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SOPHIE V. LA ROCHE, I778

From the original in the University Library at Munster

SOPHIE in LONDON

1786

being the Diary of

Sophie V. la Roche

Translated from the German with an Introductory Essay by Clare Williams

With a Foreword by G. M. Trevelyan

JONATHAN CAPE

1933

UNIVEhTdTY OF VICTORIA

Thirty Bedford

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FIRST PUBLISHED 1 933

JONATHAN CAPE LTD., 3O BEDFORD SQ,UARE, LONDON AND 91 WELLINGTON STREET WEST, TORONTO

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY J. AND J. GRAY, EDINBURGH PAPER MADE BY JOHN DICKINSON AND CO. LTD. BOUND BY A. W. BAIN AND CO. LTD.

FOREWORD

This book is a valuable addition to the library of old travellers’ tales which forms so attractive a part of modern reading. A clever woman, belonging to the fine cosmo- politan civilization of Europe in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, herself coming from the noble Germany of that period, describes the English scene. That European civilization has since been changed past all recognition by machinery, and by resurgent ‘enthusiasms’ of every kind.

Some things, doubtless, have been gained by these changes, but reading this book has reminded me more forcibly of what has been lost. The good lady’s eulogistic remarks on Wedgwood ware (page 122) are characteristic: ‘At Wedgwood’s to-day ‘I saw a thousand lovely forms and images ; vases, tea-things, ‘statuettes, medallions. . . . Were I a traveller of means this ‘would have accompanied me home to Germany. “That the ‘ “Briton is born for all that is noble,” is a true, not a biassed, ‘statement. For so soon as his spirit is untrammelled, and he ‘acts independently, his is the path to greatness, simplicity, ‘and beauty in all things.’ Such a statement perhaps raised a smile in 1786; if uttered in 1933 it could only raise a guffaw. But if in England we have, like every one else, lost good taste under the pressure of the machine age, we have as yet kept the spirit of liberty that the eighteenth century bequeathed us.

This is a remarkable picture of our ancestors, and I hope it will have the success it desers’cs. We owe Mrs. Williams a debt for bringing it to light.

G, M. TREVELYAN

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PREFACE

This diary, intended rather for the bedside table than the study desk, written, like the countless scribblings of the period, for edification ‘without tears’ (if one may apply this most descriptive anachronism) has not been annotated. The earnest seeker, however, need never flag for want of printed matter, and to those interested I address this note. I have pursued a policy of exclusion, though by careful use of sources mentioned the reader should soon thread his way through the diversions of eighteenth-century studies. Perhaps an introduction of the diarist as she appears on paper would form the best approach. She finds a place— now a line, a page, or paragraph— in many general literatures. It will be well to consult Professor J. G. Robertson’s Short History of German Literature, 1931, for a start. (Here I must pause to thank him for putting the diary in my way, for friendly encouragement, and permission to use an article of his— mentioned below- to which I am much indebted.) ^ In the excellent bibliography to the above such general works as F. J. Schneider’s or A. Roster’s literatures and others, or the monumental Hermann Hettner’s Liter aturgeschichte des xviii Jahrhunderts (revised, E. Boucke, 1926) will be found, while those anxious for a German introduction may take W. Scherer’s classic, Geschichte der deutschen Litter atur, 1921, using Korner’s book selection. Biographies of Sophie and her husband by L. Assing, 1859, and R. Asmus, 1899, may be supplemented by the delightful sketch of Sophie as an old lady in the lively ‘moonshine’ letters of her famous grand- daughter, Bettina v. Arnim, Die Giinderode (edited H. Amelung,

^ Since these lines were printed German scholarship has been impoverished by the death of this doyen of German letters.

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5 PREFACE

Inselverlag, 1914). Other, sometimes newer, aspects of her character and works are obtainable from tributes, or the contrary, in Erich Schmidt’s Richardson, Rousseau, Goethe, W. Scherer’s Aufsdtze uber Goethe, 1886, from articles by K. Ridderhoff, J. G. Robertson (see Modern Language Review, xxvii), or letters edited by R. Hassencamp, F. Horn, A. Bach in book and periodical format, in G. v. Loeper’s Goethe Letters, 1879, K. Wagner’s and E. Martin’s to Merck and Jacobi respectively, and finally in the intimate requests to Grespel to send her such varied fare as sausages, curtains, watches, stockings, down from Frankfurt! (see W. Hertz m Bernhard Grespel, 1914). To the publishers of H. G. Jansen’s stimulating new material in Sophie v. La Roche im Verkehr mit dem geistigen Munsterland, 1931,1 am indebted for permission to reproduce the silhouette, and should like here to add my grateful thanks to the photographic and general staff at the British Museum and London Library for much help and patience. Of the many books on woman s place and culture in society, Ghristine Touaillon’s Der deutsche Frauenroman des xviii Jhdts., 1919, is a very real contribution, and devotes much space to Sophie; Adalbert v. Hanstein, 1899, gives an efficient survey, Matthew G. Bach, in a far smaller work, specialises on Wieland’s Attitude toward Woman, etc., 1922, and so includes Sophie’s early years, and H. Lachmannski, 1900, deals with women’s periodicals. Myra Reynolds’s The Learned Lady in England, 1630-1750, 1920, is an excellent precursor to the period for those seeking an English study, and reminds one, though they are too late for her, that the memoirs of a Hannah More (edited William Roberts, 1835), Mme. d’Arblay (edited Gharlotte Barrett, 1883), Mrs. Delany (edited Lady Llanover, 1861) make good counterparts to Sophie— for in these are met Mrs. Fielding’s ‘game of twenty questions,’ with Sir Joshua Reynolds amongst the victims; ‘the Gagliostro and the Cardinal’s necklace’; the ‘mad’ Nicholson woman’s attempt on His Majesty; our friend Lyttleton and his ghost and many more familiar anecdotes

PREFACE

7

from Sophie; while the journal of John Wesley (edited N. Gurnock, VoL vii) for Monday, 28th August-Sunday, 3rd September 1786, testifies to Sophie’s veracity and gives us the somewhat mournful subject of his sermon thus: ‘It is appointed unto men once to die.’ Any such contemporary evidence can be recommended both as a pleasure and a check on Sophie’s work. It seems almost superfluous to add the Dictionary of National Biography and its German brother, Die Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, S. Redgrave’s old Dictionary of Artists and G. K. Nagler’s older Kiinstlerlexikon (see in the latter, for instance, Sophie’s friend Hurter) as clues to the detection of personalities, though some readers may be grateful; or again Wraxhall’s Historical Memoirs, 1836 (com- pare with Sophie, the Gordon Riots and ‘gutting’ of Savile’s house), J. T. Smith’s Nollekens and his Times, 1829, popular funds of anecdote, or Genest and Allardyce Nicoll as the theatrical ‘who’s who’s.’ In E. Beresford Chancellor’s Lives of the British Sculptors, 1911, a newer Smith, will be found references to compare with Sophie (Smith’s list of Nollekens’ works contains all those which Sophie saw) and again in Photiades’ Les Vies du Comte de Cagliostro, 1932, Sophie plays quite a minor role as visitor to this worthy.

Lastly the tourist traffic may be followed satisfactorily through W. E. Mead’s Grand Tour in the xviii c., 1914, the excellent bibliography of which contains works connected with all phases— the traveller in France (A. Babeau, 1885), in England (Edward Smith, 1889, or Arturo Graf, 191 1, etc.). Anglo-German tourist relations are best handled by L. M. Price’s English-German Literary Influences, 1919, and J. A. Kelly’s England and the Englishman in German Literature of the xviii c., 1921, the bibliographies of which contain most original sources and German works on the subject. Beside these P. E. Matheson’s German Visitors to England, 1930, is but slight.

As for the ‘London Scene,’ H. B. Wheatley’s London Past and Present, 1891, W. Besant’s volume entitled London in the xviii c., 1902, in his Survey of London Series, Daniel Lyson’s

8 PREFACE

Environs of London, 1792 (Vol. ii, Middlesex) are indispensable for general reference, while H. B. Wheatley’s Hogarth and his Times, 1909, Austin Dobson’s William Hogarth, 1907, and E. Beresford Chancellor’s recent popular survey, The xviii c. in London, 1920, contain delightful illustrations and form a good beginning. With Warwick Wroth, The London Pleasure Gardens of the xviii c., 1896, one can follow the vicissitudes of fashion from Belsize to Ranelagh, or trace the changes around Well Walk and Marybone very agreeably, and should one be guilty of a too roseate vision, then Dorothy M. George, in a more specialised and deeper work, London Life in the xviii c. 1925, may be calculated to dispel illusions, while maintaining an optimistic viewpoint. Her bibliography will fill in the lacunae, and Sections iv and vi more particularly will be a a guide to the better-known topographers and travellers (see also ‘maps’) — the list from Daniel Defoe at the opening to T. Pennant at the close, is almost inexhaustible, as reference to the British Museum catalogue will show. Sir Mayson M. Beeton and E. Beresford Chancellor have extracted letters 5 and 6 from Defoe’s first edition to make a luxurious volume with very gorgeous plates entitled A Tour through London, 1929.

Should the reader not be versed in German, yet care to sample some of their travel journals, he will find Baron Bielfeld’s Letters, Count Kielmannsegge’s Diary of a Journey to England, 1761-2, G. F. A. Wendeborn’s View of England towards the Close of the xviii c., 1791, A. W. Archenholz’s A Picture of England, 1797, and the ever-popular Carl Philipp Moritz (see P. E. Matheson’s reprint, 1926) all at his disposal (as given) in translation.

In conclusion, I mention John Timbs’ quaintly antiquarian The Romance of London, 1865, knowing hardly whether to praise or blame these odd sensationalisms clad in drab attire, and hasten to add the name of one whose library of eighteenth century vignettes, studies, essays, poems, bio- graphies and more, undoubtedly acclaim him as the literary hero of this Wartburg contest— Austin Dobson.

To

My Parents, and One Other

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INTRODUCTION

(i) The Grand Tour

A GENERATION of mechanics, cubists, press-buttons, and robots, pampered with rapid and easy communication, will hardly grasp the lull signihcance of miracles like the grand tour or penny post of its eighteenth-century ancestors. Arthur Young’s statement that there were no longer any novelties for the tourist outside of Tartary nowadays, conveys none of its deeper implications, unless we realise the tre- mendous impetus given to travel and exploration at the time. The very term ‘grand tour’ sounds as the proclamation of some great event. It calls to mind the pomp of eighteenth- century monuments, the flourish of contemporary beaus, and all the show of a spectacle-loving age. It personifies the virtues and the vices of foreign self-complacence and all the tawdry glitter at the courts; the qualities and defects of our own self-named ‘emporium,’ where we proudly hugged our insularity; the faults and excellence of rationalism, smug . with its achievement. Yet we must beware unless it assert a right to innovation not its own. For travel was nothing new. Of Ulysses, the ceaseless wanderer, Phoenician traders, Caesar’s exploits, the voyages of a Cabot or Columbus, tales are often told. The eighteenth century, however, might lay claim to novel aims and methods, to improved communi- cations which turned travail into travel, and gave birth to a new genus— the incorrigible globe-trotter. It created the traveller per se—di tremendous organised attack on all the vantage points of Europe ensued. It launched a different age of travel. The grand tour was de rigueur.

These two small words can conjure many a scene for us:

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14 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

the crack of a coachman’s whip, as he spurs his new relay of horses on to Dover to meet the packet there, which is to bear his master, a gentleman of parts and fortune, to Paris, that ‘paradise of women and the follies’: some foreign count embarking at Helvoetsluys for Harwich, thence to London for George ill’s coronation. The phrase recalls the tedium of eternal gaieties and our gallants’ flight to a new round abroad. It brings to mind some refractory youth in the hands of an ill-used, sometimes ignorant tutor, skimming the continent in search of a veneer known as ‘bon ton’ — his store of capital for future years! We see a whole army of ‘melancholy English’ escaping their ‘befogged’ and ‘smoke- bound’ London for sunnier climes. But these are sketches of the leisured few. The tour has its more serious sides. The scientists and antiquarians travelled too, digging for data everywhere they went. For many of these, however, the tour, which Nugent roughly estimates as comprehending Holland, Germany, Italy, and France— we must add Switzerland and England — was not ‘grand’ enough, and so we shall leave them to their adventures at all four points of the compass in the trail of a Cook or Mungo Park.

Like all human institutions the grand tour had its uses and abuses. Many the cries and satires in its wake; pictures of naive Englishmen and their families decked out by Paris wig and dressmakers, fleeced and ruined; crowds of young fops making themselves objectionable, learning nothing but debauch; the hasty tourist missing all the best. ‘How the devil can you like being always with these foreigners? I never go amongst them with all their formalities and cere- monies,’ to which Lord Chesterfield coined the appropriate retort, ‘I am neither ashamed nor afraid; I am very easy with them; they are very easy with me; I get the language and I see their characters by conversing with them; and that is what we are sent abroad for. Is it not?’ But we will leave his query to be answered later.

Nor must we imagine, despite improved communications.

INTRODUCTION

15

that these voyages were all sweetness and content. More especially in its early stages the grand tour might in some respects be termed a tour de force. For marauders, broken wheels, closed city gates and a wretched lodging outside, in winter heavy rains, ice blocks falling on one’s coach, swollen rivers, were only some of the evils which might befall. In Germany the roads were abominable, and the coaches cumbersome and comfortless. Sophie once complains that ‘the reigning princes should be made to drive round daily in a mail-coach for four hours on end, and they might then acquire some sense of justice towards their fellow-beings. Even the Queen of Prussia twice overturned along this road,’ and landing in a dirty ditch can have been no joke as one, the Baron von Bielfeld, proved to his discomfort. For Italy Nugent advises ‘a sword and couple of pistols,’ and ‘an iron machine to fix to carriage handle’ to prevent its opening in case of ‘murderous villains’ on the road, though the highway- men, as we knew them, were not so common there. In England, before the improvement scheme on paving, roads, and lighting after the middle of the century, mud was the traveller’s chief complaint. The sea also played its part in the series of accidents. Being ‘excessive sick’ was not the worst, though disagreeable as some know to their cost. An ‘ugly matter,’ one traveller remarked, baffling every effort at ‘pleasant or attractive’ narrative! Views seem to have varied as to the best preventative: some recommended the patient to gaze out upon the water, while others con- tended that nothing could be worse — one must keep one’s eyes upon the ship. Reading and even meditation were forbidden. More troublesome than this, however, were the long periods spent in some ‘dreary hole’ like Helvoetsluys, waiting for the favourable wind. Here there was nothing for it but to gnash one’s teeth, kick one’s heels, and empty one’s purse, for the natives knew how to charge in these tourist traps. Or having eventually got aboard successfully, the packet would be becalmed in mid-ocean for a space and one’s

i6 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

supply of food likely to give outj or else some storm tossed one to Yarmouth instead of Harwich, where finally, on arrival, one fell a prey to officious customs officers. Such were the possible calamities, though some escaped scot-free, boasting a pleasant voyage from start to finish. Towards the close of the century more particularly, tourist traffic had seen a transfor- mation and England above all became the trippers’ paradise.

An essential feature of the itinerary were the travellers’ guide and reference books. Though the bureau belongs to a later date (the hostelries it seems saw the beginnings of this institution), information in the form of manuals was abun- dant. For travel, as we have seen, had its abuses, though the ‘man of sense’ designed it for its uses. There is no point in touring aimlessly. What is the use of life if our experience is not ordered to some purpose? Travel has become inex- tricably bound up with life; it is a ‘sentimental journey,’ its ‘accidents, rubs, and difficulties’ the obstacles of life. The tour is both allegory and teacher. Injunctions to keep a record ensue; possibly ‘alphabetically arranged’ to simplify the jottings. The ideal in so doing was to sift one’s evidence, to have an end in view from which one should not swerve to take in any secondary matter. Here the specialists earned their laurels, for bibliophiles and antiquarians, botanists ransacking Europe’s cabinets for specimens, at Kew or Paris doing homage to their sire, Buffon, kept strictly to the letter of this law and noted only what concerned their field. Many, however, lost all sight of any aim they might have had, erring hopelessly through labyrinths of history, politics, and religion in an attempt to pad the narrative, letting the ‘reflections swallow up the travels,’ as Johnson aptly said. Nor perhaps can we blame them altogether, for these poor voyagers were weighed down with bibliography and counsel. Volkmann’s handbook of 1781, for instance, compiled for German visitors to England, is a mine of English, Latin, French, and German works on the constitution, geography, topography, and other aspects of that ‘queen of isles,’ not forgetting special guides for

INTRODUCTION

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London and environs, maps and sketches of the best-known sights. Nugent might be termed the father of Baedeker, though without innumerable predecessors he could scarce have flown so high. These — Stows, Defoes, and Enticks here, the Bernouillis or earlier French journalists abroad — set the pace, and though doubtless indispensable to the conscientious traveller for pointing out the landmarks, they turned his innocent pleasure into a Herculean labour. Besides the collections of an Astley or Bernouilli, there were catalogues such as Schad’s of Niirnberg, periodicals like Hamburg’s Traveller or England’s Modern Voyages, for the perusal and disposal of the tourist or directory compiler. Thus has the bulk of our material swollen from the tiny stream of readable and apposite reflections early in the century to a torrent of encyclopaedic matter from the 70’s on. This aspect of the ‘European Itinerary’ should not be overlooked in the general storm of abuse flung at the good-for-nothings of the time.

And how does England fare in all this touring? Long before the century had passed through all its crescents to reach full splendour towards 1770 and wane again round about 1800, England had witnessed a steady progression of visitors from abroad. The centre of gravity had shifted from Italy, which in previous epochs claimed priority from the traveller for her treasures and her learning— she was still the ‘garden of Europe’ and ‘fountain of the arts’— to England, the hub of the world in politics and commerce. Like a magnet she attracted foreigners to her shores to breathe the purer air of liberty and learn the secrets of prosperity. Though that ‘beautiful city with some ugly things,’ Paris, still rivalled the ‘ugly city with some beautiful things,’ London, she was rapidly losing ground, for she was but the rotten core of a decaying system, and any serious thinker looked towards the latter for a possible solution of new problems which might avert the catastrophe of ’89.

So Montesquieu, Voltaire, and many other Frenchmen took the lead, and Germany, never slow to copy France, was

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i8 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

close at heel here. One by one and in their scores the Germans take the plunge and cross the Straits, unti y 1 799 London was larger by thirty thousand of them resident over here Most of Europe was suffering from Anglomania, Germany worst of all: England, ‘that land whose very name is as music to our German ears,’ one traveller rhapsodical y exclaims; obviously no unbiased witness of our scene in 1788! And amongst the endless German literature on England one man only dares to take a definite stand against us, and he is a pro-French revolutionary whose views reflect the tricolour. Furthermore, he seems to have been a crusty, quarrelsome fellow, who in consequence suffered many bufferings, though his statements are not without veracity even when he sees white at its blackest! Some minor aUempts at crushing the idealists occurred, and negative criticisms appear occasionally in the works of praise, but they are stil , small voices.’ The classic author in our time deserves a mention here: Wendeborn, writing in 1784, adopts the motto, ‘Speak of me as I am,’ and deals with us accordingly.

In general, German visitors did not feel as strange and outcast as a Frenchman or Italian; for to the French we were diametrically (and politically) opposed— it was only neces- sary for him to wear a small hat for us to adopt an outsize in that line, one German chuckles— while the Gerrnan, racially related, was tolerated, if not loved. German imagination, too, was fired by literary aspiration— for having exchanged the polished verses of French classicism for the barbarous but titanic Shakespeare, they flung themselves with fervour into Ossian’s bardic mists. Young’s melancholy nocturnes, and other English works, and so gained an intimacy with the ‘promised land’ before arrival. Finally, an Elector of Hanover sat upon the English throne, forging the firmest link between both nations, and so, once across the water, friends and relatives at the court awaited them, the German pastor at the Savoy shepherded them, and Germans in plenty at the Turk’s Head or Paris Coffee-house or similar localities welcomed them.

