he has his moods for writing. When not in the vein, he does not press it.... H---- told me that Lord Jeffrey once told him that, having tripped up Macaulay in a quotation from _Paradise Lost_, two days after, Macaulay came to him and said, 'You will not catch me again in the _Paradise_.' At which Jeffrey opened the volume and took him up in a great number of pa.s.sages at random, in all of which he went on correctly repeating the original. Was it not a miraculous _tour d'esprit_? Macaulay does not hesitate to say now that he thinks he could restore the first six or seven books of the _Paradise_ in case they were lost.”
Still again, Prescott expresses his astonishment at Macaulay's memory.
”Macaulay is the most of a miracle. His _tours_ in the way of memory stagger belief.... His talk is like the laboured, but still unintermitting, jerks of a pump. But it is anything but wishy-washy. It keeps the mind, however, on too great a tension for table-talk.”
Writing of Samuel Rogers, who was now a very old man, he records a characteristic little anecdote.
”I have seen Rogers several times, that is, all that is out of the bedclothes. His talk is still _sauce piquante_. The best thing on record of his late sayings is his reply to Lady----, who at a dinner table, observing him speaking to a lady, said, 'I hope, Mr.
Rogers, you are not attacking me.' 'Attacking you!' he said, 'why, my dear Lady----, I have been all my life defending you.' Wit could go no further.”
Prescott was the guest of the Duke of Sutherland at Trentham and at Stafford House. He was invited to Lord Lansdowne's, the Duke of Northumberland's, the Duke of Argyle's, and to Lord Grey's, and he describes himself in one letter as up to his ears in dances, dinners, and breakfasts. This sort of life, with all its glitter and gayety, suited Prescott wonderfully well, and his health improved daily. He remarked, however: ”It is a life which, were I an Englishman, I should not desire a great deal of; two months at most; although I think, on the whole, the knowledge of a very curious state of society and of so many interesting and remarkable characters, well compensate the bore of a voyage. Yet I am quite sure, having once had this experience, nothing would ever induce me to repeat it, as I have heard you say it would not pay.” Some little personal notes and memoranda may also be quoted.
”Everything is drawn into the vortex, and there they swim round and round, so that you may revolve for weeks and not meet a familiar face half a dozen times. Yet there is monotony in some things--that everlasting turbot and shrimp sauce. I shall never abide a turbot again.”
”Do you know, by the way, that I have become a courtier and affect the royal presence? I wish you could see my gallant costume, gold-laced coat, white inexpressibles, silk hose, gold-buckled patent slippers, sword and chapeau. Am I not playing the fool as well as my betters?”
”A silly woman ... said when I told her it was thirty years since I was here, 'Pooh! you are not more than thirty years old.' And on my repeating it, she still insisted on the same flattering e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. The Bishop of London the other day with his amiable family told me they had settled my age at forty.... So I am convinced there has been some error in the calculation. Ask mother how it is. They say here that gray hair, particularly whiskers, may happen to anybody even under thirty. On the whole, I am satisfied that I am the youngest of the family.”
Writing to his daughter from Alnwick Castle, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland, Prescott gave a little instance of his own extreme sensibility. A great number of children were being entertained by the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess.
”As they all joined in the beautiful anthem, 'G.o.d save the Queen,'
the melody of the little voices rose up so clear and simple in the open courtyard that everybody was touched. Though I had nothing to do with the anthem, some of my _opera tears_,[19] dear Lizzie, came into my eyes, and did me great credit with some of the John and Jennie Bulls by whom I was surrounded.”