The Regency Library
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Simond Excerpt TwoExcerpts from Simond's Journal pages 28-46 _____________ The inhabitants of London, such as they are seen in the streets, have, as well as the outside of their houses, a sort of a dingy, smoky look; not dirty absolutely,--for you generally perceive clean linen,--but the outside garments are of a dull, dark cast, and harmonize with mud and smoke. Prepossessed with a high opinion of English corpulency, I expected to see everywhere the original of Jaques Roast-beef. No such thing; the human race is here rather of mean stature,--less so, perhaps, than the true Parisian race; but there is really no great difference; and I have met more than once with Sterne's little man, when, in turning round to help a child across the gutter, he saw with surprise a visage of fifty, where he expected to see one of five. The size of London draught-horses makes up for that of the men; those which draw brewers' carts and coal-waggons are gigantic-perfect elephants! On the other hand, I have observed dwarf horses passing swiftly along the streets, mounted by boys, who appeared employed in carrying letters or messages. No armed watch, guet, or marechaussée, is ever met patrolling the streets, or the highways; no appearance of police, and yet no apparent want of police; nothing disorderly. The western part of the town is terminated by three great contiguous public walks. St. James's Park, which belongs to the palace of that name, is planted in straight walks, which surround a meadow and piece of water, and have all the monotony and dulness of the old-fashioned avenues without their magnificence, the trees being low and of a stunted growth. The Green Park is somewhat better. Hyde Park quite different, and three times as large as the other two together. It is an inclosure of above 400 acres, slightly uneven, having here and there groups of old trees, some of them of very large size and venerable appearance, but too thinly scattered, and leaving great spaces entirely naked. New plantations are making, but they unite ill with the old trees, and ought not to approach so near them. The water of a rivulet dammed up has been made to fill a little valley, forming a piece of water of good shape, and tolerably clear, called the Serpentine River; of which several projecting points of land and bays disguise the boundaries. The best trees of the park, mostly elms, grow near the Serpentine River. Kensington Gardens are connected with Hyde Park; carriages are not admitted; the circumference is about the same, that is, nearly three miles. An excess of trees is as conspicuous here as the want of them in Hyde Park. the season is unfavourable, but the present impression of Kensington Gardens is that of a formal sort of wilderness.* The weather is called here very cold (20 degrees or 22 degrees of the thermometer of Fahrenheit); the Serpentine River is covered with skaters, some of them first-rate ones. Ladies crowd round to contemplate the human form divine,--strength, grace, and manly beauty. There is certainly much to admire in this respect in the class of gentlemen in England, which is not only handsomer, but stronger than the labouring class both of town and country. It appears to me that it was the reverse in France, and that gentlemen in general were rather inferior in bodily faculties to countrymen and town labourers. This difference may be ascribed to the practice of athletic amusements being much more general in England,--much more a part of education; and to the circumstance of young men being introduced later into the society of women in England than in France. That society, when of the modest sort, induces sedentary habits,--and when otherwise, has still worse consequences. a taste for the country might also serve to account for this fact; a taste at least for those amusements which are only found in the country,--sporting, fishing, and horses. The fashionable part of the town is deserted one half of the year, and this half not at all the pleasantest one; but that of the shortest days, the darkest sky, and the coldest weather, that is to say, all winter, till March; spending all the spring, which is said to be very beautiful in England, but is not the season of field-sports, amidst the dust and smoke of London. Such is the kind of attraction which is here found in the country. Westminster Abbey is seen to advantage from the parks, its Gothic towers rising above the summit of the trees. The Palace of St. James, situated at the entrance of the park of that name, is a paltry-looking building, of the meanest possible appearance, and half consumed by fire; it is impossible to conceive any thing worse of the palace kind. We are apt to lend form and colour to those objects of which we have always heard, but have never seen; and I own I had built in my mind a very different sort of palace for the court of St. James's,--so rich and so proud. This royal residence was erected by Henry VIII. February 17.