INTRODUCTION

19

As for their criticisms, we have already found tliem favourable. Our literature, in their opinion, had arrived, our philosophy and science likewise flourished with a Locke or Newton and the Royal Society at the head; our laws and constitution ‘discovered in the backwoods’ of our Saxon forebears, were ‘indubitably the masterpiece of all forms of government’ (according to one zealot, aforementioned). And although our fine arts lacked spiritual fire, our univer- sities were fat and prosperous and sluggish, our education needed thorough overhauling; yet these evils quickly vanished before a sight of the city or the docks, or Father Thames laden with merchandise. And if ‘kings chose to live like invalids’ in a ‘crazy, smoky, dirty’ convent, while the ‘invalids like kings’ inhabited the stately palaces of Greenwich and of Chelsea, why, that was just another English ‘whim.’ The nation, too, was prosperous as a whole — those drawn and haggard faces so familiar on the continent had disappeared. Beggars were plentiful enough, but even they wore tidy, cleanly rags. As for the English arrogance and candour, those, like other vices, had their virtues, for they gave rise to charity and good works, to loyalty and liberty of speech and action; and while their sadic lust for hangings, baitings, and similar sports was certainly difficult of comprehension in such a people, perhaps the relic of ancient Roman shows explained it, perhaps it was a mark of that proverbial English scorn of death. ‘Young man . . . my soul is steadfast. I am English. I can die, for I can live and suffer like a man,’ are my Lord Edward’s words, imbued as Rousseau doubtless thought, and maybe rightly, with characteristic local colour.

‘Nation of shopkeepers’ as we were in many respects, the taunt lost much of its sting in the applause of hosts of foreign visitors. ‘Grande Brettagna, it goes well with thee and happily, above many nations of the earth.’ Such was the spirit up to 1786, when Sophie v. La Roche first set foot on English soil at Harwich.

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SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

(ii) My Lady, the Grand Tourist

My lady ‘has been a traveller. She is a connoisseur m antiquities and in those parts of nice knowledge ... wit which the learned and polite of other nations entertain themselves.’ How ably do these few words from Henriette Byron’s pen meet Sophie’s case. They mark the very essence of her qualities and defects as traveller and diarist. For this ‘connoisseur in antiquities,’ this ‘learned lady,’ likewise has leanings to the part of bet esprit. And so personalities and anecdote, quite lovely Rousseauistic nature studies, glimpses of well-known sights and monuments, are introduced as appetisers before the heavier fare of museum or natural history catalogues, historical or other semi-learned disqui- sitions.

At the same time my lady Sophie was m every way adapted to the part of eighteenth-century globe-trotter. A child of her age, as we shall see, she shared the general appetite for travel. La Roche, her husband, had travelled a little in his time, and his patron’s tours in Holland, Fmnce, and Italy (Sophie explains that the polite in his day did not necessarily include England), formed part of the ‘nice discourse at the castle of Warthausen, where they lived some years with him. While her library, in which we know La Mottraye figured, no doubt contained much of the travel literature then in vogue. At least she was well read in this department, for Mungo Park and Lettice, Mme. du Bocage, von Watzdorf or Wendeborn, are only some of the representa- tives she mentions. Yet all this fund of previous information did not hamper that spontaneity of vision and irnpression which was her greatest charm. Nor did Sophie^ suffer ‘homesickness’ en route. Indeed, in the jubilance of this new- found toy, the tour, that ailment was overlooked. And travelling, too, mostly a luxury article, merely meant a transfer from the learned and polite of one country to a

INTRODUCTION

21

similar circle in another latitude. And so Sophie, lady of rank and authoress, travelling in company with a friend or son (it was advisable to have a companion during tedious, sometimes dangerous, stretches), bearing introductions to her peers in foreign parts, has neither time nor inclination for the disease.

Twice in her career Sophie bears witness to the three great moments of her life. Once from her look-out on the Baltic coast (doubtless referring to her trip to Hamburg, when she met Klopstock, the ‘heavenly’ Stolbergs, and others of the magic circle there), once in England, and once on a mountain summit facing the then unscalable Mt. Blanc in Switzerland. We should like to add a fourth and fifth: before the sea at Havre de Grace in France, and on the shore at Scheveningen in Holland. No doubt, however, she knew best! One thing is certain. Though Sophie belonged to that ‘tearful sect’ of ‘sensitive and beautiful souls’ so easily ‘affected,’ though she was present at many a ‘sentimental congress,’ these were moments of genuine emotion. Her voice thrills with gladness and her sometimes pedestrian narrative rises to pasans of praise before the verdant, undulating hills of Richmond, the silver gleaming Thames threading its way through fertile valleys, past prosperous country seats and rustic villages. Likewise, surrounded by the mountain majesty at Chamonix, she feels some vast and all-pervading power about her. This indeed was Nature’s apotheosis. ‘Sing unto the Lord a new song,’ cries our eighteenth-century pietist, drowning her utilitarian instincts in this feast of Nature, oblivious for a moment of politeness and preciosity. Nor are these the only moments in her work. As she crossed from Germany into Switzerland she noticed how the ‘seam of the Fatherland was edged with wild roses,’ revelling in their masses, and her work is sown with many delightful images of the kind, bright flowers in meadows sometimes fertile, often dead or arid.

Before following Sophie on her continental tour, one question of biographical interest might be answered here.

22 SOPHIE IN LONDON, .786

Why exactly did she cram her travels into the narrow nrargm of some mLths within the three consecuUve years of 84 to Her fate and fortunes at the time will solve th

question. Her daughters married, her eldest ^ ®

Ld flown, Carl at the university, and Franz, *e § ’

waitine to be packed off to boarding-school at Colmar,

Q free from all maternal cares, while her husband,

Ls tie ustlection will tell, might be left to potter in his garden, or busy with his mineral cabinet and specimens. On the other hand, he period after 1786, fraught with much erief for Sophie, who lost a husband, favourite son, and daughter between 1788 and ’93, fraught with grave unrL for the world at large, hardly inspired Sophie, an old hdy to wander far from home. Further reasons for her decision in 1784 were obvious too. She must have of en dreamed of seeing the world and playing her part m re contemporary grand tour. For Italy she had sighed but symbolically this dream was never realised. ^ To Switzerla she had looked forward now for ‘forty years i certain y sin her youthful love affair with Wieland, and her subsequ epistolary link with Julie Bondeli, a remarkable femmi personality of the time. If Franz was to go to Colmai then, why not tike him to Switzerland first and leave him with her old'^ friend Pfeffel, the director, on return. Besides, the might be scope for some journalistic sketches here to swe the periodical she edited, Pomona, or some other publication. And so it happened; and Sophie left on 25th June of 1784 with Franz for Switzerland.

They had a fair to moderate journey, though the roads were bad in parts. Once, on entrance into Switzerland, they were compelled to leave the coach while the horses were unhar- nessed and led along the narrow defile. On arrival at Zurich, their first main port of call, they put up at the Sword, where La Roche had lodged before them. Sophie did not care for the steep, narrow streets and tall houses, but she did her duty, visiting the libraries and schools, the silk and muslin

INTRODUCTION

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factories, which jointly with the heavy tourist traffic were blamed for the undermining of the simple life, to the sorrow of Swiss patriots. In Zurich, too, where Gessner (the pastoral poet) and other old friends of Wieland, her young admirer, greeted her, her spirit harked back to ‘Doris,’ and her youthful romance. ‘For what woman does not smile gladly at the memory that she has been lovable and beloved, even though it be thirty-two years since?’

But Sophie’s main objective was Lausanne, so we will press on with her, though incidents en route must hold us up occasionally. At Lucerne, for instance, after a stormy passage across the lake, Sophie went up the Blumenalp. The guide addressed her as ‘Mama,’ and offered her his hand as soon as the path grew difficult. Then in the broadest dialect, which she faithfully reproduces, he continues, ‘Mama, ye marn’t go further, ye be a heavy woman and not wont to sich climbing.’ In Berne, ‘the cradle of her Julie,’ she did not tarry long, though architecturally it was an elegant town, and Tscharner and other famous friends of Julie’s gave her hospitality. July 17th saw her in Lausanne, much struck by the difference between French and German Switzerland. ‘The French villages look sad, their stone houses less rustic, less cleanly than the wooden dwellings of the German peasant.’ Nor does the French labourer look as hale and hearty as his German neighbour. Nevertheless, Lausanne, home of Gibbon and the Neckers, was already the Mecca of the English tourist, and a great settlement of schools for children of the rich. ‘Whole troops of charmingly clad English women, just like Reynolds paints them,’ were taking the air one day while Sophie was out walking, yollowed by their menfolk.’ (The Englishman was reputed to be a bachelor at heart even in eighteenth-century England!) And Sophie doubtless felt this was a haul, for these unfriendly English formed colonies of their own and did not mix. Some of their customs, however, filtered through, for on her return to Lausanne six days later we find Sophie at Rapin Thoyras’

24 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

daughter, Mme. Blaquieres, taking tea with a dainty little roll, at six o’clock, as ‘introduced here by them.’ On this occasion and on her previous visit she met Mercier (prophet of Paris’ coming downfall). Gibbon (historian of past decline), and Mme. Casanova.

In her subsequent adventure Sophie was led higher, if not further, than she had anticipated. For to please her son she joined in an expedition to the glaciers from Chamonix. Starting by char-a-bancs, ‘a wooden bench supported on four wheels with a piece of cloth drawn tautly over it,’ Sophie was then chaired part way, but eventually decided to climb, for fear of being tipped into a precipice. She rested at the ‘English table of ice’— an ice plain named after its ‘dare- devil’ habitues— where the others joined her later for the descent. For this Sophie had to shed her heels, and a storm, which met them half-way down, did not make matters easier. They arrived back drenched— in Sophie’s case rather frightened— but none the worse for their adventure. Indeed, having put their clothes to dry, they formed a merry party by the fire and over a steaming meal. Sophie wore the goodman’s slippers, as his housewife’s wooden clogs did not quite suit! Indeed, this day amongst the splendours of Haller’s Alps was memorable to Sophie, as we saw, nor did she in any way rue a venture which made of her a pioneer in mountaineering— the first woman of her race in fact to undertake the ascent.

These then, the high lights of Sophie’s tour in Switzerland, must satisfy us, though at times the shades possess a charm entirely their own. Her visit to Ferney and pilgrimage to Vevay mght be added. She found the ‘patriarch’s’ estate dilapidated, ‘rank with weeds, like some of the owner’s writings,’ while Vevay, immortalised by Rousseau, was a flourishing market town, cleaner and lovelier in its natural simplicity than any place she had visited. That Sophie gave an unconsidered, somewhat biased verdict does not concern us here: the ‘Ferney factory,’ scene of departed glory, could

INTRODUCTION

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not in any case compete with a new and vigorous order of society. Be this as it may, we must proceed with Sophie’s itinerary. In haste to reach Colmar with her son, she had to forego hosts of invitations — a luncheon with the Neckers, party at Mme. Casanova’s, to mention two — but managed to spend a couple of days or so at Basel exploring the town and making friends. To an introduction to a certain Sarasin and his wife, faithful followers of Cagliostro, she owed a meeting with the latter two years later in London. But we must take our leave of her. Having dropped a son and collected a ‘foster’ daughter to stay with her, she ordered horses at Strassburg on 22nd August to carry her back to hearth and husband at Spires.

We meet her again, however, the following spring, when she decided to compare the ‘wonders of Nature’ witnessed in Helvetia with the ‘wonders of art’ for which Gaul was famed. In how far she appreciated the latter, and whether her impressions of ‘sweet France’ are as complimentary as one French commentator imagines, we shall see. That she did not find France’s most ‘smiling aspect’ altogether her ‘truest one,’ is certain. For all through her narrative can be heard the plaintive note of poverty and subjection. These twin miseries seem to haunt her like the silent spectres of some immeasurable, nameless crime. Let us explain. On her route to Paris, for example, she calls in at an occasional cotter’s by the wayside. She finds the people clean, but very poor indeed. Again, almost her first impression of Paris is ‘disappointing,’ ‘the streets are narrow and dirty, and the common people likewise.’ Later she tries to convince herself that it is truly the home of ‘art wonders,’ but cannot lose sight of the fact that the people, segregated into two distinct classes, one ‘wishing and enjoying,’ the other larger group ‘waiting on the pleasure and egoism of the former,’ are wretched. ‘The abject misery of the populace and the dirt are past all imagination.’ This land where ‘pedestrians are jammed between carriages and carts makes one’s heart sink.’

26 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

In truth, ‘the good taste and wealth which supply art with bread’ are quite ‘remarkable,’ but the ‘misery bordering on it all’ can scarce be ‘overlooked.’ On one occasion, while watching a royal procession, she observes the lavish expendi- ture and luxury, but in contrast to the extravagance of the coaches, the mob looked ‘wretched. Certainly Louis xvi ‘appeared a beneficent monarch, as he smiled kindly on every side and saluted his people,’ but this fact hardly glossed over realities. Visiting a silversmith’s the following day, this idea is repeated: all very handsome, but see the people outside collecting ‘rags and rubbish.’ Feeling is beginning to run high too, for when the queen makes her entry into Paris after her confinement, a mild surprise goes round amongst the spectators on the balcony about Sophie, and a murmur of ‘What’s this? The streets are packed, and not a single cry o^''Vive la Reine,'' ’ and one lady explains to Sophie that the populace is bravely evincing discontent. ‘It bears burdens, but does not fawn like the great.’ Two days later, at a procession of Corpus Christi, people are run over heed- lessly. ‘There is no longer the slightest regard for human beings or things.’

w'e have purposely emphasised a theme in Sophie’s record recurrent as the tragic motive in Wagnerian opera with its prophecy of coming doom; yet like this last, though Walhall’s time approaches, there are still sunny patches in the surround- ing country. ‘Gold is scarce’ in Paris as in Walhall! Spain was not circulating much.’ All the cunning of the combined deities was required to cover Freia with the Nibelungen hoard and yet there were beauties on the Rhine and in the woods, and likewise France has beauties by the Seine which must not be forgotten in our denunciation. If Versailles looked worn and dilapidated after one short century’s gaiety, the Tuileries still charmed Sophie’s eye, the Trianon, Marly, St. Cloud and Sevres were ‘delicious,’ the Louvre with its colonnade, the Luxembourg magnificent. Nowhere in the world were such parade, nowhere such elegant equipages, as

27

INTRODUCTION

in the Bois. In Paris only did one find a coffee-house, where, as if laden by ‘invisible’ hands, the table appeared from out the floor already served. In Paris, too. Mile. Bertin ruled supreme, for the ‘whole of Europe bowed its head beneath the sceptre of fantastic fashion.’ While Paris at night, around the palace area, looked like a ‘fairyland’ of myriad lamps, though suburbs and outskirts did not compare with London in this respect. But Sophie was happiest out of the din and ‘rattle’ of Paris vehicles; away in Touraine, for instance, fertile and smiling even then, with its ‘busy’ labourers, ‘lovely’ country-side, and its clean, neatly clad inhabitants. Or away in Bordeaux watching the ships and dock life. This was evidently an English characteristic, for, as distinct from other foreigners, the English were known at once by their liking for the quay-side, which they visited within their first fifteen minutes on shore, loitering there for hours on end, gazing at the work. Sophie heard that they were clannish too, as in Lausanne. Nevertheless, the French regretted having helped America in the war against them, for now her com- petition was hitting France’s export trade. Or again, Sophie was happy at Havre de Grace, where a ‘wish long cherished’ was at last fulfilled. Here she saw the sea, and marvelled at its changing beauties, spending the greater part of her short stay in its vicinity, either in the lighthouse inspecting the great lamps some ‘ten feet in diameter,’ or sitting on a mound of grass in contemplation.

But Sophie, despite this attitude and the many evils all around her, did not forget her social side. And so we see her at Versailles among the spectators in the palace after the royal household had heard mass, or in the marquee at Trianon during a garden fete given by the queen. She gained admission on these occasions through friends in the ministry. Again we catch a glimpse of her idolising Buffon, ‘the high priest of Nature,’ walking with him in his domain, the Botanical Garden. Then she is taken to Mesmer’s house, where three hundred patients were gathered awaiting cure

28 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

from the quack magnetist. She goes to Mme. de Genlis, the French authoress, and discusses the attitude of men to women —that is, intellectual women!

In truth, we cannot accuse her as she feared of ‘seeking every tombstone for inspection,’ like many of her country- men, for though the past and its memorials interested her, she had a keen sense of the present, its people, and conditions, and has made her diaries live accordingly. Her sojourn in France was crammed with sights and people, her diary with apposite reflection amidst — Sophie admits a weakness she cannot help— long discursive passages. Yet she left this ‘wonder-city’ without the least regret, and welcomed the mountain country which heralded the Fatherland. On the whole she must have enjoyed her stay, or else what purported to be a six weeks’ tour would scarce have exceeded a period of three months. The French had two redeeming qualities, she thought— ‘good roads and handsome theatres’ — two matters of great value for the public. Whatever her criticisms may have been, however, she was carrying back with her the nucleus of ‘a book most interesting and remarkable’ for its impressions of the ‘waiting city.’

A year elapsed before Sophie set out once more for foreign parts. The best — we mean in her opinion — lay before her; she had but to choose the route. Calais or Boulogne to Dover, Dieppe to Brighthelmstone, Ritzebiittel to Yarmouth, by sloop from Rotterdam to London Bridge (not advisable, however), or Helvoetsluys to Harwich— all these paths led to the sons of Albion. She chose the last, like the majority of her countrymen, and took in Holland on the way. After mean- dering with the Rhine as far as Diisseldorf (and Friedrich Jacobi, her friend) past wooded banks and vineyards, steep rocks, and ruined fortresses, back through time to earlier scenes and old familiar faces, happy days at Mainz or Ehrenbreitstein, Sophie and her friend, accompanied now by Carl, sped on via Cleves and Nimwegen, into Batavia. Here they found no mere ‘deposit of German mud,’ no ‘indigested

INTRODUCTION 29

vomit of the sea,’ as cle Ruyter’s enemies or other scoffers chose to call her, but a spruce and prosperous people, industrious and thriving. Gone the haggard faces, vanished the poverty and dirt, the tawdry remnants of French grandeur; here was a power to be reckoned with, a flourishing community second to none abroad and rivalling Britannia on the ocean wave. The bustle round the harbours, great ship- yards, prosperous villages and villagers, livened the ‘mono- tony of boundless meadow flats,’ the ‘perfect quiet’ of the country-side with its ‘solitary farms and fisher-dwellings.’ For a study of conditions we might profitably turn to Amsterdam as typical. This city, with its harbour — like a stone flung into water — irradiating circle upon circle of canals, bordered by fine patrician buildings, as if by such a form to impress the curious guest or ignorant idler with its centrality and prime importance, was a very hive of industry and excited speculation. East India Company, Admiralty and ’Change, Town Hall, fine shops (some finer than in Paris) , and oriental wares (the Japanese dressing-gowns in all shades of light silk padded with wool, yet easily rolled for packing, attracted Sophie) were branches of a great commercial unity, the several spokes of an industrial wheel with docks and wharves for hub. Here Sophie watched the smiths and carpenters and rope-spinners; the whalers back from Green- land with seventy tons of blubber reckoned at 10,000 guilders’ clear profit. Such scenes and sums stirred the imagination, though the cost of living was relatively high. From Amster- dam again. Brook and Sardam were attainable. These villages were famous for Dutch spotlessness and prosperity, then proverbial. In Sardam, with its innumerable wind- mills, wood and marble saw-mills, paper, flour, and fulling- mills, Sophie found a kermis in full swing. Admirable opportunity to see the gala. She thought the costumes striking, especially the ‘caps of finest lace or linen with golden buckles in the nape and great gold or even diamond pins over the temples,’ as we know them still.

30 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

Other Dutch towns might be regarded as Amsterdam in miniature-industrious, well-to-do, and spruce, their business mostly centred round the harbour. Haarlem, already famous for its bulbs; Leiden, proud of its university-a fine town, Sophie says: in memory of her father she paid homage at Boerhaven’s grave. The Hague, elegant and residential; Delft, with its delightful ware, yet uninhabitable,^ ‘without a library and friends.’ At Scheveningen, a tiny fishing- village, already much sought by tourists, though unspoiled as yet by casino or hotel, the great North Sea rolled in ‘omnipotent and infinite.’ Sophie rose early here to see the catch, rating the old fishwives for their avarice as they hastened to The Hague with baskets full of fish. Lastly, at Rotteidam, nowadays a sea of masts, and doubtless not very^ different then, the kermis was again in progress, with its ‘countless booths, streets packed with people, dancing dogs and monkeys, trick-riders,’ and other strolling fry. The French players from The Hague had come in for the fair, and e\ eiy evening there was ‘Vauxhall after the English original.’

Nor must we forget the field of Dutch art. But Sophie, ignorant of ‘significant form,’ judged with eighteenth-century vision, mingled with independent standards of her own. ‘The Night Watch’ was particularly praised, she said, for its truth to Nature in the torch-light, while Potter’s ‘Bull’ appealed to her, ‘a lover of the country . . . fields and cows’ as a true nature reproduction. Thus we will let these remarks suffice, for her mention of works by Don, Mieris, Wouwerman, and many more besides will teach us little about ait. Sophie’s ‘genius’ clearly cared more for the sister muses, history and literature; or, better perhaps, preferred theories of Greek perfection in the past to facts about Dutch practice present before her there.

