The fish most “out of water” in the world is certainly
a Frenchman in England without acquaintances.
The illness of a friend has lately occasioned
me one or two hasty visits to Brighton; and being
abandoned on the first evening to the solitary mercies
of the coffee-room of the hotel, I amused myself not
a little with watching the ennui of one of these unfortunate
foreigners, who was evidently there simply to
qualify himself to say that he had been at Brighton
in the season. I arrived late, and was dining by myself
at one of the small tables, when, without looking
up, I became aware that some one at the other end of
the room was watching me very steadily. The place
was as silent as coffee-rooms usually are after the
dinner-hour, the rustling of newspapers the only sound
that disturbed the digestion of the eight or ten persons
present, when the unmistakeable call of “Vaitare!”
informed me that if I looked up I should encounter
the eyes of a Frenchman. The waiter entered at the
call, and after a considerable parley with my opposite
neighbor, came over to me and said in rather an
apologetic tone, “Beg pardon, sir, but the shevaleer
wishes to know if your name is Coopair.” Not very
much inclined, fatigued as I was, for a conversation
in French, which I saw would be the result of a polite
answer to his question, I merely shook my head, and
took up the newspaper. The Frenchman drew a long
sigh, poured out his last glass of claret, and crossing
his thumbs on the edge of the table, fell into a profound
study of the grain of the mahogany.

What with dawdling over coffee and tea and reading
half-a-dozen newspapers, I whiled away the time till
ten o'clock, pitying occasionally the unhappy chevalier,
who exhibited every symptom of a person bored to
the last extremity. One person after another called
for a bed-room candle, and exit finally the Frenchman
himself, making me, however, a most courteous
bow as he passed out. There were two gentlemen
left in the room, one a tall and thin old man of seventy,
the other a short portly gentleman of fifty or thereabouts,
both quite bald. They rose together and
came to the fire near which I was sitting.

“That last man who went out calls himself a chevalier,”
said the thin gentleman.

“Yes,” said his stout friend—“he took me for a
Mr. Cooper he had travelled with.”

“The deuce he did,” said the other—“why he
took me for a Mr. Cooper, too, and we are not very
much alike.”

“I beg pardon, gentlemen,” said I—“he took me
for this Mr. Cooper too.”

The Frenchman's ruse was discovered. It was instead
of a snuff-box—a way he had of making acquaintance.
We had a good laugh at our triple resemblance
(three men more unlike it would be difficult
to find), and bidding the two Messrs. Cooper
good night, I followed the ingenious chevalier up
stairs.

The next morning I came down rather late to breakfast,
and found my friend chipping his egg-shells to
pieces at the table next to the one I had occupied the
night before. He rose immediately with a look of
radiant relief in his countenance, made a most elaborate
apology for having taken me for Mr. Cooper
(whom I was so like, cependant, that we should be
mistaken for each other by our nearest friends), and
in a few minutes, Mr. Cooper himself, if he had entered
by chance, would have returned the compliment,
and taken me for the chevalier's most intimate friend
and fellow-traveller.

I remained three or four days at Brighton, and
never discovered in that time that the chevalier's ruse
succeeded with any other person. I was his only
successful resemblance to “Monsieur Coopair.” He
always waited breakfast for me in the coffee-room,
and when I called for my bill on the last morning, he
dropped his knife and asked if I was going to London—
and at what hour—and if I would be so obliging as
to take a place for him in the same coach.

It was a remarkably fine day; and with my friend
by my side outside of “the Age,” we sped on toward
London, the sun getting dimmer and dimmer, and the
fog thicker and more chilly at every mile farther from
the sea. It was a trying atmosphere for the best of
spirits—let alone the ever-depressed bosom of a stranger
in England. The coach stopped at the Elephant
and Castle, and I ordered down my baggage, and informed
my friend, for the first time, that I was bound
to a country-house six miles from town. I scarce
know how I had escaped telling him of it before, but
his “impossible mon ami!” was said in a tone and
accompanied with a look of the most complete surprise
and despair. I was evidently his only hope in
London.

I went up to town a day or two after; and in making
my way to Paternoster Row, I saw my friend on
the opposite side of the strand, with his hands thrust
up to the wrists in the pockets of his “Taglioni,” and
his hat jammed down over his eyes, looking into the
shop windows without much distinction between the
trunkmaker's and the printsellers—evidently miserable
beyond being amused at anything. I was too
much in a hurry to cross over and resume my office
of escape-valve to his ennui, and I soon outwalked his
slow pace, and lost sight of him. Whatever title he
had to the “chevalier” (and he was decidedly too
deficient in address to belong to the order “d'industric”),
he had no letter of recommendation in his
personal appearance, and as little the air of even a
Frenchman of “quality” as any man I ever saw in
the station of a gentleman. He is, in short, the person
who would first occur to me if I were to see a
paragraph in the times headed “suicide by a foreigner.”