-We have been a whole month in London, and for the last three weeks I have set down nothing in this Journal. It is not, as might be supposed, from having been too much taken up or too little. A French traveller once remarked sagaciously, that there is a malady peculiar to the climate of England, called the catch-cold; this malady, under the modern title of influenza, has recently afflicted all London, and we have been attacked by it. A friend of F., who had come to London on purpose to receive us, has been obliged to fly precipitately; others dare not come. The letters we brought have not procured us many useful or agreeable acquaintances,--some of them have not been noticed; and although we have to acknowledge the attentions of some persons, their number is very small, and we feel alone in the crowd. London is a giant,--strangers can only reach his feet. Shut up in our apartments, well warmed and well lighted, and where we seem to want nothing but a little of that immense society in the midst of which we are suspended, but not mixed, we have full leisure to observe its outward aspect and general movements, and listen to the roar of its waves, breaking around us in measured time, like the tides of the ocean. "'Tis pleasant through the loop-holes of retreat To peep as such a world-to see the stir Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd; To hear the roar she sends through all her gates, At a safe distance."In the morning all is calm,--not a mouse stirring before ten o'clock; the shops then begin to open. Milk-women, with their pails perfectly neat, suspended at the two extremities of a yoke, carefully shaped to fit the shoulders, and surrounded with small tin measures of cream, ring at every door, with reiterated pulls, to hasten the maid-servants, who come half asleep to receive a measure as big as an egg, being the allowance of a family; for it is necessary to explain, that milk is not here either food or drink, but a tincture,--an elixir exhibited in drops, five or six at most, in a cup of tea, morning and evening. It would be difficult to say what taste or what quality these drops may impart; but so it is; and nobody thinks of questing the propriety of the custom. Not a single carriage-not a cart are seen passing. The first considerable stir is the drum and military music of the Guards, marching from their barracks to Hyde Park, having at their head three or four Negro giants, striking high, gracefully and strong, the resounding cymbal. About three or four o'clock the fashionable world gives some signs of life; issuing forth to pay visits, or rather leave cards at the doors of friends, never seen but in the crowd of assemblies; to go to shops, see sights, or lounge in Bond Street,--an ugly inconvenient street, the attractions of which it is difficult to understand. At five or six they return home to dress for dinner. The streets are then lighted from one end to the other, or rather edged on either side with two long lines of the brightish dots, indicative of light, but yielding in fact very little;--these are the lamps. They are not suspended in the middle of the streets as at Paris, but fixed on irons eight or nine feet in high, ranged along the houses. The want of reflectors is probably the cause of their giving so little light. From six to eight the noise of wheels increases; it is the dinner hour. A multitude of carriages, with two eyes of flame staring in the dark before each of them, shake the pavement and the very houses, following and crossing each other at full speed. Stopping suddenly, a footman jumps down, runs to the door, and lifts the heavy knocker-gives a great knock-then several smaller ones in quick succession-then with all his might-flourishing as on a drum, with an art, and an air, and a delicacy of touch, which denote the quality, the rank, and the fortune of his master. For two hours, or nearly, there is a pause; at ten a redoublément comes on. This is the great crisis of dress, of noise, and of rapidity-a universal hubbub; a sort of uniform grinding and shaking, like that experienced in a great mill with fifty pair of stones; and, if I was not afraid of appearing to exaggerate, I should say that it came upon the ear like the fall of Niagara, heard at two miles distance! This crisis continues undiminished till twelve o'clock; then less and less during the rest of the night,--till, at the approach of day, a single carriage is heard now and then at a great distance. Great assemblies are called routs or parties; but the only people who give them, in their invitations only say, that they will be at home such a day, and this some weeks beforehand. The house in which this takes place is frequently stripped from top to bottom; beds, drawers, and all but ornamental furniture is carried out of sight, to make room for a crowd of well-dressed people, received at the door of the principal apartment by the mistress of the house standing, who smiles at every new comer with a look of acquaintance. Nobody sits; there is no conversation, no cards, no music; only elbowing, turning, and winding from room to room; then, at the end of a quarter of an hour, escaping to the hall-door to wait for the carriage, spending more time upon the threshold among footmen than you had done above stairs with their masters. From this rout you drive to another, where, after waiting your turn to arrive at the door, perhaps half an hour, the street being full of carriages, you alight, begin the same round, and end it in the same manner. The public knows there is a party in a house by two signs; first, and immense crowd of carriages before the house,--then every curtain, and every shutter of every window wide open, shewing apartments all in a blaze of light, with heads innumerable, black and white (powdered or not), in