‘And so once more we turn the page:

The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,

The willow- tufted bank, the gliding sail,’

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give place to a new scene. Emerald lawns now, wooded parks and verdant country-side are set to charm the eye. ‘I'he heavens be praised,’ after forty-eight hours at sea — Harwich, land, England at last!

(iii) The London Scene

Out of the ashes of 1666, ‘this great and monstrous thing called London,’ phoenix-like, rose up anew. For better or for worse? A question too far-reaching to be answered lightly. How many moderns can be heard echoing Defoe, who thought it ‘the disaster of London, as to the beauty of its hgure,’ that it was ‘thus stretched out in buildings just at the pleasure of every builder or undertaker’? Yes, aesthetically, the century had missed an opportunity; it might have handed on a finely planned metropolis. Yet the rebirth was not wholly bad, for streets were ‘widened’ and ‘prodigious files’ of excellent architecture erected; and as the century wore on, fine paving-stones were laid and illumination such as to be the envy of every foreigner. So if eighteenth-century men and women sometimes took fright at the rapacious monster which devoured their green fields and woods, we of the twentieth century know that some of London’s proudest workmanship belonged to them. Foreigners, settled here for any length of time, could not fail to notice this expansion, but thought it an improvement, for ‘fine streets and squares now stood on what but recently had been uncultivated ground, brick-kilns and dunghills,’ so that ‘within the last twenty years the environs were quite unrecognisable’ (1764-84). Forty-three thousand houses had sprung up in little more than a decade (1762-79), quotes Archenholz, and if we may poach on the very fringe of nineteenth-century preserve (1801-2), we find one German leaving Southampton Row, with its foundations barely laid, to return in a week’s time and find the row completed and unrecognisable. Recent studies of London in the century furnish some reasons for this

32 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

wholesale development. Citizens, weary of the rumble of city traffic, growing so vast, were migrating westwards to the outskirts; the country, in order to be near the central market for business transactions, and then ‘to rub a little of the rust off,’ was moving townwards. Industrial concentration has brought a ‘deserted village’ in its train, which explains an over-brimming city. From such a condition of affairs in London there springs a new issue peculiar to the age. ‘East is East and West is West’ refers to the ‘emulation’ between court and city, townsman and rabble. West-ender thought the city man a ‘boor.’ The city rose at six and finished at five (except the shops, which were open until ten p.m.); the West or ‘other’ end, rose at eleven and finished next day ! W e remember young Evelina’s horror at being discovered by my lord, her admirer, in so despised and lowly an area as Holborn. Here the foreign view of London may prove misleading, for the place is ‘judged by the company kept,’ and he who resides at ‘the St. James’ End’ will necessarily entertain a different idea from a ‘lodger in the city.’ Unfor- tunately, records often wear a courtly guise, for travel was a luxury as yet, and writing diaries the business of an educated few who knew the ropes to some extent, while foreign aristocrats, less inclined to a democratic outlook than our own, expressed the view that ‘the sensible part of mankind is little concerned to know the manners, mode of thinking and living of common people.’ One attitude saw the people as reflec- tions of the great, sharing their virtues and their vices on a lower plane, yet in more emphatic form, their ambitions, sports, and pastimes on a smaller scale. This was one way of skirting difficulties, which undoubtedly contained more than an element of truth, but it is hardly a satisfactory study of lower-class conditions, and bodes ill for intimate knowledge of Gin Lane. Nor can we blame the foreigner altogether, for Gin Lane did not receive its guests with open arms, greeting all and sundry as ‘French dogs,’ so that he who valued his life, or at any rate his dignity, steered clear of possible calamity.

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However, in the course of our descriptions an occasional glimmer of light creeps through the chinks, a crumb of in- formation in the bountiful bill of fare — too often a mere digest of some previous source— concerning the face of London.

The face of London: how gain an adequate impression of such a visage? how take a ‘measure of the mighty body?’ Maps, meaningless labyrinths of streets and places, will but confuse unless we find our bearings. To do this, let us plunge into the heart of London and climb St. Paul’s (completed 1710), like some of our German friends. We shall require a very miracle of visibility in this city of eternal mists, but granted that, no common sight awaits us from the summit. Below there ‘fair Thames casts his course into a crescent,’ winding east and west across the city and beyond. Across old London Bridge in Southwark, the Gothic spire of St. Saviour’s might just catch our eye, with St. George’s Fields stretching towards Lambeth. We gaze awe-stricken from ‘the Tower at one end to Westminster at the other’ — no insignificant boundaries to a city these— symbol of strife and cruel blood- shed in the east, of mastery and achievement in the west, two main factors of a nation’s history. Westwards, Tot Hill Fields lie on our side, the Kent and Surrey hills across the river to the south. From the enormous mass of huddled brick beneath, the graceful steeple of St. Bride’s or some other of Wren’s triumphs might be discerned: little else. Two hours this prospect fascinated Moritz; we will not stay so long, but make across to London Bridge. Here the sprites of commerce crowd the fancy as the mysteries of those docks and wharves, those bales and crates, that turmoil of hands, of mingled black and white and half-caste races, are disclosed. We turn and watch the river traffic — for

‘ . . . such a road for ships Scarce all the world commands As is the goodly Thames Near where Brute’s city stands’— c

34 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

steering cautiously beneath the bridge west towards some light amusement, or east to Greenwich and the training- school, to Deptford and its mighty shipyards, and out to foreign lands.

Or if we have more time at our disposal we might wander down the century a little to Blackfriars Bridge (first stone laid 1760), or up the river again, and take our stand upon the parapet of Westminster Bridge (begun in 1 738) . What sights to charm the eye. That undulating country inviting us on one side, the backs of the old Savoy or Somerset Houses, and quiet Temple Gardens, or later (after 1769) the famous Adelphi Terrace on the other. What a diversity of scenes— the east so turbulent, the gateway through which prosperity and prestige flow into the luxury-loving, peaceful west.

So far we have not ranged farther than the town. One last attractive view awaits us from without the gates. A stroll to Hampstead, a ‘village’ once, now a ‘city’ almost linked with London by the Hampstead road, would be anathema in that century of horses, chairs, hackneys, and private carriages, so we will hire a vehicle (price little over is. 6d.) and hie us hence, or more realistically conveyed, ‘tug up ’one hill and ‘straddle down’ the next. From a situation ‘so near heaven’ we are able to take stock of the earth and lowest depths around us! We stand on a hill with hills about us in the distance— the heights of Kent and Surrey veiled in their own characteristic bluish haze, and Bucks invisible behind us— below us in the vale country residences, and farther on the minsters of east and west with meadows and villages on either hand — Islington, Llackney, Bromley to north-east; Padding- ton, Kensington, Hammersmith to south-west, and the turrets of Windsor just topping the wooded slopes beyond.

Thus equipped in the general topography of London, we will return, leaving the ‘gallant’ but none too ‘modest’ company in the popular resorts of Hampstead to their pleasures.

A stand at Leadcnhall Street, the Strand, or any posting-

INTRODUCTION 35

inn this or the other side of Thames, would pass the time of day and tell us much about eighteenth-century travellers. Bettei still, however, go and meet the packet where a motley gathering awaits onlookers. Here, jostled by porters and customs officers, are specimens of every tourist type — pedant, merchant, courtier, idle rich — a cosmopolitan troop of globe- trotters seeking strange lands or home from foreign parts. In such a group stood Sophie v. La Roche on 4th September of 1786, gleeful at her safe landing after forty-eight trying hours at sea, and revelling in the Hogarthian figures of the English working-class. There being nothing to linger for at Harwich, travellers made the seventy-four miles to the ‘capital of Europe’ as speedily as possible. By Sophie’s time communication had become a science; in 1723 it was an art, and consequently slower. Travellers at this early date evidently changed at Colchester and posted on from there next day. Long before Sophie’s visit, however, this change is made superfluous, and a traveller taking this route praises the ‘comfort and rapid travelling’ in England. That he was a private landau passenger (for which he paid five guineas) must be considered, though his remark applies to public conveyance just as well. Sophie, too, journeyed by priv'ate carriage, but complains of her privacy, envying the common lot in mail or stage-coach. Had she experienced a ride on top or been ‘shaken and bruised’ in the basket, ‘unforgettable’ in Moritz’s estimation, she might have been more grateful. A post-chaise, about the same price as a landau reckoned by the mileage, held two persons only. In one case a wooden bench was put in to accommodate four, but the consequent squeeze caused one to alight and hire a horse. For royal personages and others of high estate the way was smoothed as always, for coaches in plenty, sent to meet them, begged their patronage; but the King of Denmark, to maintain his incognito, spurned all offers in favour of a chaise.

The next consideration was to find a lodging. Volkmann no doubt with some authority, as late as 1781, advises private

36

SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

rooms as cheaper than boarding-house or inn. Most Germans, with or without his counsel, evidently agreed. Addresses range from St. James’ Palace, Curzon Street, Mayfair, to Monuments’ Yard or St. Catherine’s near the Thames, an ‘execrable hole!’ Charing Cross and the neighbouring streets, a cross in both senses between ‘court and city,’ v^as the popular resort, partly owing to its centrality. Here Sophie put up temporarily at the German Hotel in Suffolk Street— we wonder idly whether it was connected with ‘Mistress Benoit from the Pfalz,’ who kept lodgings at the upper end in 1710— before going to rooms in Portland Street. That accommodation was dear goes without saying, for everything was dear in London, and travellers were warned to go there with full purse. But there is only one complaint of lodgings in 1761, before the coronation, when, owing to the crush, one room and dressing-room combined and servant’s room in

Little Ryder Street cost 35s. a week.

Once settled in there is much to be done. Those housed in the palace were obviously catered for; people with friends in London, as Sophie had, were not taxed with problems of how best to manage their stay, specialists were busy seeing their specialities; the rest relied on guides, good sense, and chance acquaintance, of which the German eating-houses had a store. Before 1 780 most travellers, French and German, kept to London and near environs, excepting always flying visits to the Cam and Isis. The King of Denmark in 1768 drove up to York and took a look at our manufacturing towns —Leeds, Manchester, and others— but this was a royal exception. By the last decade, however, others followed suit, making ‘circuits’ in the ‘island of Great Britain,’ as the English had been doing. But perambulation of London was common to all our clients, rich or poor, blue blood or other- wise, with a more or less degree of perseverance. Their ob- servations may not have probed far deeper than the surface, nor do we expect a penetrating study from the casual foreigner . His mission is to see familiar sights with unfamiliar and

INTRODUCTION

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objective vision, and render them strange and interesting to us. If he succeeds he will have fulfilled this mission; that is all we seek from him.

One or two final points on generalities. Meals — not unimportant in the daily round — have so far proved ‘more pleasing to the eye than to the palate.’ Vegetables cooked in water lose all character, fish is good, the meat roasted to a nicety, some admit, does not appeal to more sensitive natures, apt to turn pale at the mere sight of John Bull’s red ‘rosbif.’ Inns excellent in all respects — the waiting unobtrusive and polite, the stairs and passages carpeted (not in the manner of Erasmus’ time), the beds made differently from continental ones, but always clean and very comfortable, the linen aired, all in fact irreproachable except to tramping parsons like poor Moritz. Travel too is orderly and efficient — little delay en route. So much so that one Dutchman, coming down from Yarmouth, disliked the speed, which left no time for gossip with the coachman, or a dram of local ‘courage’ by the way, and yelled continually in his mother tongue, ‘I must get out,’ but ineffectively. The coaches, too, were in excellent condi- tion, befitting rather a foreign princeling’s coach-house than public hire. With these remarks so good, and so to bed.

Next morning, accustomed to a foreign routine, our German guests sometimes woke up betimes. Sophie, as we shall see, rose early and was ready dressed by seven- thirty, ‘before the maids were even blinking.’ Not a mouse stirring then, she betook her to the window and looked out. What she saw was something reminiscent of those English prints she loved, rather than realities below. First a few workmen passed the house, then the cry of a tiny ’prentice chimney- sweep trudging by his master, broke the stillness— a picture pretty enough, but appealing to humanity to plead its case— the clatter of milk-pans filled the air, and maids wearing black taffeta caps and ribbons (like the engravings), chintz or linen frocks, and white aprons came running up from Georgian basements to fetch the milk. Gradually hackneys start to ply.

38 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

and a drowsy west-end wakens from its slumbeis. No possibility of breaking fast till ten a.m., however. Meals^are curiously arranged, but on reflection quite conveniently, the workmen lunch at one, merchants and middle classes at three, and the genteel at four or after.’ Ten till four— a clear six hours for those not too polite, to work. For the polite, however, ‘rising late, attiring in frock coat, taking a turn with cane, back again, change of apparel, to coffee or chocolate house, to court for levee, dinner, the women retire, wine, promenade, visits, the show, the assembly, and supper at midnight,’ are the several items of a full business day. From our window we might stay and watch the ‘men of six a-clock give way to those of nine, they of nine to the generation of twelve, when they of twelve disappear and make room for the fashionable world, who have made two a’clock the noon of the day. But we poor, tired itinerants must set out, for from our post but little can be seen.

Leaving Suffolk Street with Sophie then (we will keep to 1786, for by this date most of the innovations had been made : Tyers’ Vauxhall, Ranelagh, the Pantheon, opened 1732, ’42, and ’72, Sadler’s Wells and other gardens made from 1740 on, new squares round Mayfair added by 175^5 bridges begun in 1738 and ’60, old London Bridge improved in 1754, while much of the London scene stood long ago and scorned its parvenu additions of the seventeenth and eigh- teenth centuries), we cross over to the Mall and along to St. James’ Park for a fashionable few hours. In this pleasant counterfeit of Nature, Beau Tibbs and his colleagues take the air (a favourite English pastime), the ‘ladies of St. James’,’ ride or stroll (silently as is their wont), cows graze, are milked to order for a glass, fallow deer crop the grass or laze. The queen’s residence to our right, Buckingham House, is an inviting, homely little palace challenging its frowsy neigh- l)our, St. James’ (now behind us), to rebuild Whitehall after Inigo Jones’ elegant design, more worthy of the glory of an English monarch. Surprising to find Dr. Graham and his

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Temple ol Hymen and of Health in such a neighbourhood (in ’75 opposite the palace, in ’81 once more in Pall Mall), or Katterfelto, ‘with his hair on end,’ over there in Pieeaclilly (spasmodically from 1782). But the English, original and luxurious, are a credulous crowd, and easily put upon by quacks. What better rendezvous than Graham’s Temple for the Gorinnas who throng the London streets, theatres, and drawing-rooms even, the only sign of their profession in the higher ranks being a certain chic, good looks, and sometimes wit, in which they surpassed the chaster members of their sex. The latter, lovely too, with large blue ‘languid’ eyes and milk and roses (‘natural!’), captured almost every foreign traveller; one or two more critically disposed, occasionally withstood complete surrender. For with all their beauty these fair Saxons lacked that vivacity and general smartness of their Latin neighbours. The Englishwoman was stiff and often overdressed, seemed vain and cared for little but amusements, was silent, even amongst her sex, so that ‘twenty women together did not speak a word.’ But they kept excellent house, where numerous maids, ravishing creatures, dressed in silk and well-spoken, difficult to distinguish from their mistresses, had nothing else to do but dust the furniture. (We need hardly add that reference is to the upper ten.) They were good wives too, and generous towards their men- folk, accepting ‘Harry’s List of Covent Garden Ladies’ with apparent resignation, as they accepted drink and other contemporary evils.

During these and similar reflections we have been rambling round the streets and squares in the vicinity. The latter are a delightful feature of modern planning and quite unique. Their copious trees and well-kept lawns add shade and greenery to an already verdant parkland in the west. The mansions railed off all around them, smoke-begrimed already, and unostentatious, are a little disappointing beside the hotels and palaces of foreign aristocracy. Once past those unassuming portals though, it is a different story altogether.

40 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

for here relics of handsome Jacobean furniture, shining mahogany, lordly Chippendale, graceful Adam, or light Hepplewhite or Sheraton, bespeak patrician ease, unbounded wealth; here Dutch masters, Italian ‘plunder’ or works by the new and pleasing English school adorn the walls; here delicate porcelain, gleaming silver, sparkling crystal, invite one to partake of giant meals. There is little of the conti- nental gilt, but everything displays a taste, comfort, and abundance. The Englishman’s home is quite obviously his

C3*stlc

To the south-west, past Hyde Park, famous for its duels and troop reviews, and later fashion parades, superseding the popular St. James’, lies Kensington village; but we will turn down Tyburn Road to Oxford Street and see the shops. One German resident, on and off from ’69 to ’79, tells us that this street alone contained as many lamps as the whole of Paris, so that the scene, with shops open till ten p.m. and brightly lit, deceived the Prince of Monaco into believing all this brilliance in his honour. Another German visitor, an Anglophobe, who wished to save his people from the wreck of British finance and corruption, decried this lighting as gross extravagance. Most were impressed, however, and grateful after the murkmess of foreign towns m this matter. The shops did us justice too: watchmakers, silversmiths, china-shops, con- fectioners without equal, and the goods so elegantly displayed behind those fine glass windows. We imagine the effect not unlike Old Bond Street of a few years back. England had plenty with which to fill her windows, for her Wedgwoods, Seddons, Hatchetts, her Bartolozzis, Rowlandsons, and Boydells, her matchless instrument-makers were renowned, her cutlery, clocks and cloth, engravings, furniture and coach-making, and sundry other manufactures famed. And, though she may have been praised unduly for her iron- mongery and small steel goods, and could not compete with France in the art of fashioning bagatelles, as one Muralt (1725) cavils, these were mere trifles as compared to her

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growing eminence in the field of manufacture. What else should England, nation of shopkeepers, boast if not first-rate shops. The Pantheon, too (erected 1771), decorating Oxford Street at a cost of £90,000, according to our Germans, is ‘worthy of notice.’ Here high life, gathered for concerts, masquerades, balls and ridottos, might be studied at leisure from the gallery — not altogether to its advantage.

Our next concern — how to pass the evening? London by Sophie’s day teemed with amusements and gaieties. The programme was lavish, the choice complicated by such profusion. Much will depend on the season: in winter the gardens will be closed (Vauxhall open daily from spring to late summer, Ranelagh three times weekly in the summer) ; in summer from June till September Drury Lane and Covent Garden shut, leaving the Little Theatre or Italian Opera, Elaymarket (the latter neither popular nor very good), as alternatives. Then again the climate was variable, never extreme, but, like the inhabitants, whimsical, so that it might be warm in the winter and cold enough for fires in June. (Those dreadful fires which the English call ‘company,’ ‘hugging’ them till the front of their body is ‘roasted,’ while the back remains ‘frozen.’ Perhaps the habit of staring into them accounts for the numerous bespectacled men!) We might spend our first night at the play then. We are too late for Garrick, whose great days at Drury Lane are past, but Sarah Siddons is there to stir us still, or Mrs. Abington to provoke our admiration. But failing these, we must content ourselves with lesser lights ; one of F oote’s or Cibber’s plays may be running at the Little, featuring Palmer— and, if not, there is always the audience to amuse one. Unlike to-day, public and players were equally interesting. The English playhouses were ‘famous’ for their ‘noise and uproar,’ and the ‘upper gallery’ did not fail foreign spectators in providing some source of amusement, if it was only throwing orange skins into the pit. Such behaviour, however, did not imply any social derision of an actor’s rank and status. Once an

42 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

acknowledged star in his profession, he was received and recognised by the great as in no other land. Where else in Europe did a lord stoop to become an actor’s pall-bearer? Would that Germany would treat her actors and literary men with similar respect. The English school, however, did not always go down with foreigners, some finding it ‘extrava- gant,’ and the voices seeming like ‘frightful bowlings.’ And after 1776, with Sheridan’s supremacy or Kemble’s regency at Drury Lane, the ‘former glory’ waned, Sheridan, despite his clever plays, having hastened the collapse by his indo- lence; while by 1802 Mrs. Jordan, once the popular Miss Tom Boy, was become too fat and vulgar, thought one German. Departed were the great theatre days, when stage controversy was rife as to the relative merits of France and England, Garrick’s heyday, when such as Lichtenberg grew warm in praise of English acting, was no more.