continual motion. This custom is so general, that having, a few days ago, five or six persons in the evening with us, we observed our servant had left the windows thus exposed, thinking, no doubt, that this was a rout after our fashion. Such may be, it will be said, the life of the rich, the well-born, and the idle, but it cannot be that of many of the people; of the commercial part, for instance, of this emporium of the trade of the universe. The trade of London is carried on in the east part of town, called par excellence, the City. The west is inhabited by people of fashion, or those who wish to appear such; and the line of demarcation, north and south, runs through Soho Square. Every minute of longitude east is equal to as many degrees of gentility minus, or towards west, plus. This meridian line north and south, like that indicated by the compass, inclines west towards the north, and east towards the south, two or three points, in such a manner, as to place a certain part of Westminster on the side of fashion; the Parliament House, Downing Street, and the Treasury, are necessarily genteel. To have a right to emigrate from east to west, it is requisite to have at least L. 3000 sterling a-year; should you have less, or at least spend less, you might find yourself slighted; and L. 6000 a-year would be safer. Many, indeed, have a much narrower income, who were born there; but city emigrants have not the same privileges. The legitimate people of fashion affect poverty, even, to distinguish themselves from the rich intruders. It is citizen-like to be at ease about money, and to pay readily on demand. I have not had the same opportunities of observation in the city. Having been there, however, often, early in the morning, I found the appearance of every thing very different. Instead of the universal silence and profound repose of the west, as late as the middle of the day, all is motion and activity in the city, as early as ten o'clock in the morning. The crowd, the carriages, and the mud increase rapidly as you advance from west to east, during the forenoon; and an hour of steady walking will take you from one extreme to the other, that is, from Portman Square to Cornhill. The carriages you meet in the city are generally hackney-coaches, which, on rainy days, form two uninterrupted files moving opposite ways; few carts or waggons for the transportation of goods; all this commerce with the universe is carried on by abstraction. You never seen the productions which the two Indies, Africa, and America, are pouring incessantly into the Thames, and which return to the four quarters of the world, modified and enriched by the labour and skill of manufacturers. I am told that al this commercial substance is deposited in certain warehouses, which surround artificial basins, or docks, large enough to receive all at once, and each of them, whole fleets of merchantmen. The East Indies have their dock; the West Indies theirs,--the fisheries theirs,--London has one for its own use;--foreign vessels alone occupy the river, and their cargoes are received in private warehouses. All this is below London, and forms a sort of a third town, east of east. What are we to think of this trade, of which a whole immense city could not contain the stock, and is merely its counting-house? The mind forgets that the immediate object is sugar and coffee, tobacco and cotton, and that auri sacra fames is the mainspring, and sees only a social engine, which rivals in utility, in vastness of operation, as well as wisdom of details, the phenomena of nature herself! Among the few who have taken any trouble to forward our views of pleasure and instruction, I wish I could pay a just tribute of my gratitude to Sir Charles B___, who has taken every opportunity of obliging us; but I have determined to name none but persons in public stations; and although this resolution may cost me something where I should have to praise, yet it must be adhered to. Sir Joseph Banks is well known in the learned world, by his zeal for the sciences, which made him in his youth accompany Captain Cook round the world, and during the course of a long life devote all his time and an ample fortune to their advancement. He receives such persons as have been introduced to him, on Thursday mornings and Sunday evenings. His friends are always admitted in the morning to his library, where newspapers, and literary journals, English and foreign, are found. These meetings are perfectly free from gêne, or ceremony of any sort. This is, I presume, the only establishment of the kind in England. Sir Joseph is the patriarch of literature, or more particularly of the sciences. He presides at the Royal Society, which meets every Thursday evening in Somerset House, nominally at eight o'clock, often half an hour or three quarters of an hour later, and separates precisely at nine. If I were to judge by the two sittings at which I had the honour of being admitted, this very short space of time is sufficient. The secretary (Mr. Davy) began by reporting.