The itinerary next day might include Westminster, a coffee-house for lunch, and a ramble round the city. The Abbey, with its history in monument, the Parliament, seat of part of that clever anomaly, the British Constitution, shared prominence in the traveller’s record with St. Paul’s and the Tower, Greenwich and Bedlam! In the Abbey — ‘awful and melancholy’— the German propensity for tomb- stones and epitaphs was sated. They collected these with avidity, and most took objection to Gay’s frivolous lines. For the beauties of Gothic form, that ‘frozen music’ of archi- tecture, eighteenth-century tourists had little appreciation. They were more concerned with entering by the west door for the Poets’ Corner, with comments on contemporary sculpture as represented by Rysbrack, ‘little Roubiliac,’ and others in the monuments, with the spirit of Addison’s medita- tions on things transitory, or inquisitive as to whether national gratitude or proud relatives’ full purses were responsible for so much recognition of the national figure- heads and minor personalities. The Parliament Houses, on the other hand, were material for reflection on things, not

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permanent perhaps, but less perishable: the machinery of government, the house of peers, of commons, the monarchy. The bureau du spic, a hint of eloquence, of contemporary Ciceros, of rough debates and rowdy scenes; Black Rod, the Woolsack, quaint old survivals, very impressive though. Visions of great speeches or electioneering thrills were con- jured up, ‘excited scenes’ at the hustings during campaigns.

After such a morning, lunch at some coffee-house, possibly near Charing Cross, not far from King Street, and on the route for further sightseeing, might be welcome. Especially since the English coffee-house habitues maintain a ‘very decorous stiffness,’ we shall not be disturbed. Indeed, the silence is quite impressive; have we perchance strayed into a Quakers’ meeting? Evidently not; there is some little whispered conversation, and for the rest John Bull is studying the daily paper, of which there is ample choice. If anyone should mention politics, tongues will soon be loosened and the debating spirit, reared at evening ‘spouting clubs,’ will take the floor. These houses are the resorts of stock-jobbers and business men, wags and wits and every man, in fact. But for them, Evelina might never have seen the light, while even thieves and beggars had their clubs in the St. Giles’ area, whither the graceful notice — since thought to be mere evidence of ironic eighteenth-century humour — ‘Here you may get drunk for id., dead drunk for 2d.,’ beckoned their clientele to partake from tables where knives and forks were chained. The eating-house and drinking-booth were clubs delightful for their sociability, indispensable for business, but breeding and harbouring many a vice and drunken brawl.

Leaving Charing Cross we saunter down the Strand past the ‘new, tasteful’ Adelphi buildings on the river side, past Somerset House, now lately rebuilt and used for offices, the Royal Society and Academy, to Temple Bar, where we beg the Mayor and Aldermen for their traditional sign of admittance. St. Paul’s, ‘the beauty of all Protestant churches in the world,’ comparable only to St. Peter’s for magnificence

44 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

and size, monarch of the city, receives us next. Railed in and cramped between old mediseval streets and houses, against the architect’s every scheme, which was ‘unhappily baulked, the interior is disappointing and presents an ‘uncommon vacancy.’ The Whispering Gallery — in which Sophie had an unprecedented experience — and the view retrieved its reputation. On again to Pluto’s Palace, the Bank, or to the ’Change, where the statues of Gresham and Sir John Bernard awaited company in neighbouring niches, though from twelve to three o’clock the place was full enough of agitated living beings; East India House, where Sophie came upon a sale of tea, the Guildhall, cramped and unimpressive, chiefly remarkable in foreign eyes for a statue of Mayor Beckford, for those ‘horrible-looking giants used to frighten perverse children,’ Gog and Magog, than for its records or association with the London trades and guilds, yet very curious as a symbol of the Lord Mayor’s estate with all his city retainers. Here in 1761, after a Lord Mayor’s show, were served ‘at the Foreign Ministers’ table and at another, two large pieces of roast beef weighing 227 and 230 lbs.’ Lastly, from here to that ‘very great and most strong Palatine Tower’ guarded by curious ‘lobster-coloured’ yeomen. The Tower formed a kind of general peep-show for the foreigner, with its zoo— the blood of wild beasts, we remember, was said to have ‘tempered the mortar’!— its mint, its armoury, crown-jewels exhibited behind bars in a dimly lit apartment by a witch-like hag, and its fund of murderous legend. Home again via the docks and customs, no doubt like Billingsgate, ‘forums of elo- quence,’ where Sophie succumbed to the oyster hawkers and enjoyed the first taste of this epicure delight. London’s markets, ‘monsters for magnitude’ and ‘very many,’ ‘flesh,’ fish, vegetable, corn markets, not omitting rag fair, London’s churches ‘rather convenient than fine, not adorned with pomp and pageantry as in Popish countries,’ our Germans took for granted on the whole, so crammed their programmes were with occupation and amusement. The Mansion House,

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a ‘clumsy building,’ the city king’s abode (begun 17395 completed 1753!), was apt to be forgotten amongst the host of more impressive sights. What, on the other hand, almost every German strove to include was a trip to Windsor and environs. The Hanoverian passion for this resort spread rapidly amongst their kinsmen, whose praises of the hallowed spot develop into lyric song. St. George’s Chapel, with its ancient heraldic emblems in the choir, the Hall of Beauties, a terrace superb (dimension 1870 feet, inserted carefully by all), the Order of the Bath, and the frescoes of its history; Eton, now a school for aristocrats, a foundation for poor scholars then, so very English, close by, and Windsor Forest, immortalised by Pope, stirred the Anglophile imagination and realised his dreams of this fair isle. Richmond too, further ground for rhapsody, ‘sweet Richmond,’ with its ‘fairy hills and flowery dells, above all with that queen of rivers, thy own majestic Thames.’ Here was ‘Elysium, Richmond,’ or seen in a different light, here was ‘a real Frascati.’ Such ‘green hills,’ such rural beauties the Germans had anticipated from their reading of English poetry and novel. Here Sophie, whose affections for a Swabian meadow in her early child- hood bred a subsequent love of English nature scenes in literature and engraving, sought and found the park-like qualities she cherished. Whatever else had failed, this trip at least did not disappoint admirers.

But London, with its crowded streets and haunts, recalls us from our rural panegyric. It still lays claim to some attention from us for its numerous charities, museums, and institutes. Bedlam (founded in the sixteenth century), sinee palatially reconstructed, a giant lunatic asylum in Moorfields, was reverently regarded by the Germans almost as a shrine of pilgrimage; to Greenwich and Chelsea, immense, majestic piles of eighteenth-century origin, fit to house kings, they also regularly repaired; the Foundling Hospital (1739) also had its share of visitors. Westminster, Guy’s, the London Hospital, infirmaries, springing up like

46 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

mushrooms to support more hoary institutions, such as Bart’s or Thomas’, in this humanitarian age. Then again, the institutes and societies for the promotion of knowledge, medical and agricultural groups, and the Royal Academy ( 1 769) . No doubt many of these good works were overstaffed or money was wasted on administration, or other abuses might be found as Wendeborn, our realist, indicates, yet they were an advance from German duchesses carrying broth into poor hovels and visiting the bedside— a somewhat precarious subsidy. Further, the museums: catalogues and collections have intimidated us and we have weakly beaten a retreat. But since the time is come (having first carefully written for our pass), let us be bold and make for Montague House in Great Russell Street, now the British Museum (purchased for ‘£10,000 in 1752’). Here one of two measures must be ruthlessly adopted. Either we explore this vast assembly of acquisition and bequeathments thoroughly, devoting a week or more to sections on natural history, on coins, collections of books, manuscripts and charters, Egyptian curios, or classical antiquities, with Paulet for guide (1761), there being nothing better, or we merely cross the threshold and take a peep, leaving the rest to assiduous or leisured visitors. One refreshing feature, hardly scholarly, was the sign ‘no gratuities,’ for German visitors were weary of the fees and found the vails expected after meals at friends’ private houses, ruinous. ‘Stunned, confused, and over- powered,’ after one effort at the Museum, we will try our luck at Ashton Lever’s, whose private collection of natural history specimens, the Holophusican (!) open to the public was unanimously acclaimed as better even than the British Museum’s. Natural history lovers like Sophie, eager disciple of St. Pierre, would revel in this mass of minerals, fossils, shells, animal, plant and vegetable kingdom; we will glance at her catalogue (copied carefully from Wendeborn, who copied carefully from Entick, we imagine!) and pass on to the library and pictures in Buckingham House, the cartoons

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and fine paintings at Hampton Court, Agar’s private gallery in Park Lane, Townley’s antiquities, or the Royal Academy exhibition. Or if in search of lighter pleasures, we might look in at Cox’s Museum or Merlin von Liittich, inventor of mechanical curios and adaptable furniture at Hanover Square.

Sophie’s description of his ‘stunt’ pieces makes amusing reading. The English seem to delight in such grotesque, sometimes macabre, amusements as cock-fighting, bear- baiting, wrestling, or boxing bouts, for which high stakes were laid. In fact, any kind of match from rowing to sack racing, or the great horse races at Newmarket or Epsom formed an excuse for betting, and drew spectators from rich and poor alike.

Last of all, some sunny days in the environs to blow away the dust of ancient monuments. ‘Needless excursions’ into the country should be avoided, but in this period, when surrounding villages, embryos of future suburbs, are joining up with London, that ‘over-massive head upon the dwarf- like body of an elf,’ a flying visit (the metaphor may be permitted in those days of balloons and ‘Flying Machines’) is imperative. Had we been wise or desired to save unnecessary journeyings to and fro, some of the pro- gramme might have been accomplished on our return from Windsor, starting from Hampton Court and following the river. Reminiscent of those lovely mediceval colleges at Oxford, or so one early German visitor describes it, Wolsey’s luxurious Tudor mansion lay there almost sunk into oblivion since the modern craze for Windsor. An occasional visitor might disturb the peace and leave again with pleasant memories of the park and gardens, the maze, or pictures. But for any normal eighteenth-century rambler the venerable Tudor courts and crenellated towers will sink into insigni- ficance by the William and Mary wings, so very much more elegant in their opinion. Twickenham, their next stage, will prove more popular, where the villa and immortal grotto housed a poet praised by Voltaire as ‘most elegant, most

48 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

correct and most harmonious,’ as capable of ‘transforming the shrill whistle of the English trumpet into the soft tones of a flute’— a French horn, we presume! To Kew, with yet another unpretentious royal manor, the queen’s summer house, and lovely gardens spoiled somewhat by a curious Chinese pagoda, but some of the ‘wealthiest for foreign plants,’ a German speeialist tells us (1777). On past Gunnersbury Palace, where the Danish king was entertained in ’68, to Chiswick, one of Rousseau’s temporary abodes with dog and mistress; Hammersmith, and Kensington, mere villages like the former, but Kensington distinguished for its royal palace, built by Mary, and her favourite residence, also for its gardens, now out of date but full of London strollers; then through Paddington village towards Harrow, which, accord- ing to Defoe, Charles ii claimed could provide theologians with at least one prominent example of the ‘visible church of Christ.’ We will not venture further, but turn our horses’ heads towards Hampstead, crowded with Londoners taking the air, the waters, or sitting at ‘George’s’. Here one might dance or talk and, before the ’forties, when Vauxhall, Rane- lagh, and other gardens usurped its privileges, it was no doubt the townsmen’s most popular resort.

During our circuit we shall have admired the numerous country seats to right and left. In these English hospitality should be sought, not in the city. Here the true spirit of English culture was displayed, which fact is sometimes stressed in foreign character sketches, to undeceive the prevalent view amongst them that the English were un- friendly and reserved. Some foreigners undertook a trip to Stowe or Blenheim, in which case they never failed to repeat the undying tribute to Vanbrugh: ‘Lie heavy on him, earth!’ We, however, must content ourselves with specimens less distant: Sion House or Osterley Park, for instance, both monuments of Adam’s skill; or if we are fortunate as Sophie, an invitation to some country place, as Hastings’ Beaumont Lodge, would lend more intimacy to such impressions. Our

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attention would particularly be drawn towards the gardens, for English landscape gardening, like English literature, was coming into vogue and ousting French. The underlying theory of the system seems to have been adherence to natural lines and beauties, yet with discreet and cunning use of art to polish the crudities of nature — ^just that difference between the subtly powdered, perfumed urbane lady and her rough, but pretty, rustic cousin. ‘Winding gravel paths’ — not straight and artificial avenues like the French — ‘grass walks,’ and a rivulet or waterfall, for ‘the Englishman thought nothing of a garden without water,’ were the main features of a style of which William Kent became the great exponent.

And now our time is drawing to a close, leaving us with two familiar friends as yet unseen. Vauxhall and Ranelagh, playgrounds of London, where rich and poor, kings and beggars, wits and respectable bourgeoisie rubbed shoulders regardless. Notwithstanding, there were differences in the degree of rubbing, while the feeble ‘imitations,’ such as Marybone, Bagnigge Wells and others, were definitely scorned as for ‘apprentices, journeymen, and clerks to enter- tain their ladies.’ But returning to the parent tree, it is quite clear that Ranelagh was thought more decorous than Vauxhall. Was it not ‘quite a shocking thing,’ for instance, ‘to see ladies come to so genteel a place as Ranelagh with hats on’ ? [which reminds us that Madame Duval in Rome forgot to be a Roman, for no breach of etiquette was quite so criminal in England as for a lady not to wear a hat outdoors. Even the lower-class women did, some of our Germans noted]. But we have deviated.

There is no need of introduction to these twin famous gardens, the haunt of every eighteenth-century student. Who does not know Vauxhall where ‘grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother,’ the trees, the numerous lights and company, the scurry to the cascade— ‘why we must run or we shall lose it’— the scenes of ribaldry in these ‘dark walks’ and ‘long alleys’ ? Foreign views show concerted admiration of this

D

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wonder, but for one discordant note— a complaint that food was ‘exorbitant’ and tablecloths ‘dirty.’ Entrance, however, was cheap— a shilling only— and the place always open, so that on rainy days the orchestra withdrew indoors. The ‘Gothic’ obelisk, Roubiliac’s statue of Handel, those of Milton and of Thomson, Dayman’s paintings as background to the supper-boxes, were all matters for applause, but more than all these, the walks lit by ‘large, globular lamps’ and ‘small glass ones,’ the whistle which blew at nine when, to prevent ‘catching cold,’ there arose from out of the earth a vast number of rollers’ elegantly painted, unfolding as they rose ‘over all the boxes on three sides,’ pro viding^shelter from nocturnal breezes, and the hallucination of the tin cascade caused positive furore. While Ranelagh, with superior entrance fee of 2S. 6d. and ‘company much better and more select,’ was thought a gay, enthralling scene, an elegant piece of architecture’ ; Matthew Bramble strongly disagreed, however, finding little fun in the pastimes of a company ‘following one another’s tails in an eternal circle like so many blind asses in an olive mill,’ or ‘drinking hot water under the denomination of tea till 9 or 100 clock at night to keep them awake for the rest of the evening. As for the orchestia, he continues, ‘especially the vocal music, it is well for the performers that they cannot be heard distinctly. But we recognise the misanthropic plaint of our whimsical dyspeptic, and have only to read on to find the livelier verdict of his young charges. That ‘only tea and coffee were served in the rotunda’ seems to have been an attempt at abstinence in this age of plenteous liquor. This rotunda was a ‘large circular hall, 150 feet in diameter, round which were 48 recesses, above these boxes and a fire in the centre,’ where the orchestra once stood. But who are we to speak of Ranelagh or Vauxhall, knowing Dobson’s delicate reconstruction of these pleasances where ‘sauntered the beaux and belles’ and sometimes ‘happier cits’ of eighteenth-century London?

Sadler’s Wells, the Royal Circus, delicious tea-gardens and

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milk -rooms have been neglected; ‘high life below stairs,’ the sinister aspects of eightccnth-centiiry London, overlooked; the ballad of ‘Beau Brocade,’ the highwayman, with his lower- class brethren, the footpads, common thieves, and pickpockets, omitted from our narrative. But like Defoe, no unworthy guide, we ‘in the person of an itinerant,’ have scarce had time to delve much deeper than the surface layers which met the eye, nor have those of us who choose ‘the manner of a letter,’the aims of an historian. That night-watchmen were drunken, bribery and corruption rife, the police non-existent, that poverty, distress, and roguery lurked in the back alleys and an excessive luxury corrupted those it seemed to bless, are horrid scars which marred the face of London, but no concern of such a cursory view. Nor has Sophie, with a vision always blind to unpleasantness, touched on such problems or presented any but the rosiest of spectacles — we should add that she had neither time nor opportunity to do other. We have purposely refrained from dipping into her material, so that it should seem fresh and cast new light on well-worn paths and familiar objects. Having already traversed the route ourselves with her compatriots and colleagues, we may presume to criticise her performance. As usual, she has mixed a pot-pourri of learning— often dull- picturesque description— always lively— with interludes of personal meetings and acquaintanceship. She had an odd assembly of celebrities upon her list: Cagliostro, ‘crack- brained’ Gordon, Warren Hastings, Herschel the star-gazer, Fanny Burney and their Majesties. Fanny’s diary for the period 1785-87 throws much light on Sophie’s view of London and forms an entertaining supplement, for they have many names and things in common. There, too, we shall find a comical and not altogether complimentary story of their meeting. Fanny admits Sophie’s disadvantage, for Mme. La Fite, her friend, herself a bundle of uncontrolled emotion, had pressed the introduction against Fanny’s inclination. ‘Had I met her in any other way, she (Sophie)

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might have pleased me in no common degree, for could I have conceived her character to be unaffected, her manners have a softness that would render her excessively engag- ing. She is now bien passee — no doubt fifty (actually 56) yet has a voice of touching sweetness, eyes of dove-like gentleness, looks supplicating for favour, and an air and demeanour the most tenderly caressing. ... I can readily believe that she has had attractions in her youth nothing short of fascinating. Had I not been present and so deeply engaged in this interview I had certainly been caught by her myself; for in her presence I constantly felt myself forgiving and excusing what in her absence I as constantly found past defence or apology.’ There follow passages of ludicrous emotion, the air was charged with a sentimentality with which Fanny could not cope. The interviews, conducted in French, were all too reminiscent of the Precieuses Ridicules, yet ‘charmante Miss Borni,’ having been kissed mille fois against her will almost yielded to this dynamic personality. We wonder what a Wesley or Warren Hastings thought of her.

Turning to her diary once more we admit that her politics, the mere ‘journalistic gossip of a lady out to please,’ count for little— but she never tried to shine in ‘man’s domain’ of politics or history, as she imagined them, and certainly had no intention of figuring in a thesis on the subject— or again, that her style does not rank with that of Pastor Moritz or her matter with Wendeborn’s objective study of conditions, we confess. Yet with all that she achieved first place for co-ordination of light and heavy matter, narrative and anecdote different from any contemporary diary. And steering her pen quite nimbly between the heavy handbook compilation and the airy letter which skipped from place to place at random, she succeeded in giving as complete a set of facts concerning London sights as any. We should like to make a study of her sources and those of other records at the time; we should like to show our readers how Lhong

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Dinas, Sophie’s origin of London, came from Volkmann, how in his turn he borrowed this from Entick, who in his turn borrowed it from — but if we were to follow out the astonishing coincidences in the spate of eighteenth-century travel literature, it would lead us far from the London scene and farther still from Sophie.

Let us conclude then on the note of appreciation which her handiwork demands. One German writes that he derived ‘much pleasure and information from her diary.’ ‘You must be well acquainted with English history and literature, he says. And so she was. With all her failings, her independent vision, her delightful personality never fail to win us to her side despite occasional irritation, and so her diary for these two qualities alone will find admirers ready to accompany her untiringly from St. James’ round the city, from Cagliostro’s presence to Herschel’s telescope or to an eighteenth-century tea-party in the best of taste at Windsor.

(iv) An Eighteenth-century Silhouette

And so we turn to greet the personality who in her time might boast an international circle of acquaintance: one who had dropped a curtsey at Versailles and Windsor, exchanged a friendly word with such a motley crowd as Goethe, Cagliostro, Buffon, Gessner or Lavater and many, many more; one who inspired much criticism and affection, yet whose fame and writings, the very essence of her genera- tion, faded with it. It is for us to bring to life this stark, black silhouette, to sense the mobility of those rigid features, and trace the subtler lights and shades of a vivacious countenance.

When Sophie v. La Roche was already an old lady— in the August of 1806— her oldest and most trusty friend, Christoph Martin Wieland, wrote her a ‘sentimental’ letter. In this

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our patriarch of three-and-seventy years reviews the spring time of their friendship and reminds his Psyche of an old refrain she used to sing:

‘That Tin made so we all know,

Why regret, if that is so,’

and in all sincerity admits that no rhyme could be more suited to her person. It is true that she hummed this air before she knew much of the buffetings of fortune, but as we follow her career we are inclined to agree with Wieland.

‘Sophie, Frau v. la Roche, nee von Gutermann of Gutarz- hofen, born 6 Xre 1730. Espoused 27 Xre 1750: this silhouette made July 28 i775- Lovely of stature, noble of birth and breeding, outstanding both in science and in virtue, best of spouses and of mothers, most loyal friend, most charitable of human souls, yet with a manly intellect and modesty’ — this the hymenean in her husband’s hand on the back of an old silhouette. The testimony of a gallant age to an unusual woman, yet one which we may credit with some element of truth, for Georg Michael worshipped ^ at the shrine of cold reason, like many of his contemporaries, and was not to be swept uncritically away. Let us expand this history in miniature and see what praise is due.