** He had little to say. Rank and wealth are, I am told, the only title of a great number of the members of the society to the academical seat, and from such a tree but little fruit can be expected. The upper end of the room is decorated with a full-length portrait of Newton, whom the society is proud of having had for its first president. His signature was shewn me in the register of members. I felt that an impulse of profound respect at the sight of it had made me bow unconsciously. The English do not say Newton, but Sir Isaac Newton. I cannot well express how much this Monsieur le Chevalier Newton shocks the ear of a foreigner. The Transactions of the Society have reached the 105th volume, and contain much valuable matter-much more, indeed, than seems consistent with the short time allowed to its proceedings; and as the Society publishes only such communications as are judged worthy of the public, I conclude that few communications are offered that are otherwise. A certain native pride and good sense prevents many hasty communications being offered. There is in other countries less pride and more vanity. This Society had its origin in the times of revolution and civil wars of the seventeenth century. A similar state of things is said to have given a fresh impulse to arts and sciences in France. As hail-storms stimulate vegetation, and a new spring generally follows its ravages, thus political tempests appear to awaken the latent powers of the mind, and bring forth talents; but it may well be questioned whether they are equally favourable to the growth of virtues. The Royal Institution is a very recent establishment-about ten years standing. It professed object was the application of science to the useful arts. Count Rumford being one of the chief founders of the institution, the practice and application of his economical inventions could not fail to obtain a due degree of attention. There was a workshop for the construction of that philosopher's saucepans and roasters, and a kitchen on his plan; culinary committees were appointed to pronounce on the merits of experimental puddings; but these novelties are now out of fashion, and have not operated that economical revolution which was expected. Whether from prejudice on the part of the executive body of cooks, or jealousy on the part of housewives, who, in all countries, do not like to see the men usurp their government, the old-fashioned spit and kettle have kept their ground, and the culino-philosophical apparatus seems nearly forgotten. The lectures on the sciences are well attended; they are given in a large amphitheatre, lighted by a sky-light, and form, with the library and reading rooms, all that remains of the original plan; for the place of deposit of machines is, I believe empty. Private interest, whether the object is emolument or glory, will always make a secret of valuable inventions, until the exclusive property is secured to the inventor by a patent,--when the deposit of the models at the Royal Institution would become superfluous.-The library is excellent, and the librarian has just published a catalogue, which is not only useful to those who frequent it, but might serve as a model for the formation of a library in the ancient and modern languages. There is a division for books of reference, and those on general reading; the best English and foreign journals; good fires in each room, tables, ink, paper &c. The world owes to this institution the illustrious chemist Mr. Davy, and that series of mighty discoveries, which has, in a short space of a few years, done the work of an age in the advancement of his science. But for the means placed in Mr. Davy's hands, and particularly a powerful Voltaic apparatus of two thousand plates, he probably never would have decomposed the elements of this metallic globe. It may not be improper to state, that Mr. Davy was very young, and quite unknown at the beginning of the Institution. Introduced by Dr. Beddoes and Count Rumford as a very promising young man, he was engaged as professor of chemistry in the room of Professor Garnett, and, notwithstanding his provincial accent, and natural bashfulness, his merit was soon established. Several other eminent men deliver lectures at the Royal Institution; Mr. Pond on astronomy, Mr. Allen on mechanics, Dr. James E. Smith on natural history. These sciences are not, however, so fashionable as chemistry; they are not susceptible of any brilliant exhibitions; there is no noise, no fire,--and the amphitheatre never fills, but for Mr. Davy. The resources of chemistry, to recal or keep up the attention of a mixt audience, are infinite. A small bit of potassium thrown in a glass of water, or upon a piece of ice, never fails to excite a gentle murmur of applause. More than one half of the audience is female, and it is the most attentive portion. I have observe these fair disciples of science taking notes timidly, and as by stealth, on small bits of paper; no man does that,--they know already the things taught, or care little about them! Women alone consider themselves as neither above or below Mr. Pond or Mr. Davy. In fact, public lectures are only useful to those who know little, and aspire to little. Real learning is only acquired by solitary studies; but a taste for the arts and sciences, although superficial, is, at any rate, very desirable in all those to whom fortune gives leisure. The husband of a young lady, who is very assiduous at the lectures, said, the other day, he approved much of the taste in the sex in general; "It keeps them out of harm's way." Considering the great number of prosecutions for crim. con. recorded in the newspapers, one would think that no preservative is to be neglected. There is something ridiculous enough in this technical abbreviation of criminal conversation. It seems an awkward attempt to disguise or soften an equivocal expression,--which is already in itself a great softening of the moral misdemeanor it represents. This criminal conversation is not prosecuted criminally, but produces only a civil suit for the recovery of damages, estimated in money. The jury determines the amount of these damages by the degree of union and conjugal happiness existing before the criminal conversation which destroyed it, and by the rank and fortune of the parties. The smallest appearance of negligence or connivance on the part of the husband, deprives him of all remedy against the seducer, who owes him nothing, if he only took what was of no value to him, and which he guarded so ill. I have heard of L.10,000 sterling awarded in some cases, which is certainly rather dear for a conversation! The husband pockets this money without shame, because he has the laugh on his side, and in the world ridicule alone produces shame. A divorce is generally granted by act of parliament in these cases; and marriage as generally takes place between the lovers. The publicity which such prosecutions necessarily occasion, and all the details and proofs of the intrigue, are highly indelicate and scandalous. The testimony, for instance, of servants, of young chambermaids, who are brought into open court to tell, in the face of the public, all they have seen, heard, or guessed at, is another sort of prostitution more indecent than the first. Morals are far from being purified by this process; but the substantial infringement is prevented. This sort of chastity resembles the probity of certain persons who are sufficiently honest not to be hanged. Upon the whole, however, there is more conjugal fidelity in England than in most other countries; and these crim. con. prosecutions calumniate the higher ranks of society, as the celebrated book of Mr. Colquhoun calumniates the lower. The merits of national, as well as individual characters, are only comparative; great allowances are to be made, and the best result to be expected is a favourable balance on the side of morality. I think married women are less on a footing of equality with their husbands here than in France. They appear more dependent. Unmarried women, on the contrary, are less shackled here,--they go out often alone, and enjoy more liberty. This liberty produces a few abuses before marriage, and rather tends to prevent them afterwards. Those who take advantage of it to do wrong before marriage, would have done so after; and it is certainly safer to take a woman who has seen the world, than one who knows only the walls of a convent, and who has never been trusted out of sight from her birth. One thing surprises me more and more every day; it is the great number of people in the opposition; that is, those who disapprove, not only of the present measures of ministers, which have not been of late either very wise or very successful, but the form and constitution of the government itself. It is stigmatised as vicious, corrupt, and in its decay, without hope or remedy but in a general reform, and in fact a revolution. Our acquaintance, though not very extensive, is sufficiently various to afford a fair sample of public opinion. I have had an idea of making a list in three columns, whigs, tories, and absolute reformers,--and it would not be difficult; for there are a few principal topics, which, like cabalistic words, it is enough to touch upon, to know at once the whole train of opinions of those with whom you speak. It appears to me that the tories, or friends of the administration, are in a small minority; of the two parties, one does not seem disposed to approve of any administration, and neither of them of the present; and, supposing the ministerial power to rest on public opinion, one might be tempted to exclaim with Basil in the Barbier de Seville, "Qui est ce donc que l'on trompe,--tout le monde est du secret!" This is a most alarming state of things,--a spark might set the whole political machine in a blaze; and yet, looking around at the appearance of all things, it seems a pity that so much good should necessarily be abandoned in pursuit of better, and by the means of a revolution. Every body disclaims a revolution, à-la-Françoise; but who is so presumptuous as to fancy a revolution, when once begun, can be guided and stopped at pleasure? Notwithstanding their lamentations and complaints, and the avowed expectation of a dreadful crisis, the inhabitants of London live just as if they had nothing to fear; amuse themselves, and attend to their business in perfect security. It would seem as if all the clamour was only habit, a sort of plaintive mania-and yet they appear so much in earnest that I do not know what to think of it.
*I have since seen these gardens at a more propitious season. Their lofty avenues, carpetted with green, are highly picturesque, as well as magnificent, from the size and beauty of the trees, notwithstanding the regularity of their order. I know of no public gardens at Paris, or elsewhere, comparable in beauty to Kensington Gardens.-I have heard the three parks and gardens together, called the lungs of London. **This has been pointed out as an error: The senior secretary, then Dr. Wollaston, read the minutes, and the junior secretary, Mr. Davy the new matter.
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