We can imagine Sophie as a child first in the small town- ship of Kaufbeuren, Swabia, Southern Germany, transplanted in her early teens to the greater splendour of Augsburg, the capital, old imperial city and ‘magazine of Europe,’ and trained in the rigorous discipline of an orthodox Protestant household. The eldest of a family of thirteen, life seems to have been a serious, though not unpleasant matter, for Sophie. Her father to all appearances was a stern man and a learned— a doctor of some repute in the vicinity, who in his youth had studied in Holland under the eminent scientist Boerhaven. To her father then Sophie’s education was allotted, while from her mother she learned the gentler

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feminine arts and pastimes of the age. So by the time she reached fourteen she must have been a quaint mixture of Pietist ideas gleaned from her father’s garner of sermons by one Francke, eminent revivalist, philanthropist and preacher, Brocke’s nature hymnal, a Te Deum in poetry entitled Earthly Pleasure in God, and the facile finishing-school accom- plishments gained in her mother’s company — French, drawing, painting, dancing and the like.

At this juncture Bianconi comes upon the scene. Fie was a young Italian doctor, stationed in Augsburg as surgeon to the Prince Bishop, whose introduction to the Gutermanns was no doubt effected at one of the doctor’s learned gatherings. For Dr. Gutermann, medical officer for Augsburg and dean of the medical faculty there, made his home the meeting- place of scholars. Sophie would be present at those assem- blies handing round the books — and no doubt storing information which was later to bear fruit. Thus began the romantic episode with Bianconi, and though the tale ends sadly, it left Sophie wiser and maturer.

Together the friends explored the regions of Italian art and poetry or made trips along the rediscovered paths of Greek and Roman antiquities— Winckelmann’s epoch-making thoughts on ancient art were yet to come, though Montesquieu had already paved the way for Gibbon— nor must we forget the fine brown eyes of our brunette, that Bianconi was a dark and handsome child of the South. The idyll, however, was broken by religious strife, heritage of Augsburg’s former schisms, and the marriage, fixed for 1748, but postponed till ’49 on account of her mother’s death, never happened. Earlier friction on religious scores between the father and the lover, now aggravated in discussing the religion of the offspring, led to a dramatic close. Bianconi, injured suitor, hied him to Bologna; the doctor made a bonfire of the relics of the intimacy; Sophie renounced all fruits of their friend- ship—her music, her Italian. So the typical romance of this and the coming age— irate and autocratic father, romantic

56 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

lover, thwarted but obedient daughter — drew to a close, and Sophie went to Biberach to recuperate.

In affairs of the heart repetition can prove a better remedy than cure! For it brings relief to the old wound and fresh stimulus to the patient. Sophie put this precept to the test during her sojourn with relatives in Biberach; here, ‘looking out on to the distant, solitary churchyard of St. Martin’s’, the seeds of a new love took root in her. This time her erudite young cousin, Christoph Wicland, became the object of her affections. This young man, who boasted seventeen years to Sophie’s score, was not ill-qualified to act as mentor, versed as he was already in the works of rationalist philosophy and thought, while his upbringing amongst the Pietist fraternity of the monastery of Bergen gave the couple certain points of contact from the start. This relationship, with its currents of new thought and the creative genius it aroused in Wieland, must have swept Sophie like a fresh breeze after the thundery stuffiness of the last years in Augsburg.

A picture of these adolescents hammering out the problems of their kind might engage our notice for a moment. Humanity and religion will no doubt puzzle them, they will want to find their own place in the universe. Was God the supernatural manifestation of Pietist creed? Were the Rationalists right in their conception of a material world, of nature as a game between cause and effect? Or they would wonder why in a community of human souls some were born to rule, while others fawned and groaned beneath their absolutism and caprice. Perhaps again current literary discussions would interest them. ‘I like to think that the naturally good heart of my beloved is being beautified by the edifying reflexions of the Spectator, for example, or Mr. de la Bruyere’s characters, Pamela, most of Moliere’s comedies, Destouches, Mile Barbier ... or the writings of a Scudery, the Rational Critics, the Hamburg Patriot.’ Here is a galaxy indeed, but none the less a signpost to their generation. Two young moderns corresponding here—

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should we seek a parallel— would replace the French for Russian works, the English for German or American, while the last-named journals represent the weeklies which teach us how to think and what to read!

Wieland’s catalogue of books brings to mind the young lady’s library of the day, and suggests a further problem which may have crossed their path, though we find only unconscious echoes in themselves. For the roots of nineteenth- century suffragetism lie fast embedded in early eighteenth- century soil, and it fell to Sophie’s generation in the main to reinstate what was then branded the ‘incarnation of vice.’ In this enterprise Fenelon, the champion of better education, and his disciples in Germany and elsewhere, the spiritual revival known as Pietism headed by a phalanx of ‘beautiful souls,’ the moral weeklies which ‘grew up like mushrooms overnight,’ modelled on Addison’s Spectator, all prepared the way.

And so by such devious paths we resume acquaintance with our Arcadians, ‘wandering in the shade of young poplar trees like Gessner’s shepherds.’ For Wieland regarded his ‘Doris’ with the mixed emotions of a Klopstock and a Gessner. She was his ‘seraphic beauty’ and ‘heavenly vision’ of Pietist convention, but no less his shepherdess, or his Platonic comrade of the mind, while he was yet aware of those attractions which caused him to exclaim in ’69:

‘Reason ne’er jested from a lovelier mouth And Amor ne’er round comelier bosom played.’

Perhaps we might draw this period to its close by citing another verse which sums up their relationship in these two years :

‘God and wisdom, virtue and Sophie Are with me now, what evil can befall?’

No sooner said than they became an omen. For evil did befall them in this very year. And this is how it happened.

58 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

Fate in the forms of Dr. Gutermann, who had already declared the affair to be ‘stuff and nonsense,’ and Wieland s mother, intervened once more. Some letters, too, went astray and made confusion worse confounded. Wieland, obviously ignorant of the causes for this breach as later letters show, next heard of Sophie’s marriage with Georg Michael Frank v. La Roche, Councillor to the Elector of Mainz, and steward of Count Stadion’s Swabian properties. We are in December of 1753. [The inscription on the silhouette has blundered here.]

In one of Sophie’s tales the heroine, ‘conflict endured,’ after love and disappointment, finds spiritual peace. It would not be extravagant to deduce that in this, as in many other of her works, Sophie’s own experience had a part. In fact the striking similarity between the situation La Roche, Sophie, Wieland-Bianconi: Wolmar, Julie and the passionate St. Preux, may suggest at least one reason for the influence of Rousseau on Sophie — at least in this particular. Undoubtedly her union may be termed the ‘mariage de femme-soeur’ of her own Sophie T. with Lord Allen; hence perhaps the starting-point of her whole conception of love and marriage, and further one of possible explanations of what all con- demned—and rightly— as the brutal treatment of her own daughters. ‘Love is not necessary in marriage, but honesty, virtue, and a certain similar trend of character— friendship, in a word.’ How often is Rousseau’s sentiment echoed in Sophie’s writings, and how well it suits her case.

Sophie fluttering for refuge to La Roche— his lord had christened him the rock of his future fortunes— might have alighted on less solid ground! Twelve years older than herself, a man of no mean standing, he impersonates the better type of courtier of his day. No dullard either, or his own and other versions lie. A letter from him to a friend concerning the matter of his title sketches him for us and ‘his history to the present’ with charming humour. ‘A certain decorum’ due to his status without nobility, he explains,

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requires him to possess a knighthood. Not that ‘he will serve his lordship any the less loyally should a steed, a sword, spurs and knightly headgear be refused him. . . . The equestrian (knight) shall not be arrogant, nor the pedestrian lowly.’ A bright letter this, full of Latin tags, in mingled French and German tongue, as behoved an eighteenth- century wit. Here stands Sophie’s life-companion, so popular with Sophie’s literary friends, with her own testimony in addition as the ‘best of fathers and of husbands.’

It is tempting to divide their career subsequently into multiples of nine — nine years’ apprenticeship in Mainz, nine years of quiet retreat in the ‘enchanted castle’ of Warthausen and in Bonigheim, culminating in nine full and busy years’ achievement in the lovely Rhineland valley of Ehrenbreitstein. This time of jubilation came to an abrupt conclusion, however, with the Councillor’s sudden fall from grace in 1780. Councillor after Stadion’s death to Clemens Wenceslas of Treves, whose rule of ‘benevolent inefficiency’ was conducted from his centre at Coblenz, La Roche, and a friend of his, found reward for services in precipitate dismissal. Intrigue and earlier disfavour d propos of a religious publica- tion, through which La Roche earned undesired notoriety, were the joint cause. But as Wieland strove to comfort, it is an ill wind, and so the couple returned to the well-earned quiet beneath the twin cathedral towers of Spires. The triple nine of Sophie’s life from now until her death in 1807 sees her as blithe as ever, and full of enterprise, despite the many trials she underwent in these last years. She certainly was successful in her attempt to ‘transform old age into an autumn evening,’ to rob senility of all its sting. In one passage of her English diary we find her prayer that she might retain her faculties till the last. And again elsewhere: ‘One’s beauty wanes, why sacrifice one’s charms as well, why become crabbed and chase all youth away?’ So at the end we find a Sophie reminiscent of the youthful ditty.

Tischbein’s portrait of the family group in the Green

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SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

Room at Ehrenbreitstein, dated 1777, is a happy study. From left to right we have Franz, the apple of his mother’s eye, and Carl, Fritz, with great charm, but too much ‘addicted to the ballroom,’ then Sophie, Max, ‘the black- eyed sylph,’ her father’s favourite, next the Councillor, lastly, Sophie’s second daughter, Loulou. This gives the reader some idea how part of Sophie’s time was spent during the period previously reviewed. Such a brood demanded care and education, her husband a charm and savoir-faire amongst his circle. So her days were hardly idle — indeed from what we know we can see her following the advice she gave to Lina in her educational letters: ‘You are ready dressed at 7 a.m. and go to bed at 10. Just think, my dear, what can be fitted in in 15 hours systematically arranged.’ A trifle pedantic no doubt, but so was Sophie— and needed to be if she was to complete her programme. She did not grumble though, in fact, she owns ‘lovelier days I never spent than in Warthausen.’ The ‘parquet of petty courts’ appealed to her; here with the count, his discourse and his library, a little music in the evening, and Wieland as occasional guest or eager correspondent, she found life blissful. No wonder that with her daughters’ departure for boarding-school, her eldest son at Erfurt under Wieland’s tutorship. Count Stadion’s death and the family’s removal to another of his seats, she missed the former life and felt a gap. And so it happened that her first work was conceived. Her old predilection for writing returned to save her now — notice here Wieland’s earlier references to her ‘fable,’ verses, then later her Silesian Anecdote and his criticism of her German style— and so having lost her real daughters she decided to educate a ‘paper maiden.’ This effigy, called Miss Sophie Sternheim, rapidly came to life. She had intended the novel for private consumption only, but Wieland, unbeknown to her, published under his own name in 1770. The work called forth some little adverse criticism, partly personal spite against the supposed author, whose

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popularity did not go unchallenged by his contemporaries, and partly justifiable; but on the whole opinion was unanimous. ‘Oh verily great soul! Men must surely blush and tremble in your presence’ one fantast later eulogised. And though we rather smile at such applause, yet we must admit that Sophie, the first woman to write a novel in Germany, was likewise the first to introduce the psychological element, and so prepared the way for Werther. Not that this element was of her invention — the History of Miss Sophie Sternheim savours of Pamela’s trials, while the Seymours and the Derbys claim blood relationship with Grandison, Lovelace and their tribe. Nevertheless, the feat remains — and with it Sophie fulfilled the dream of both her early lovers: her fame outdid the ‘Chatelets, Bassis, Gottscheds,’ and the dwelling at Ehrenbreitstein, which saw the famous ‘Congress of Sentimentalists’ in 1772, became the place of call for all great travellers up and down the Rhine.

We have now reached the apex of our heroine’s career. The adventures of her Sternheim sapped the best of her creative power. Rosalie, some half a dozen other novels, a volume of short stories are a sterile repetition of this one idea with a strong admixture of Rousseau. But we should not sit too heavily in judgment, for her works are linked inevitably with her life, and the expression of a leisured penmanship bears no comparison with the grind of a hack. A contemporary writes that Sophie bore the blow in 1781 with ‘real courage,’ in fact we know she settled happily at Spires, but at the same time, from now until her death, references to circumstances creep into the correspondence which never occurred before. In that very year Zimmermann, surgeon to the house of Hanover, tries to gain protection for her from Catherine the Great. ‘It would be worthy in so renowned a woman to protect and avenge another of equal fame,’ he writes, while Wieland asks for her contributions to his journal Mercury as paying better than her publisher would do. She herself expressed the hope that Pomona would

62 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

enable her to leave some savings for her younger sons.^ So a pile of educational and other tracts accumulated, lacking in all spontaneity and every tenet of artistic form: Pomona, to the daughters of Germany, her letters to Lina and to Caroline, her moral tales and such wordy, pointless novels as Liehehutten. On the other hand, the least little breath of inspiration is discernible; she enjoyed her travels and the autobiographical sketches. Silhouettes of Hours Departed, for example, deals partly with her stay, after thirty years’ long separation, with Wieland and his family. Here tea-parties at the castle, lunch with Goethe, the company of the flower of Germany to greet her, such pleasures charmed the narrative and inspired her pen. Her travel diaries likewise have their moments, as a future chapter will reveal— though these too served a double purpose. Taken all in all, however, after the initial work, with its hesitant claim to immortality, Sophie won men’s hearts for what she was rather than what she wrote. And though we feel the atmosphere she breathed after her marriage was in some ways retrogressive to her development, that had she been allowed a continuity she might have gone much further, keeping abreast of her generation; yet such surmise is fruitless and has no real foundation. The facts remain unaltered— Sophie, like a tree stunted in its prime, grew no taller. Richardson, Pietist sentimentalism, a nature adoration instilled by early influence and later fed by Rousseau, the new feminism of her early days remained her friends for life. The outriders of young German Storm and Stress she neither liked nor understood— the magnitude of the Revolution in France escaped her vision; she only deplored the slaughter in the light of her upbringing at petty courts. All her sympathies lay with that ‘army of locusts,’ the French emigrants on the Rhine— further she had no views.

In summing up, however, we must not forget the fascina- tion she inspired in many— the homage paid by Goethe, Wieland, Schliiter, Lenz and countless other personalities of

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her time— nor the positive influence of her exhortations on home and family life in Germany. Such a woman, though lacking the greatness of a master-mind, even the penetrating intellect of some smaller than herself, must have possessed a striking personality. Goethe proclaimed her the most wonderful of women, elegant in her bearing, with the dignity of the bourgeoise and the grace of the aristocrat and a most independent mind. Perhaps we can do no better than recall the lines:

‘Our dirges, nay, nor all thy Wieland’s singing Will call thee back to us, thus comfort bringing.’

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A TRAVELLER IN ENGLAND

Aug. 29

And now for Helvoetsluys, thence with all speed to England, as in any case all of us look more favourably towards Great Britain than to Holland.

Aug. 30

Having handed Mr. Wachter my letters to your father, we left at 2 o’clock yesterday, in a comfortable conveyance holding six, lovely, pleasant Rotterdam behind us; had to cross the Maas three times, for it winds about so much here, forming islands with its broad tributaries; these have remark- able names — one is called Portugal, another Calabria, the third Old Batavia. The boats were laden with coaches, carts and people hurrying to the kermis.

On these islands the soil is well nigh too fat. Grass, wheat, oats and flax abound in luxuriant beauty: all the trees are large and perfect. But around each acre of land a ditch is dug as in the marshlands near Hamburg, and the paths on these islands all run between canals, by which fine peasant farms are laid out, but all signs of estates and villas have dis- appeared. Finally one comes to a high dyke, planted with several rows of ash trees, very pleasant indeed and leading to our last crossing.

To our right, looking through the trees, we espied great ships speeding in full sail towards Rotterdam, and in the end we were obliged to wait till five of them had passed, for their course just barred the way for us; but the pleasure of watching these grand, graceful machines of man’s invention, fruit of his courage and his industry, was sufficient reward for this delay. All the sails were taut and full of wind, driven so hard that they seemed almost to be flying past us. And indeed the dyke-reeves told us that we could not cross to E 65

66

SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

England by this wind. — Night soon closed in, however, so that from the fort of Helvoetsluys nothing but the bridge was visible; but at the gate we found an honest, friendly officer from Wertheim, near Frankfurt, who was glad to do us, his compatriots, a service, and gave us a common German too, for guide: without him we should certainly have been overturned more than once in the marshy egress cut across by dykes; for from the bridge of this fortification, between the walls and outworks, it is a long way to the outskirts alongside the harbour to Mistress Norman’s, an English hostess, to whom the proverb ‘that the fag-end is always far worse than the cloth itself’ applies admirably: for neither English nor Dutch cleanliness is evident in this establishment. This struck us particularly, as we were already used to Holland, and looked forward favourably to England.

As we did not arrive till 10, we were only too glad to make straight for our rooms and our beds, where we lay down to rest after an evening meal; certain of a sufficient acquaintance with the place, as we shall be obliged to put up for a few days, and want to pass the time by practising the English tongue.

Aug. 31

There are now twenty-two of us, all sighing for a favourable wind; Wesley, the leader of the Methodists, who at the age of 81 travelled with two assistants to America to visit his congregation, and toured all the churches of the sects in Holland on his return. A venerable old man, and very understanding, who speaks well of everything and at the immense age of 83 enjoys complete good health. His disciples, charming young men of twenty or thereabouts, do not talk at all and mostly remain in his room with him. — An English captain, Webb, with his wife and sister-in-law. Miss Lake, and a cousin, have returned from a tour through France, Flanders and Spa— an American captain who served under General Green— an Englishman from the Falkland

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Isles — Mr. du Moulin from The Hague, with his charming daughter— a French language master from Geneva — another fmglishman who has been in Patagonia, and a wealthy young Suffolk farmer who travelled to Rotterdam to see the kermis. After the dinner-bell had sounded we assembled, and the Methodists straightway gave us a proof of their stern practices; for when we had taken our places Wesley began to pray. The good language-master was holding a discussion by the window, and was not at once aware of the prayers, when suddenly Wesley reproached him in the most violent manner, accusing him of lack of piety and righteous- ness. The poor man was very embarrassed; and old Wesley found it difficult to resume his sermonising, as the rest of us said we should be glad of a meal.

The Methodists, as perhaps my daughters do not realise, were thus named by some bright Oxford undergraduates while Wesley and Whitefield were living there, and true to their disposition were already strict observers of the Uni- versity rules. Having terminated their theological studies, they left to preach their own doctrines, partly in England and then around America; repudiated all books but the Bible, from which they drew the first text they stumbled on, or else stuck a needle in for the purpose, and used this for their sermon in meeting-house, market-place or highway. Their principles are ( i ) literal obedience to Biblical precepts, (2) downright denunciation of their people’s faults to their faces (3) never to wear diamonds, gold, silver, or silk (4) never to misconstrue or break a contract in their dealings. They have many followers, most of whom practise an exaggerated piety. All the English hold Wesley and his disciples in high esteem; and he told me ‘he reckoned his congregation at more than 70,000 souls.’

Our lunch consisted of soup, some good-sized fish, large English roasts, vegetables boiled in salt water with melted butter; pastries, fruit, and a large and excellent cheese, served in a beautifully carved mahogany cart, and rolled

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SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

on four brass castors from one guest to another. But after a while the waiter drew our attention to some cannon shots, saying: that means the frigate Jason has arnved from the Mediterranean where she has been cruising since May. We turned to look at the sails all unfurled, which we could see some distance away, but they were approaching rapidly, and all at once we perceived a number of sailors on the rope-ladders and yards of the ship and great excitement in

the port.

‘The frigate has capsized!’ the cry rang out, and all our fellow-boarders ran to look. When the worst of the crowd was scattered somewhat, we women joined too, saw the sailors at work, boats hurrying to the scene to unload things from the ship, in order to lighten it. The 350 privates and the 36 guns were already rescued. Many workmen from off the quay at Helvoetsluys were loitering around the sides of the disabled vessel to see the damage, which was rated at 10,000 guilders; but since no one had been injured we felt no sympathy with the wealthy Dutch republic, on the con- trary, I confess for my part and most other foreigners— we were ’quite pleased about the accident, as it gave us a very clear idea of what a shipwreck looked like. This is how it happened: the helmsman had missed the turning at the entrance to the harbour, and misjudged the strength of the wind; but on discovering this and trying to mend matters, the high sea and a gust of wind drove the frigate with such force against the corner of an outwork of the fortress that the whole bowsprit was destroyed taking a part of the large gilt Jason with it. A calm but profound disgust lay on the faces of all concerned; but no curses or noise were to be heard. The ship was towed into the harbour with all the care demanded by an invalid, and Jason’s broken leg handled as lovingly as though it were sensitive to feeling; all the necessaries for bandaging and repairs were immediately fetched, however, showing that both large and small marine- stores are equipped for any emergency.

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This matter of the frigate led us foreigners into general conversation and somewhat closer contact, so that we spent the remainder of the evening together; we teased Miss du Moulin a little because she had been given a bedroom behind strict Mr. Wesley’s apartment, and told her she ought to be thankful too, for some other foreigners, a lady accom- panied by a Moorish woman in particular, were obliged to sleep the night in the public sitting-room. — We attended the short sermon and chanting of the psalms which Wesley and his disciples had arranged in his apartment, and promised to breakfast together. — Charming du Moulin had to turn in early so that Wesley could shut his door. — Mrs. Webb and my friend sought repose because of their delicate health, and I since we had to rise betimes.

Sept. I

We enjoyed our breakfast. All were assembled; Miss Lake made tea, while my Carl and the young Englishman, Sparling, prepared the bread and butter. We discussed English artists and scholars; also chemists, and wondered whether this science had for so long now been regarded with a kind of contempt, as many used it only for money-making purposes and yet became paupers and frauds. Then we turned to porcelain, especially noting the firing resistance of the Berlin ware, in which Chinese and Dresden porcelain can be baked. Captain Webb told us of a London chemist who exhibited phosphorus in oyster shells or other objects.— Chemical colours and new inventions were also mentioned.

On this occasion my Carl modestly and competently expressed what slight knowledge he had acquired in the subject, much to his credit. The approval and attention of the men gathered round him gave me tremendous pleasure.

Our young Englishman seems to be enchanted by charming du Moulin. I only wish he would behave like wealthy Mr. Beth and share his fortune with the dear child, for she is so fond of England, having been educated in a boarding-

70 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

school there, and knows all the customs and conventions; besides which her excellent treatment of her father and her conversational powers show an unusual clarity of intellect and a very noble, sensitive nature. — She is looking forward to seeing Colchester again, where she was at boarding-school, and tried to persuade us to visit some gardens with her not far from Harwich, where the boarders spent their recreation periods, so we might see something of national education and character. I should much like to, but . . .

I also managed to make a copy of a library catalogue, which an Englishman is taking along with him to the East Indies, for I am acquainted with so many book collections for all classes and countries that I did not want to miss this one.

(1) A Persian, Arabian and English dictionary.

(2) Dissertation on the languages, customs and character of Oriental nations.

{3) Excerpts from Persian poems, or the odes of Hasan.

(4) An Arabic-English.

(5) A Persian-English grammar.

(6) Excerpts from Asiatic poems.

(7) Law-book of the Gentoos.

(8) Collection of Persian decrees, a translation from the Persian original.

(9) Institutes^ by Timur, translated from the Persian by Messrs. Davis & White, with notes.

( I o) Persian and English description of East Indian diseases.

(11) Reflections on sea-sickness.

(12) The lives of British Admirals.

(13) A History of the Mahrattas.

A man possessing books like these and at the same time well informed in European literature commands respect.

We went through some cupboards in my room; and as we only found all kinds of broken porcelain, torn maps, old Augsburg engravings of the seasons fallen out of their frames.

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published by Engelbrcclit, wc kept to a bundle of Ipswich newspapers, which we picked out of the bottom and read from sheer boredom; in one of the papers I found two short articles about home-life, the first of which should render good serviee in any territory, though I hope the second is not serious.

Domestic Economy (the first)

‘This is not one of the shining attributes, though one of the most fundamental and useful, since the general and domestic welfare of family life depend on it: it may compare with the hidden roots nourishing the fine foliage of trees whieh thrust their branches cloudwards. Want is the source of carking cares, troubled minds and sleepless nights, often ineiting besides to wicked and unjust actions. Thrift sets us free from all these worries, supports our lives and is the guardian of our virtue; it prepares a soft pillow for us, where we can rest peacefully and fearlessly in the face of a dark future. Its uses are not only limited to the present generation, but ensure for its successors an independence, which only they are able to maintain.’

Satire follows on this good counsel:

‘When a man and woman are observed in company bickering together without cause—

‘Or two others look out, one on this and one on that side a coach —

‘When a woman lets something fall, and the man nearest her tells her she has dropped something but does not pick it up-

‘When the male party keeps twenty paees ahead of the female on a walk, and climbs the stile without looking back—

‘When you see a man accosting a nice, attractive woman roughly and disagreeably, then you must know: they are man and wife!

‘If they always call each other by endearing names: My

72 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

treasure, my love — then again, ’tis man and wife. In this

way the following calculations recently accrued:

Wives left their husbands . . . . •

Husbands left their wives ..... 2,348

Couples demanding separation . . . . 4)^75

Couples living in open conflict .... i7j445

Couples more tender, hatred partially concealed . 13,279

Couples utterly indifferent .... 32,246

Couples apparently happy . . . . 3? ^75

Couples comparatively happy . . . . 127

Couples utterly and completely happy . . 13

Total . . 73,94Q

Ipswich is the capital of the county of Suffolk; so I asked Mrs. Webb whether this account was taken from that part, and told her that I was puzzled by this sarcasm, as so many love-marriages were made in England, but she referred me to the following prescriptions standing at the end of the calculation and applicable all over the world: ‘All married people should be pleasant and try to please; give and take — in this way all marriages would contain a foundation of happiness, and complete harmony would reign.’

After this I came to table and took my place near Mrs. Webb, the gentle, common-sensed woman, who without a trace of beauty manages to be extremely charming; she speaks French quite well and proves thus, as do her husband and sister, that the English have put off some of their pride and their prejudices, for at one time, with all their knowledge of foreign tongues, they would speak to no one who did not know some English or was not an Englishman. — The captain, his wife and Miss Lake all chatted pleasantly to us, and really enhanced our stay in Helvoetsluys by their delightful wit and pleasing manner.

Two little scenes took place at table which were quite new to us. Firstly, the waiter entered bringing the gentlemen

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their nightcaps and hats to wear until their wigs were dressed; secondly, they put on their slippers while their boots and shoes were being cleaned so as to be presentable outdoors after lunch. It struck us Rhenish women as strange to see the men shifting their chairs from side to side so that their feet might be attended to. The donning of hats and caps wrought such an amusing change in some faces that the scene was quite a merry one. Soon after, however, murmurings arose about the food, which was not well prepared, nor was there sufficient to satisfy our appetites. We women wanted to do without meat so that the men should have enough, but they would not hear of it, and Mistress Norman, who came up to us quite anxiously when some of the men left to eat elsewhere, had many complaints forced upon her ears — and in the hurry could only prepare some boiled fish and potatoes in butter sauce. It was a long time before order was restored, and our only consolation was that we had heard a veritable English squabble. Wesley and his disciples did not take part, as they appeared to have no truck with the needs of the vile body. At last the potatoes introduced a different mood and entertainment. The North American captain praised the flavour of potatoes in his and their native land; we reckoned up how long they had been known in Europe, and decided that it was 222 years since the first ones were brought from St. Fe, the Spanish colony in America, into Ireland. Further reference was made to Sir Raleigh’s little experience, that knight so famous for his service, enterprise and misfortunes under Queen Elizabeth. He had an estate in Ireland, and wanted to rear potatoes there right away; so he planted them, but did not know how they grew, and mistook the tiny seed-boxes at the top for the roots; had them cooked and naturally found them unpleasant, wanted to let them be and see if they would improve. After some time he impatiently ordered the field to be ploughed up. This was done, and now the potatoes appeared in heaps at the roots of this splendid plant, to the great joy of Sir

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Raleigh. Our friend the American also praised the many services rendered by this simple victual during the war.

The word ‘war’ led to many questions concerning auxiliaries attached to the French and German troops j and I was glad to hear Herr Brahm of Coblenz, Major to the Engineering Corps there, referred to with so much praise. I added that I had seen the young fellow before he left for America, and that his family, which I very much respected, had shown me letters in which Herr Brahm spoke very highly of the West Indies and its inhabitants.

After lunch we took a stroll with the English ladies. We were shown the house in which the late King of England, George ii, lived when he visited his Hanoverian dairy, as the Britons termed it. The question arose as to whether this was the inn which had so much angered George i. As he had put up there twice and been charged so outrageously each time, he would not go in on the next occasion, but sat on the pavement until the coaches were unloaded and re-harnessed, and demanded three new-laid eggs, for which he was asked 200 guilders. ‘Are eggs so scarce here, then?’ he queried. ‘No, but kings are!’ the cunning host retorted, and received his pay. We thought it quite in order that the king’s conceit should have to pay for the landlord’s avarice. It struck me that had the name of Orange been less hateful to the Dutch, they should have told the English that here, a hundred years ago, William of Orange went on board when he was summoned by the English Protestants to help against James ii and elected king.

Then we discussed the difference between the individuals and races sitting at our table; and seeing one of them at a coffee-house with quite a different expression from that which he wore in our presence, it was remarked what different faces people could put on, upon which topic clever Miss — was most intent. It is not my wish to repeat it, but she maintained that they had long admired all the excellent qualities of a man they knew at home, till in the end they discovered that.

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like this stranger, he was capable of any kind of low-down trick in other people’s company, scoffed at love and devotion, which he had asked and received from them, and hurt them by his callousness and lies. My heart bled for good Miss — .

We went to Mrs. Webb’s for tea, and she seemed immensely gratified that I should think so highly of her sister. The captain left us, according to English custom, but took leave of his wife very fondly.

The good woman watched his departure gratefully and with sparkling eyes, and seemed to have read my thoughts aright, which were, ‘You arc a good, happy wife,’ for she took my hand, and, her head slightly inclined to one side, she looked at me and said kindly, ‘Is it not strange. Madam, that such a fine man took a wife with so few outward attractions? But Webb saw into my heart and loved it for some years very faithfully. Though I too have suffered much through him, and almost died when I thought I had lost him.’ I asked her to tell me about this while her sister and Miss du Moulin prepared tea.^ ....

Her little family anecdote afforded me much pleasure, and the good woman related it so simply and honestly that she rose doubly in my esteem. Her husband returned for tea, and both invited us to spend a few days on their estate in Suffolk at the seaside. Mile, du Moulin and her father are going to stay in England during the unrest in Holland. The man has sustained great losses owing to the absence of the court from The Hague, as he owns a number of houses there, all empty at the present time. We then went to the packet-boat to reserve our berths, and I was pleased to be able to look over the ship before it rocked to the motion of the sea, for I very much fancy it will make me feel very giddy.

Two rooms and two cabins hold twenty-six berths for passengers; it is all very attractive. The outer room is panelled with mahogany, and has a fine mirror and lamp

1 Mrs. Webb’s private history— her virtuous, sensible education, the vicissi- tudes of her affections — are omitted as irrelevant.

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brackets fastened to the wall. The berths are ranged along the side walls in two rows like theatre-boxes, one above the other; they have thoroughly good mattresses, white-quilted covers, neat curtains, and on a ledge in a corner is the chamber made of English china, used in case of sickness. In order to lie down, the outer board of these boxes is removed and then fitted in again by the sailors to prevent people from tumbling out. It holds one person quite comfortably, and the whole looks very neat. — I shall be lodged right next door to Mr. Wesley.

Sept. 2

At last we are leaving, having taken recourse to dancing yesterday from sheer tedium and vexation at the dreadful weather — a turn of events I hardly anticipated. But Captain Webb was jolly, and they were so glad to possess an extra dancer in me that it would have been unfriendly to refuse. Miss Lake danced lightly as a bird — the captain and our B. were exeellent dancers — Miss du Moulin and my Carl were also quite good. Having performed some English folk-dances. Miss Lake and the captain danced a curious mixture of burlesque called Fricassee. Had anyone told me that English people amongst themselves enjoyed these comic cuts and capers, or that serious dignity and reserve could be immersed in the droll, I should never have believed it. But my friend B. was right when she told me: ‘Dearest, should you ever come across a mortal attaining to the extreme limits of perfection by his noble acts, then diminish your admiration by thinking of the relapse which this noble being may encounter— especially if he be vexed by trifles, for in that case some paltry matter is sure to drive him to the extremity of imperfection’— and thus it is with nations.

Adieu, then, terra-firma, and all loved ones whom I leave behind! May the heavens keep you and my spiritual tenets unchanged ! Yesterday I stood at the end of the pier watching the surface of the sea which we are about to cross. The

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waters are dull, not as beautiful as they were in Havre de Grace, where the waves looked like silver nosegays upon the sea-green sward, many fathoms long, in liollow rolls. They beat thunderously upon the shore, and I shuddered a little as I saw them toss the ships and craft now high, now low. If only I can hold out on deck with Miss Lake, so as to see the work going on on board.

HARWICH, Sept 4,

1 1 a.m.

God be praised! We have arrived safely after dancing around forty-eight hours on the water. Everyone was sea- sick, and I first to start and last to finish.

We all went on board, arranged our things, and went on deck, from where we watched the four other packet-boats being boarded and putting out to sea; like ours, they were obliged to await a more favourable wind, and were crammed with people. In the nearest adjoining ship was an English family returning from Spa, with two of the finest creatures of my sex growing up in its midst— girls aged thirteen and fourteen, whom we should have liked to have along with us, and as they sailed past we wished them good luck.

As long as we sailed through the harbour and kept close to the Dutch coast, all went well ; for I chatted with the ship’s captain, a well-mannered, sensible man of good stature, whose sixteen-year-old son astonished us, nor is a finer or more handsome youth anywhere to be found. We told his father this. He was much pleased, and replied: Tf you care to visit me in Harwich you will see eight such children and their mother too, who is lovelier than all her children put together.’

This man and the sailors all paid Wesley and his disciples great respect. Everything on board was very clean and tidy, and nobody was heard talking except the captain. Wesley sat and read Virgil, with spectacles, in an Elzevir edition. Heavens! I thought, if the Methodists’ principles keep the sight as clear as that to the age of 83, then I wish I had

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been educated in their sect, for since their chief reads Virgil on the high seas, I too might have read my favourite works without damnation.

Shortly after this idea I threw a last glance at the land, now rapidly receding from us, then let myself be led downstairs by a sailor and lay down in my little nest, already feeling sick and unsteady, drew the curtains, and resigned myself to the Power that rocked us in the waves of the ocean as in its arms. During these forty-eight hours I could neither stand upright nor take pleasure in anything. So I lay quietly in my nice little bunk, except that from time to time my feet jostled the head of honest Wesley’s resting-place; yesterday he preached a very fine sermon about the need for death and the danger of life, which was very well chosen and adapted to the storm. The sailors too showed a really appreciative interest.

The good man then spoke to one of my fellow-travellers about his stay in Germany, especially Halle, where he had visited our famous Francke, to whom he referred with great respect. He also knew Young, author of Might Thoughts, and praised him. But he cannot bear Sterne, because he deems it unworthy in a preacher to present a buffoon, and he hopes never to have a Sterne amongst the seven hundred clerics of his community.

My Carl was very ill too, and good Captain Webb could not hold out for a quarter of an hour, despite the big sea voyages he has twice made. Miss du Moulin was likewise ill, and Mrs. Webb and her sister were not able to partake much of the meals which the American had his servant prepare, now bringing a ragout, now a roast, or some very good wine to our bedsides. I was far more pleased to see the sailor waiting on us, whose gentleness, sympathy, and short, sensible talk I admired immensely as he went from one to another, cheering, comforting, or asking whether they wanted anything. The young Suffolk farmer was, indeed, one of the brightest, and amused himself with his nut-crackers, which

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were carved and painted like mannikins with large mouths, and which he had bought for his children as portraits of young Dutchmen at Rotterdam kermis; for his friends, however, he had brought a number of melons with him.

The night was very stormy, and the ship swayed from side to side; waves breaking, ropes creaking, sails rustling, and water rushing, sailors running about with muffled cries, prevented sleep and made one anxious. But the English were the more overjoyed as they caught sight of the Essex coast lit up by the sun. Miss Lake, that estimable woman, wept for joy, and when I came on deck I was much revived by the fresh breeze off the land and the sight of the well-ordered and cultivated country-side. The mere thought, ‘this is England,’ made me leap for joy, and bless the hand of that noble friendship which had prepared such unspeakable pleasure for me: for I admit that books and travel have always been my only source of perfect happiness in life. Especially England, with whose history, writers and agriculture I had so long been familiar, and which I had so long cherished, the place for which my soul had always yearned; and this last half-hour on the sea I found of inestimable value. I beheld the full, lively motion of the water; saw, since we veered with the wind, the county of Suffolk long and near enough to contemplate its lovely hills sown with cornfields, copses and that grand English verdure, ancient castles and occasional farms. Good Mrs. Webb pointed out her country-house, situated between some fine shrubbery with a view of the sea; showed me the county of Essex, and how an arm of the sea inclined to the coast at the foot of great fertile hills towards the river Stour. This view and the good lady’s friendliness, besides the advantage of seeing an English country establish- ment so far from the capital, were a most alluring combina- tion. The management of the ship, sail and helm, the passing of other vessels to and fro, the gradual approach to port, where so many other ships of all different sizes lay at various distances away; even the landing of the customs

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officers, grasping and suspicious, amused me, amongst whom some quite Hogarthian figures caught my eye, causing me to beg the shade of this artist for pardon for having so frequently been so angry and annoyed at the crude and ridiculous heads, figures, or apparel I had seen painted by his hand. In his day he obviously had all the originals before him.

The expression of these people’s faces during the examina- tion is quite remarkable. When they first arrive on deck they try to inspire fear and reverence; then during the investigation of foreign trunks, packets and bags, a certain penetrating astuteness and a sensation of their own power, at once comic and obstinate, comes over them; which struck me as quite absurd, particularly in the case of a wig-box. A foreigner was carrying it in his hand quite openly, not even tied up, and wanted to join the rest of us in the boat which was meant to bring us right into Harwich, when he was held up by one of these Hogarthian eccentrics with the queer cast of countenance already referred to, and asked what the box contained: ‘Nothing, sir, but my periwig.’ ‘I must see it,’ came the domineering retort; ‘Open the box!’ Now it opened with difficulty, and the stranger declared once more that it contained nothing but his wig. The customs man raised his voice, flashed his eyes with greater fire, and insisted on opening the box; then, looking important meanwhile, lifted out the wig, lying there in blissful content, and dropped it again scornfully. The foreigner said, ‘It is only my wig after all, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but a wig often covers a multitude of sins.’

And now I took a last look at the sea, Suffolk and the packet-boat, and stepped cautiously and fearfully down the small ladder into the open boat, which glides over the waves and conveys us to Harwich in less than a quarter of an hour, where we found the banks crowded with men, women and children, who watched us unload with curiosity.

The first steps taken on firm land are like those of a drunkard, for one still feels very giddy. However, I picked up

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a tiny black mussel shell, which to me was of value for being on English soil, I was also grateful to good Mrs. Webb for having candidly admitted that Harwich was a poor place, otherwise I should have been disappointed at the very striking diflerence between this and Dutch towns. But the attractive inn made up for everything.

We took tea with our charming travelling companions for the last time; Mrs. Webb gave me the note-book from her bag as a keepsake, and Miss Lake divided a jasmine flower with me which she had just received with Mr. Wesley’s blessing. My friend went to bed, our men to the customs to retrieve our trunks and portmanteaus and hire a coaeh to London, while the captain ordered a small boat to take him and his women, with the handsome pointer which had accompanied them the whole way through France to Spa, across the Stour to Suffolk, He was in a great hurry, as he had promised himself and his Diana, over their first piece of English bread and butter shared together at tea, that they should still go out hunting to-day. He assured me, for my part, of Diana’s lasting gratitude for my kindness to her at Helvoetsluys.

I was truly sorry at parting with these good folk who had shown me so much real kindness and sympathy.

Miss du Moulin accompanied her father to her friends, and I examined the houses in that quiet, yet wide and attractive street. The private houses only have two stories, and seem to belong to poor tenants. I was indeed astonished to find that the local lord mayor’s house, erected in 1 769, is built in completely Gothic style. The church which stands at the end of the street looks poor. Nor do I care for the English women here as yet; caps, hats, hair and clothes look as though an eternal wind-storm raged along this coast, allowing no single garment to remain in place.

Meanwhile I considered how an active imagination in good people will exaggerate the fine, in bad people pick out the nasty points; and when perchance hazard brings truth in

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its train, then the former feel displeasure at seeing the lovely colours of their picture fade, while the latter are inwardly vexed at the conviction that those people whom they blamed are not so bad as they thought; and so a thing unweighed brings its owner sadness and his neighbour disgrace; and it is in any case nonsense to fancy Holland full of wealthy, England of fine, well-dressed, France of gay, smart people. I shall take note of the pranks played by the pictures of the imagination and register nothing but what I really see and hear.

The transport arrangements for London are excellent. From the capital to Harwich is a distance of seventy-four English miles; these are divided into five stages: from here to Mistley, twelve miles; Colchester, ten miles; Witham, fourteen miles; Ingatestone, fourteen miles; Romford, twelve miles; London, twelve miles. The host of the ‘Three Bumpers, ’ our present abode, keeps horses, grooms and coaches, of which he has all kinds, letting them out for London, and he is connected with landlords at the above-mentioned localities who, if one arrives with his coach, immediately harness the best horses and put one en route again fast as lightning, accompanied by very well-dressed attendants. Our coach held five comfortably, was lined with fine cloth, and so well built and lacquered as befitted a state-coach. Four horses and two postillions brought us early into Ingatestone along

Sept. 5

the best of roads and through the finest of landscapes. First a long climb up the gentle slope with a view across the calm sea’s surface, where one thousand years ago the English gained their decisive victory over the Danes; then we took leave of the Suffolk hills, which can be seen from across the Stour, and the small cove by the sea; and, wishing the Webbs and Lake family good luck, amused ourselves by watching hill, wood and meadow-land, which we had missed so amongst Holland’s flats. The straight lines and meticulous

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order of the Dutch have remained behind on the continent; there is no artificiality here; nature and man both equally enjoy noble freedom; the landscape, over which hundreds and hundreds of fertile hills extend, is set with the splendid country-houses of the great, and charming well-built farms. Fields and meadows bordered by quick-set hedges where horses, sheep and cows graze, add life to the whole scene as in no other land. Everything is simple and straightforward in taste and character like the nature here. I particularly admired the great caution with which ditches and pools were fenced around so that beast and man shall come to no harm.

We traversed this part of what was the East Saxon king- dom, when Britain was divided amongst seven lords, much too fast for my liking, and arrived in Colchester, capital of Essex; large, old and beautiful, proudly rising above Anglo- Saxon times, telling how it was built by Coil, father of the Empress Helen, mother of Constantine the Great, king of this part of Britain in the year 1 24. The fortress and walls with their many watch-towers show how firmly they once stood. Now it is famed for the best silk manufacture and the best oysters. We saw nothing of the former and tasted none of the latter; but as we drove past, enjoyed the fine shops, which jut out at both sides of the front doors like big, broad oriels, having fine large window-panes, behind which wares are displayed, so that these shops look far more elegant than those in Paris.

Soon after Colchester we passed through a village with a new church, charmingly built, though extremely simple, and a fine walk laid out on the large square in front. The local fountain has the rustic, but excellent, idea of obtaining its water from a swan swimming in it.

Were human happiness not conditioned like our virtues, by imperfections and incompleteness, I would have had the pleasure of stopping here and there and inquiring about this or that peculiarity. I should have loved to travel by cheap stage-coach like a common woman, and with some wise

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friend by my side, to get to know everybody and gain some knowledge of popular character, habits and speech, and thus I should have returned with a far richer harvest. Yet we must be grateful to fate for the single ears. For I am surely far luckier than many others in fulfilling this, my one great desire. Though I should have liked to pass one of the big saffron fields, which, after three years’ yield of saffron without manure, provides abundance of the best barley for another eighteen. I did not mind so much about missing this county’s powder-mills as its great hop gardens.

We encountered a number of coaches and vehicles, especially goods-vans, whose wheels, by Act of Parliament, are over a hand’s breadth; and so, constantly on the look-out for new and pleasant objects, we arrived in the lovely village of Ingatestone, were at once given the choice of a number of well-papered rooms fitted with every possible comfort, and carpeted, as were stairs and corridors, by which means even with the house full of guests there is a kind of hushed effect, which is just as pleasant in its way as the cleanliness of every- thing one sees and wants. I have not better bed or table- linen than was provided here. All the bed-covers are of a white cotton material with fringe decorations woven in. Everything we had was spotlessly white, and until our meal was ready we had the fun of watching the Colchester mail- coach arrive. Its name is quite rightly the Colchester Machine— seating six people inside, in front outside behind the coachman four more, and at the back, where the trunks usually go, as many again within a neat enclosure with benches, while eight people were sitting above on deck, their feet dangling overboard, holding fast with their hands to screwed-in brass rings. This was a new experience for us; we called to each other to come, and my Carl investigated the structure of the machine as soon as it was empty; this took place with all possible convenience to the passengers, as not only those occupying the scats of honour inside were able to descend as in eveiy other good coach, but the rest could climb

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down too with the aid of small, prettily worked and painted ladders placed immediately alongside, like those found at home in well-appointed libraries. Travellers cannot take many or large parcels with them, though they can quite well manage for themselves alone, as such good roads should not jolt them much. Half an hour after we saw them all re-enter, supplied with horses just as good and swift as those on our coach.

We enjoyed the first English supper immensely. We were given slices of beef and veal, cut very thin and beaten tender, about the size of a hand, sprinkled with bread crumbs and grilled, and nicely served on a silver dish; fine big potatoes with salt butter to follow; delicious beer and a good Bordeaux wine.

Here, where the soil is excellent, an acre costs twenty-five guineas, a pound of beef eightpence, likewise a pound of butter, twenty-four eggs a shilling, or thirty kreuzers, a capon three shillings, and a cow seven guineas.

LONDON, SUFFOLK STREET GERMAN HOTEL,

I p.m.

And now not only am I in the land, but in the city I have wanted to see for so long; which have meant more to me than Paris and France, though not so much as Italy: for the history of mankind, of the arts and sciences from three- quarters of the globe prove that Italy will always hold first place. Yet London is the centre of a nation prominent throughout so many centuries, the theatre of such great debuts as have inspired the human heart and mind both with glory and repulsion. This was the home of Newton and of Addison.

Coming from Suffolk we were obliged to cross almost half London; and this alone would have made the journey worth while, for ancient and modern buildings and shops displayed so much good taste and excellence both in human industry

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and art. In many ways London stands for far, far more than Paris, especially in the near-lying districts and its ordinary city architecture, where so much general prosperity is evident, far more pleasing to a philanthropist’s heart than is the sight of a hundred palaces, the property of might and wealth, jammed up against thousands of miserable hovels. Should not this more equal distribution of the good things of life in England and comparative lack of class distinction amongst London’s inhabitants be ascribed to a republican spirit welded with a monarchy?

How refreshing the country was from Ingatestone here! Everything cultivated; trees and meadows everywhere most gloriously green; and Romford, oh how sweet! Wide streets with a little garden ten paces long in front of each house on the street side; not childishly laid out with cockles and mussels or trimmed box— oh no! — but planted with tasteful economy, on the fine lawn a large bush of flowers or else shrubbery ; in one part stands a basket of flowers with paths running beside it, in another a vase is placed on a hillock covered with flowers, or a group of two boys playing amidst the wonderful verdure; the path leading to the steps neatly inlaid with marble tiles or Portland stone, the whole surrounded by light, well-wrought trellis-work.

As in London the houses are mostly of brick. What numbers of people, too! How happy the pedestrian on these roads, which alongside the houses are paved with large, clean paving-stones some feet wide, where many thousands of neatly clad people, eminent men, dressy women, pursue their way safe from the carriages, horses and dirt. In town and country buildings possess their own peculiar character, simple but lofty, always sensible. Humble dwellings and paupers’ cots are also to be found in the country, but well-to- do houses prevail. Their agricultural implements, carts and carriages are excellently contrived, the latter all painted in oil, bearing the owner’s name and address back and front, just as each stage-coach states its starting-place and destina-

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tion on both doors. The country people do not look so haggard, pale and delicate as in many provinces of that fine country I visited last year, while they dress themselves and exhibit their work or commodities quite differently.

It is almost impossible to express how well everything is organised in London. Every article is made more attractive to the eye than in Paris or in any other town. What I already mentioned about Colchester is all the more perfect here. We especially noticed a cunning device for showing women’s materials. Whether they are silks, chintzes or muslins, they hang down in folds behind the fine high windows so that the effect of this or that material, as it would be in the ordinary folds of a woman’s dress, can be studied. Amongst the muslins all colours are on view, and so one can judge how the frock would look in company with its fellows. Now large shoe and slipper shops for anything from adults down to dolls can be seen— now fashion articles or silver or brass shops— boots, guns, glasses— the confectioner’s goodies, the pewterer’s wares— fans, etc. Behind great glass windows absolutely everything one can think of is neatly, attractively displayed, and in such abundance of choice as almost to make one greedy; in such streets as have fewer shops, especially the newer ones inhabited mostly by learned or rentier classes, an iron railing, erected some few paces from the house, runs up to the front doors dividing the road from the basement, which not only contains the cellar but also kitchen, bake-house and servants’ quarters. In all the big streets stands a row of hackney coaches, as fine as any used at home to drive to court in, and such a crowd of them as though there were one to each house.

We crossed the Haymarket, and here I witnessed a method of taking hay to market which aroused my admiration and caused me no little pleasure. This was a number of boards, a hand-breadth in thickness, a few spans long, of rectangular form as neat as if cut with a razor, all bound round twice with thin reeds, and between them the hay is so firmly pressed

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together that not a blade can be lost en route: I might almost term them hay-cakes, and shall certainly find occasion to study the rick and the preparation of these cakes with some country- man. The bundles of straw, also sold on the square here, are only one-third as thick as those at home, but arranged and cut just as nicely as the hay; not a single blade peers out longer than another, and it is all piled on the clean, painted waggons; the people with them are so well dressed and the horses so beautiful that it might all be mistaken for pageantry at some national festival. And should it be inferred that this good order costs a great deal of time, I shall beg to contradict: for seasons and days in England are no longer than with us, the countryman is economical too, and does not keep more people than are absolutely necessary; but these folk are used to such orderly work from childhood up, and carry it out just as rapidly as we do our usual slovenly humdrum routine.

Mr. Hurter, an old friend of your father’s and agent for the Margrave of Baden in London, then called to see us. He has found us comfortable lodgings and board. His pleasant eldest daughter is getting me a cap and hat, as women here may not go out without a hat. So the land with the greatest freedom of thought, creed and custom is yet in some measure fettered by convention. Meanwhile, I am very glad that women of my age wear caps under their hats, and that I shall not have much trouble or expense with my coiffure.

Sept. 6

They cat at 3.30 p.m. here, so as we were ready at 1 1 a.m. yesterday, I was able to write down anything that came into my head during the first dazed hours of excitement and curiosity. Suffolk Street is rather quieter than the streets we drove through; we soon finished looking over the inn, in spite of its many nice rooms, and within the first hour my eye had grown fully acquainted with the costume worn by the maids, women of middle-class and the children. The former

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almost all wear black taminy petticoats, rather still' and heavily stitched, and over these long English calico or linen frocks, though not so long and close-fitting in the bodice as our tailors and taste cut and point them; here they are sensibly fashioned to the figure. Further, they mostly wear white aprons; though the servants and working- women often appear in striped linen aprons. The caps really resemble those seen on English engravings, and simple black taffeta hats besides with black ribbons htting right down on to the head. I rather lingered on this subject, as English women’s dress, in fact any strange attire, always tickles the curiosity. There is not much to be seen of the feet, except that nearly all the women wear black shoes with very low heels when walking, and get across the roads very rapidly. The houses are mostly brick and have no decoration other than big, well- kept windows, whose panes are framed in fine, white-painted wood. The front doors, compared to those in other countries, have the peculiarity of being tall and very narrow. The stairs are clean, well-lit and carpeted.

We had a very good meal, but a very dear one, at six o’clock, then proceeded to Mrs. Hurter’s in the Marlborough Road, and took tea with her at seven. Without quite realising how the day had passed we returned to our rooms not very many yards away in Portland Street, and already found an invitation awaiting us to see some horse-racing.

Really, I cannot think why I did not join the rest to go and see the miniature horse-race held at Barnet by Mr. Hurter’s Geneva friend who lives there. It would not help matters at all were I to state the reasons for my disappointment; the fact remains— the men went off alone, and I console myself for my loss with the thought that my dear son Carl will see it.

I spent part of the long morning clearing out my things from my trunk into a wardrobe, looking at the houses in our street, and the first pedestrians abroad. Native custom and travel have made me used to early rising. As, however, even the maids here seldom open their eyes before eight o’clock.

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I was already dressed when I saw the first workmen passing and heard a young voice calling ‘Chimney-sweep! chimney- sweep!’ and perceived a tiny chimney-sweep boy, six years old, running along barefoot at his master s side, his soot-bag on his back, shouting for all he was worth; then I saw the milk-maids calling in the district, and some youths from the apothecary with china pans, and the maids coming up from the basement through the railings in front of the house to buy their milk. The beautifully bright milk-cans hung so prettily against the frocks and white aprons of the country wenches, who wear black taffeta hats like the town maids. After a time the crowd increased, and the coaches started running.

I was elated to think I was really and truly in London, and reflected on the history of England and its capital. Would it be possible for anyone to journey back into the distant centuries and form a clear impression of them to place beside the present? The Thames flowed on just the same, washing the foot of the slopes of London, Richmond and Windsor like it does to-day; but how many changes have come upon the inhabitants of its shores before its waters were fit to carry warships and merchant craft? I should like to read the great history of this land, of its rulers and subjects, sitting by the side of the English woman Macaulay, so well informed by history’s sapient muse, or at the elbow of that estimable Mile. Keralio in Paris, and then to listen to these women’s comments.^ ....

. . . Vividly the image of true happiness takes shape again in my imagination, and I picture a man of independent means, gifted with a lofty, active mind, reading the history of nature, government and art of our European countries in the lands themselves, combining visits to the most ancient records and matters of modern interest. But would the means and life of a human being prove sufficient? Indeed, I think

^ There follows a jejune essay on English history from Roman times, to be found in any textbook of English history.

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so, if no single second or penny were wasted, such a favoured one of fortune might place a volume of his own observations and thoughts beside each volume of history. 1 was able to think out all this and write it down, as lunch is not until 3.30 p.m. here, as I mentioned once before; this is an excellent scheme once it has become a habit, for the morning, which always lends more brightness to the mind, more lightness to the body where work is concerned, is thereby lengthened and only a moderate supper is required.

Sept. 7

Mr. Hurtcr gave me evidence of true Swiss loyalty, and showed a generous disposition when he undertook, in memory of the friendship formed with your father on a Swiss voyage in 1 769, to let us board with him and take us to sec the sights. This man’s kindness of heart alone makes my journey worth while. Though 1 profited besides in several ways to-day, being shown the factory of mathematical and physical instruments which Mr. Hurtcr started at his house, together with Mr. Haas of Bibcrach in Swabia, a thoughtful man born to physics and mathematics. In this factory the great improvements on the air-pump were invented and carried out, subsequently so very highly commended in the philoso- phical transactions. I also saw a machine for which all kinds of mechanical feats have been devised, and was likewise able to muse upon Mr. Hurter’s excellent collection of portraits on enamel; his particular forte lies in copying the idiom and colours of every great master, so that he once had the brilliant scheme of reproducing in enamel the finest pieces in the Dresden Gallery, in the Palace of the Duke of Orleans, those belonging to the Prince of Orange, others from Mann- heim, Munich and Dresden. For the execution of this plan he opened a fund, but did not obtain sufficient encourage- ment, so left The Hague and went to London, where he found everything he required as an artist. His acquaintance and friendship is also very useful to my son, as he wants to

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introduce him to Mr. Kirwan, the famous and learned chemist, who has a complete mastery of German, so as to read and study its works himself in the original; and as Kirwan may be reckoned a scholar by choice and not compulsion — his income amounts to ^^0,000 guilders and has stimulated many wealthy young people to take up science, his discourse should certainly prove of great value to my Carl.

I wrote to my dear friend, Madame La Fite, who is with the court at Windsor, and sent a card to the Countess of Reventlow, the royal Danish ambassador’s wife, whom I had met at Hamburg, then wearing her bridal wreath as the blooming Countess Schimmelmann— the remainder of the evening I spent in the company of a person who gave me a very clear description of an educational academy for wealthy English girls of good family.

This establishment possessed a certain distinction in the character of its founders; these were four sisters with wealth and beauty, Stephenson by name, who said that they had no desire to marry, yet wished to become mothers according to nature’s laws, and, as is the way of communal life, felt themselves called upon to be of some use; so they decided to avoid the reproach of leading a useless existence by bringing up young women. They arranged their own lovely home in (Queen’s Square and one beside it for boarders, and adver- tised their school, and, as they were known to be persons of merit, the best children were entrusted to them to receive all the good tuition which they themselves had obtained during their education. The number grew to 220. The sisters divided the business; one took over correspondence with receipts and expenditure; another the whole domestic side; the third superintended masters and private lady tutors, of whom there were twelve. Fees for the young ladies amount to more than one hundred guineas, but they are all excellently cared for and have all kinds of masters. My informant added the following details of the enterprise. 'Fhey are particularly

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fond of music and singing; adore dancing; love dress and ornament; but are so reserved in all their other affections that it takes one a little while to get to know a girl six or seven years of age. They must be strictly supervised, as they soon grow mischievous; are very adaptable, however, reasonably serious, and are always models of tender friend- ship. They all possess these traits in common, only mingled with a greater or lesser degree of merriment or meditative bent. Fancy work, drawing or painting, or whatever else they undertake, are all executed to a measure of perfection.

All this made me very desirous of seeing this place and making a comparison between St. Gyr in France and Queen’s Square. This evening at the play the great love of finery was evident everywhere and in all classes. We went to the Haymarket theatre, which sometimes presents good society plays, and sometimes, like the ‘Theatre Italien’ in Paris, two or three short sketches. I rather expected not to see the greatest actors, but as the big theatres of Drury Lane and Govent Garden are closed and national character may always be studied at the play, this in itself offered ample amusement.

The house seemed exceptionally small, but it is very prettily painted in blue and white; the boxes, as in Paris, are open and everything is well lit.

The first piece presented a fairy-tale, with a number of changes of scenery and scenes. Particularly effective was an island representing the basalt pillars of Ireland, where a charming maiden was brought up, who knew nothing of the ways of men. A shipwreck lands a nice young man there. For a time, of course, he laments; but now the fairy, a pretty actress. Mistress Bulkley, appears from between the basalt, comforts him, foretells his good fortune, if he can keep his peace, and vanishes. This, however, he cannot do, finding it necessary at least to converse with his echo. Finally the maiden arrives, and the scene of surprise and joy between the two is very charming. The father and fairy come as well, and they are made one.

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The second play was a translation of the dialogue from the French, where a young aristocrat who is to be married in the country pretends to be the domestic, and the bride takes the place of the chamber-maid. This was very well acted by Miss Farren and Mr. Palmer. The third piece was a kind of farce for the populace, in which Harlequin plays the part of a great magician in order to abduct Columbine. The old major, her father and the serv'ant are quite ‘grotesque’ Hogarthian figures. A stage-coach is about to leave; then all the people arrive and register, all of which is very amusing and realistically presented. And now the laden coach topples over, each passenger complains of some special woe, but the major is in the worst plight; then in the hostelry the scenes of abduction take place. The pantomimes are very jolly and comical. Amongst other things Columbine meets a man in the market selling birds, of which he has five in different cages and holds one after the other up to her, sings a verse in her praise, and imitates a bird’s note so realistically that the flexibility of his throat and careful study of his art can but be admired, for the song of the white-throat, lark, finch, nightingale and canary are all perfectly true to nature. A twelve-year-old girl dressed as a poor boy who walks round with a bundle of rushes, straw and reeds to patch up old chairs, then really sits down to work on one, sang and played unusually well; indeed, was obliged to give two encores; the third time, however, announced with dignity and candour that it would not be possible, and that she feared she might be unable to take her part the next day; which would grieve her excessively, as she liked having her modest talents appreciated and applauded. Everyone clapped and praised her aloud. She is beautiful, and deserves to be the nation’s darling, and will certainly become a great actress, competent to keep her voice, gesture and features in complete control, never using her talents wrongly or producing exaggerated effects.

After this delightful performance I saw the players hold a kind of trial and support tlie motion, ‘That it is the duty of the

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stage to condemn social evils, and seek improvement through the medium of its wit.’

It is already common knowledge that the goddess of fashion suffers from quotidian fever, which, it has often been noticed, at a certain degree of heat turns to madness; as the get-up of four ladies attested, who entered a box during the third play, with such wonderfully fantastic caps and hats perched on their heads, that they were received by the entire audience with loud derision. Their neckerchiefs were puffed up so high that their noses were scarce visible, and their nosegays were like huge shrubs, large enough to conceal a person. In less than a quarter of an hour, when the scene had changed to a market-square in any case, four women walked on to the stage dressed equally foolishly, and hailed the four ladies in the box as their friends. All clapped loud applause. The two gentlemen accompanying the fashionable fools were least able to endure the scorn, for they hastily made away. One of the women held her fan before her face, and was thereupon called by name — and when the expression of the remarks became too strong, they too departed before the end of the sketch, but they were followed out by a number of people from the pit and gallery, and held up to ridicule.

Sept. 7

Our hour at breakfast is most pleasant, as we plan out how to make best use of the day; then we read the daily paper, which gives us full information on the events of yesterday, and what may be seen and had to-day. It seemed a good idea to us to utilise the first page for news of the theatre, rope- dancing and trick-riding, although it comprises articles on commerce, health and service in addition. The notices in to-day’s papers run:

(i) Plays produced at the Haymarket theatre; names of actors and actresses as with us, followed by the prices of the seats: boxes, 5s.; pit, 3s.; first gallery, 2s.; second gallery, is.

g6 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

(2) Plays at the small Sadler’s Wells theatre, where to- day’s programme offers a satire on magnetism and somnam- bulism in particular, and where tumblers and tight-rope walkers may be seen: boxes, 3s. 6d.; pit, 2s.; gallery, is.

(3) At the Royal Bush, Mr. Astley’s amphitheatre; men, boys and girls in trick-riding; fireworks; short comedies and ballets: boxes, 3s.; pit, 2S.; gallery, is.

(4) Bermondsey Spa, a place where firework displays are held, announces that the scaffolding has been well and strongly made.

(5) The Royal Circus; adults and children in trick-riding, children in comedy and pantomime; Italians in dancing and buffoonery.

(6) Two fine large green tortoises for sale, which can be pond-reared or else fed.

(7) A notice against some piratical printer.

(8) Discovery of new pills.

(9) Notice of maritime matters; that on 12th September the crossing of passengers and provisions to Botany Bay, also of Moors to the coast of Guinea, are to be dealt with.

(10) On the docks at Woolwich all kinds of old ships’ timber and nautical instruments to be sold.

(11) Notice that at ii a.m. on September 14th the South Sea Voyagers’ company will meet.

(12) Fifty guineas reward for information concerning attack of a customs officer by one or more of the shipping hands.

(13) The East India Company wants to buy 300 chaldrons of coal.

(14) A pleasant villa in Fulham to be sold; with orchards and fish-pond.

(15) Bitter stomach pills.

(16) M. Clarkson; slave traffic investigated and proposals for liberating and educating the wretched beings, and a description of Guinea.

(17) Notice that the king and queen returned here yester-

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day from Windsor to hold a court (called levee here), and all the names of the gentlemen presented: further, that the list of criminals committed to die was placed before the king; that yesterday evening in the queen’s palace a concert was given for the Archduke and Duchess of Milan,

(18) That the East India Company offers several million pounds of tea for sale, terms of disposal consequently much lower.

(19) That on the continent there is a rising against papal power, and that the German Catholics would soon be talking like Lord Bristol some years back. I am a Roman by religion, but do not stand for the Romish court.

(20) More congratulations to the king from various cities for having escaped the mad Nicholson woman’s attack.

(21) Mourning for the death of the great Frederick; much praise and political ratiocination.

(22) Concerning the attitude of the Palatine electors towards the Court of Rome.

(23) Discovery that the bottom of a fishing-smack was exclusively laden with French brandy.

(24) Growth of the fishing industry in Nova Scotia.

(25) That the commercial pact with France would mean permanent peace.

(26) That all those gentlemen opposed to the minister Pitt are gone to the country to increase the number of their supporters.

(27) That a nobleman has found and tested a method of pumping water from ships.

(28) A match between a Jew and a harness-maker in the Epping Forest.

(29) Notice of a lawsuit.

(30) The reason why the scaffolding collapsed at the fire- works and so many people were injured: some rogues having loosened the clamps.

(31) A neat retort to the complaints of Garrick’s sensitive friends with regard to the printing of his letters, which bring

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to light some small matters that might darken the great man s fame. The author of the retort maintains that a number of excellent people of Queen Anne’s period would have re- mained unknown had her posthumous letters not spoken of them. I am quite convinced by this point. For as my noble Julie Bondeli destroyed and burned all her essays, and as her friends will also die, what testimonies remain to us now other than her inimitable letters? ‘These are,’ the Englishman says, ‘the nearest way to the hidden places of the heart: to one’s friends one makes a clean breast; passions, principles and intentions are honestly defined, just as each thought finds its mark in a picture.’ And in a letter appended, such noble traits of friendship are disclosed that praise alone is due. And if it is true that the moral, charitable qualities of the soul are worth more than intellectual bombast, then such a letter will arouse greater posthumous renown than some book of learning which in no wise stirs the spirit. Here Garrick’s sixth letter follows, to his friend Draper of Dublin, in 1745, in which he shares his fortune, his hopes and ambitions with him; at the same time directing him to raise money for an honest man who has lost a great deal through bankruptcy, and on whose loyalty Garrick so counted that he offered all his possessions should they be of any use to him.

(32) Miss Farren reprimanded for having been ashamed to repeat an epilogue for the fourth time.

(33) Fashion praised; since its caprice and changes contain elements of true charitableness, it would not be wise to combat the ruling taste of the age, as the fooleries which individuals perpetrate in their dress might serve the common cause. The author hopes, however, that the fashion for shoelaces will not become prevalent, as so many families of shoe-buckle manufacturers will be wiped out.

(34) Mutual advantages of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, since the former has always had the best poets, while the latter produced mathematical scholars, that monarch of genius Newton in particular.

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(35) Notice of the beautiful poem on charity, by Mr. Lacy.

(36) That a young Newfoundland dog drew the milk from a sleeping woman’s breast each night, so that her child very nearly pined, when the husband discovered it.

(37) A reminder to change the post-time.

(38) Praise of Mr. Jonas Han way, a late writer, for seeking out all objects of sympathy and charity and particularly for writing on behalf of the poor little chimney-sweep boys.

(39) Notice of the fraudulence of a certain Major Sempel.

(40) Much news of horrible scenes in Ireland concerning the White Boys.

(41) News from Paris.

(42) From Plymouth.

(43) Horse-racing, breed and virtues of horses.

(44) Short verses.

(45) Shipping news — who, where and whither.

{46) Bills of exchange, per cents, and bank news.

(47) Height of the water near London Bridge.

(48) Auction of a country-house, and all the appurtenances.

(49) Notice that the heirs of a certain Nash are desirous of selling the six houses he has built, and from which he derived ^194 annually.

(50) A desirable residence, eighty-four years’ lease. In all these cases a separate breakfast-room is mentioned.

(51) Another in Barnet for thirty-nine years.

(52) Several estates, all laying particular stress on the fact that fruit-trees are planted there, and are watered by a canal.

(53) A large estate. Court Lodge, where fox-hunting laws seem to prevail.

(54) In addition several more houses, mills and farms. With the houses there is always a note to the effect that they do or do not contain many mahogany pieces.

(55) A hunt for large parties on the Thames and some small, attractive craft for sale.

(56) Sixty kinds of coaches for sale.

(57) Horses of all descriptions.

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(58) All kinds of wines, no bottles.

(59) Inquiry about two missing men.

I only wanted, dear children, to give you an idea of the papers here, of which twenty-one different kinds are issued daily, containing all the court, parliamentary, literary and foreign news besides.

This morning we accompanied Mr. Hurter to Vulliamy’s, court-clockmaker by royal appointment, and witnessed works of exquisite beauty and perfection there. It is no prejudice on my part if I state that no Paris invention comes up to those which I saw here; and truly, ideas for practical use cannot be more nobly represented.

(1) One table-clock represents a genius showing a boy the clock with one hand, and Minerva with the other, as though he were saying: Wisdom will teach you to make good use of your time! The clock is suspended from a broken pillar standing on an incline; at the side sits Minerva, book in hand.

(2) A large French clock executed for the Prince of Wales: a round temple on whose altar the hours are marked out; Time sits on the steps clipping Cupid’s wings.

(3) A nymph on a slope near a footstool on which stands a cinerary urn; around its base she slings an arm, looking meditatively meanwhile into the urn to which the clock is fixed. The expression on her face suggests that she is con- templating the fugitive race of time.

(4) A temple which the art-daemons are busy decorating; but Time, looking out from behind a pillar, has already given other orders, namely, that it must be destroyed, and more daemons behind the pyramid to which the clock is fixed are breaking parts of the beams and pillars in two.

(5) One where music, drawing and a figure reading share out the hours.

French artists have certainly created some fine things both in clocks and watches, as have artists in Geneva and Neuf- chatel; but I never yet saw anything so noble, simple and instructive from their hands. All the images are Greek figures

UKiVElh'i'l Y

■'"TORIA

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in ‘biscuit porcelain,’ and Mr. Vulliamy’s physiognomy and gentle modest person hide a store of Greek ideas and moral allegory. His spirit leads him along the path of true beauty. May he travel along it for many years with just as much good fortune as he has modesty. His lovely wife and children will serve as models to him for anything he requires. And yet I think I noticed a certain deep and subtle pride, for all that, very reasonable. This is how it was:

The room where the French clocks are is large, and the clocks stand round it on small, simple tables, arranged so as to reach to eye-level, and paper covers keep his beautiful works free from dust. Of course, Mr, Vulliamy takes off these covers when he exhibits his fine creations, and must feel boundless pleasure on observing the connoisseur or sensitive moral soul contemplate his labours with wonder and affection. Having absorbed all the beauty of his figures, invention and perfect craftsmanship, however, one is shown all manner of table-clocks of French manufacture, with particularly fine setting and bronze ornament, yet which must inevitably lose when placed beside his works, as it is impossible to change so swiftly from a feeling of noble simplicity to one of luxury and magnificence. Not many of these clocks will come to Germany, I should say, for the price is too high for most fanciers— fifty, eighty and one hundred guineas per piece. I enjoyed this visit, and I shall tell my Lina with what pleasure I looked back on the time when I gave her a precise and clear impression of the art of clock- making, encouraging her to get to know the elements of every art and science; not for bragging or vain show, oh no! but so that she might view a fine piece of mental and manual labour with a better knowledge and understanding of the long series of mental and artistic processes implied. Mr. Vulliamy did not hear me talking much, but he noticed that my soul was entirely given over to a realisation of the value and a feeling for the beauty of his works. This satisfied him, and quiet, fervent enjoyment of my knowledge, me; only on leaving did

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I congratulate him on his intimate acquaintance with the

Greek spirit. .

From this house we arrived at St. James’ Park, and right

at the entrance we were shown the place where the mad Nicholson woman made an attempt on the king’s life. This put me in mind of the marble court at Versailles, for there last year I was shown the spot where Louis xv was wounded by Damien. The treatment of these two poor lunatics differed in each case according to the differing spirit of the law; Damien went to a horrible death; Nicholson to a mad-house, where fanatics belong, rather than to judgment halls. But let me turn from such sad thoughts to nature s grandeur. The park is large and regal. It is one of the finest things ever conceived by Henry viii, and the first sight of it leads one to exclaim, ‘Was it possible for the man who felt the charm of these gardens to be cruel in himself?’ But Catherine of Medici, too, knew and loved the fine arts, and notwithstanding commanded the Huguenots to be massacred.

I was delighted to have nature so close to the royal palace; for cows were grazing on a meadow in the park and drinking from out a pond lying there. On entering the park the old palace, which consists of a number of detached buildings, is left behind, and the large three-fold avenue lies in front, which serves for riding, driving and walking; on the right the queen’s palace, or Buckingham House, is visible on gently rising ground, and on the left stands the splendid pile belonging to the horse-guards; proceeding farther, West- minster Abbey can be seen towering above the fine trees, also a large square on which the bodyguard performs its manoeuvres, and a lovely bosket alongside the canal where fallow deer stalk. There we saw a Scotsman in highland costume; his striped blue and white cloak slung round him; his apron and bare knees were new to us.

I prefer the park to the Tuileries in Paris, although the buildings there look more splendid, just as all London houses are far inferior to those in Paris; but as I said before,

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I like this difference, as most of the well-to-do plebeian houses are witness to the fact that England divides up fortune’s spoils more equally; just as if a state with a republi- can spirit controlling the power of the monarchy were to keep its ground territory more level, so that the goddess of fortune might roll her wheel unhindered into every nook and cranny. Enraptured by this park, designed for kings and a kingly nation, I sat down for a few minutes to enjoy a sight of the charming English women, that pretty picture hovering in my mind which Mme. du Bocage made of them in 1758. But even she would no longer find the chic, noble, sylph-like dress and nymph-like gait which she admired twenty-eight years ago in this park; for the good English ladies have spoiled their originally fine taste in dress by adoption and exaggera- tion of Paris modes in hats and heels. The characteristics of national costume are gone, the size of the head-dress is out of all proportion, and many of them neglect their petticoats to a degree which grieved me not a little.

We spent the afternoon with the learned Reverend Mr. Woide, who is besides librarian of the Museum, and inhabits a pleasant wing of this marvellous palace. I was amused at the analogy I discovered here with the French intellectual spirit. In Paris the palace of Cardinal Mazarin was used as royal library, and in London the Duke of Montague’s, who, as Charles ii’s favourite, collected and gave away great treasures. It is a magnificent edifice, having four wings, just as though fate, at its erection, had intended it as a repository for the collection of nature’s wonders and the greatest works of human genius; for in this house everything is large, in keeping with the dignity of the objects preserved there. I was very glad to be able to meet some of my worthy country- men from Stuttgart at the same time and to find them eager for knowledge and attentive. Owing to legacies the library possesses a large number of books, which occupy several rooms, as a delicate and thoughtful sense of truth and gratitude always allowed each gift of books its own room

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with a portrait of the donor. But, in my opinion, they doubly deserved that their name and collections of books and manuscripts should be preserved apart: firstly, because a man who has been an example of devotion to learning and a life well spent, merits the respect of his contemporaries and successors; and secondly, for having left his choice collection of instructive works for the common benefit. It also contains a great deal of material collected from the environment of kings and queens: amongst other things, a series of letters dating from Henry vi up to the present king, also many original portraits in chronological order.

There is hardly time enough amidst a swarm of foreigners to take note of everything one would like to see. The ‘Magna Carta,’ or the great charter of liberty received by the nation from Henry i in its entirety and for eternity, was shown beneath a glass casing. I shall never share in these liberties, but the sight of this piece of parchment, badly damaged in some fire, rapidly and vividly conveyed to my mind the splendid picture of the fortunes of an English monarch.^ . . .

... You can readily imagine, beloved daughters, what my thoughts were before the original portrait of the lovely, reckless, luckless Mary of Scotland; before that of Elizabeth the vindictive, in many ways so great, and before the prayer- book which she wrote: how objectionable I found Cromwell’s portrait and letters, especially after seeing the petitions handed to parliament by Charles I’s children, next to which lies the carte blanche placed with them by Charles ii. Prince of Wales, bearing the words: The parliament might make any conditions it pleased, he would fulfil them if only they would let his unhappy father live. Yet Cromwell, an evil man of prayer, who always carried the psalms about with him, was not softened by these petitions and tears. But there are still amongst us apparently good people who torture the best of creatures without cause, regard unmoved the tears

' Omitted are a few muddled concepts as to the history of English liberty, more adequately replaced by modem commentaries on Magna Carta.

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and pleadings at their feet — why should an ambitious hypocrite not have done so a hundred years ago?

The sight of Pope’s and Rousseau’s letters slightly minimised the sad impressions which previous objects had made upon me, and the excellent works of Sybilla Merian almost succeeded in dispelling them. Also I must admit that I was glad to be rid of all such bitter meditations, and so exchanged them readily.

This reminded me of the extract from Sybilla Merian’s story, which I received from a noble-minded lady in Upper Saxony, together with some beautiful letters, as a contribution to Pomona after this monthly had already ceased; and as these two delightful friends, who used to write to me jointly, never gave their name or address, I was unable to thank them; though Merian’s immortal works brought their soulful letters vividly to mind again. Maybe this diary will chance into their hands, and at least they will see that Pomona La Roche was by no means ungrateful or forgetful of their fine gift, and that she still desires to know the modest friends, and they should grant her this opportunity. And I said to myself:

‘How happy was Sybilla Merian in devoting her immense talent for drawing and painting to natural history alone, and employing her sharp eye and delicate feeling solely on the wondrous fashionings and beauties of the vegetable world; for here and amongst insect-life her soul need not suffer so much in its observations as that of the painter of historical scenes, obliged to trace out all the human passions. As a portrait painter, she would scarcely have worked with inward calm had she detected an evil heart, insolence or baseness beneath a charming exterior. I was indeed glad that her admirable art and infinite industry were busied rather with nature’s quips, with the thousandfold transformations of tint and texture of flowers, herbs, beetles and creeping things than in pursuing the sad tricks of human emotions. ’. . .^

1 Here follows a biographical extract of little interest, such as were found in contemporary biographical dictionaries.

io6 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

What evidence our Merian is, that women too, if their talents are cultivated, are capable ofearning fame and honours in man s field of science, which even men might covet for themselves.

I should have liked to contemplate all the details of her uncommon talent j but beside her works there is also a very fine and perfect collection of a similar kind by a French artist, Robert, though I should give Sybilla’s first place. On the walls hung portraits of learned Britons whose works or names were known to me, and delighted me greatly, for the memory of their mental qualities lent greater worth to their external features, though, frankly speaking, without the important name attaching, many a face would pass unnoticed. Respectfully one stops to look at Mr. Sloane s portrait, whose collection of books fills six rooms; the seventh contains manuscripts, and then follow several volumes of dried herbs from all over the world; a number of drawings, prints and nature exhibits. He had collected thousands of various other curios. Parliament voted twenty thousand guineas to his heirs and the right of electing one of the librarians as token of eternal esteem to Sloane.

At the end of the library’s many rooms, amongst the collection of new and foreign writings, we also found the portraits of Voltaire and St. Evremont. I trust that Count Buffon will be added, and Newton would not inspire less reverence and affection even if Leibnitz were to be next door. Henry viii has a face most repulsive to one’s moral feelings; his full cheeks and double chin seem brimful of blood and sap drained from good humans; the smile of his eyes and mouth suggests a certain grimness. These clearly defined characteristics, like Cromwell’s hidden traits, make one shudder even now; while the angelic innocence and visibly fine qualities of Jane Grey and her Guildford, on the other hand, engender great love and sincere affliction, Mary of Scotland’s and her grandchild Charles I’s weakness and want of wisdom, pity, Elizabeth’s proud, harsh spirit, vexation, and her sister Mary, abhorrence.

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I thought it very delightful to find a learned Pole, the librarian Woide, guiding German scholars round England s temple of the sciences; I should have liked to have seen one further collection besides, arranged according to the ideas of that scholar who wrote a book on the state of English literature from its origins up to the time of William the Conqueror, continuing from there to Edward i and our own day. I imagine it would be a most interesting collection in any land, even though only one author from every branch of science were represented, so that thus an extract of the centuries would be collated in one room.

With these ideas passing through my mind I came to the Chevalier Hamilton’s magnificent collection of Roman and Etrurian antiquities, which appears to contain some wonder- ful rarities. His life-size portrait hangs there too. This room alone rewards the student of history and of nature for his trip to England. Several Greek and Roman urns are to be seen; in one of the latter there is still a piece of asbestos in which the body was incinerated. These human ashes, whose lust for power sought to disturb peace and welfare all over the earth, are quite appropriately placed near some fragments of Vesuvius and Etna, which by means of forces supplied to them by nature, shattered the fatherland of these haughty conquerors, burying thousands of them beneath their glowing lava. With what sensations one handles a Carthaginian helmet excavated near Capua, household utensils from Herculaneum, ruined two thousand years ago, lachry^mary vessels from the graves of Magna Graeca. I should like to see a noble-minded young Englishman survey the standards of the Roman legion called ‘Victrix,’ the Victorious, for the first time. There are mirrors, too, belonging to Roman matrons, golden earrings, necklaces and bracelets. With one of these mirrors in my hand I looked amongst the urns, thinking meanwhile, ‘Maybe chance has preserved amongst these remains some part of the dust from the fine eyes of a Greek or Roman lady, who so many centuries ago surveyed

io8 SOPHIE IN LONDON, 1786

herself in this mirror, trying to discover whether the ear- rings and necklet before me suited her or not. Nor could I restrain my desire to touch the ashes of an urn on which a female figure was being mourned. I felt it gently, with great feeling, between