Revenons un peu. Brighton at this season (November)
enjoys a climate, which, as a change from the
heavy air in the neighborhood of London, is extremely
exhilarating and agreeable. Though the first day of
my arrival was rainy, a walk up the west cliff gave me a
feeling of elasticity and lightness of spirits, of which I
was beginning to forget the very existence, in the
eternal fogs of the six months I had passed inland.
I do not wonder at the passion of the English for
Brighton. It is, in addition to the excellence of the
air, both a magnificent city and the most advantageous
ground for the discomfiture of the common enemy,
“winter and rough weather.” The miles of broad
gravel-walk just out of reach of the surf of the sea, so
hard and so smoothly rolled that they are dry in five
minutes after the rain has ceased to fall, are alone no
small item in the comfort of a town of professed idlers
and invalids. I was never tired of sauntering along
this smooth promenade so close to the sea. The
beautiful children, who throng the walks in almost all
weathers (and what children on earth are half as
beautiful as English children?) were to me a constant
source of pleasure and amusement. Tire of this, and
by crossing the street you meet a transfer of the gay
throngs of Regent street and Hyde Park, with splendid
shops and all the features of a metropolis, while
midway between the sea and this crowded sidewalk
pours a tide of handsome equipages, parties on horseback,
and vehicles of every description, all subservient
to exercise and pleasure.

My first visit to Brighton was made in a very cold
day in summer, and I saw it through most unfavorable
spectacles. But I should think that along the cliffs,
where there are no trees or vendure to be seen, there
is very little apparent difference between summer and
winter; and coming here with the additional clothing
of a severer season, the temperature of the elastic and
saline air is not even chilly. The most delicate

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children play upon the beach in days when there is no
sunshine; and invalids, wheeled out in these convenient
bath chairs, sit for hours by the seaside, watching
the coming and retreating of the waves, apparently
without any sensation of cold—and this in December.
In America (in the same latitudes with Leghorn and
Venice), an invalid sitting out of doors at this season
would freeze to death in half an hour. Yet it was as
cold in August, in England, as it has been in November,
and it is this temperate evenness of the weather
throughout the year which makes English climate,
on the whole, perhaps the healthiest in the world.

In the few days I was at Brighton, I became very
fond of the perpetual loud beat of the sea upon the
shore. Whether, like the “music of the spheres,”
it becomes at last “too constant to be heard,” I did
not ask—but I never lost the consciousness of it except
when engaged in conversation, and I found it
company to my thoughts when I dined or walked
alone, and a most agreeable lullaby at night. This
majestic monotone is audible all over Brighton, indoors
and out, and nothing overpowers it but the
wind in a storm; it is even then only by fits, and the
alternation of the hissing and moaning of the blast
with the broken and heavy plash of the waters, is so
like the sound of a tempest at sea (the whistling in the
rigging, and the burst of the waves), that those who
have been at Brighton in rough weather have realized
all of a storm at sea but the motion and the sea-sickness—
rather a large but not an undesirable diminution
of experience.

Calling on a friend at Brighton, I was introduced
casually to a Mr. Smith. The name, of course, did
not awaken any immediate curiosity, but a second
look at the gentleman did—for I thought I had never
seen a more intellectual or finer head. A fifteen
minutes' conversation, which touched upon nothing
that could give me a clue to his profession, still satisfied
me that so distinguished an address, and so keen
an eye, could belong to no nameless person, and I was
scarcely surprised when I read upon his card at parting—
Horace Smith. I need not say it was a very
great pleasure to meet him. I was delighted, too,
that the author of books we love as much as “Zillah,”
and “Brambletye-House,” looks unlike other men.
It gratifies somehow a personal feeling—as if those
who had won so much admiration from us should, for
our pride's sake, wear the undeniable stamp of superiority—
as if we had acquired a property in him by
loving him. How natural it is, when we have talked
and thought a great deal about an author, to call him
“ours.” “What Smith? Why our Smith—Horace
Smith”—is as common a dialogue between persons
who never saw him as it is among his personal friends.

These two remarkable brothers, James and Horace
Smith, are both gifted with exteriors such as are not
often possessed with genius—yet only James is so
fortunate as to have stumbled upon a good painter.
Lonsdale's portrait of James Smith, engraved by
Cousens, is both the author and the man—as fine a
picture of him, with his mind seen through his features,
as was ever done. But there is an engraved picture
extant of the author of Zillah, that, though it is no
likeness of the author, is a detestable caricature of the
man. Really this is a point about which distinguished
men, in justice to themselves, should take some
little care. Sir Thomas Lawrence's portraits, and
Sir Joshua Reynolds's, are a sort of biography of the
eminent men they painted. The most enduring
history, it has been said, is written in coins. Certainly
the most effective biography is expressed in portraits.
Long after the book and your impressions of
the character of which it treats have become dim in
your memory your impression of the features and
mien of a hero or a poet, as received from a picture,
remains indelible. How often does the face belie the
biography—making us think better or worse of the
man, after forming an opinion from a portrait in words,
that was either partial or malicious! I am persuaded
the world would think better of Shelley, if there were
a correct and adequate portrait of his face, as it has
been described to me by one or two who knew him.
How much of the Byronic idolatry is born and fed
from the idealized pictures of him treasured in every
portfolio! Sir Thomas Lawrence, Chalon, and Parris,
have composed between them a biography of Lady
Blessington, that have made her quite independent
of the “memoirs” of the next century. And who, I
may safely ask, even in America, has seen the nice,
cheerful, sensible, and motherly face which prefaces
the new edition of “The Manners of the American
Domestics” (I beg pardon for giving the title from my
Kentucky copy), without liking Mrs. Trollope a great
deal better, and at once dismissing all idea of “the
bazar” as a libel on that most lady-like countenance?

I think Lady S— had more talent and distinction
crowded into her pretty rooms, last night, than I ever
before saw in such small compass. It is a bijou of a
house, full of gems of statuary and painting, but all
its capacity for company lies in a small drawing-room,
a smaller reception-room, and a very small, but very
exquisite boudoir—yet to tell you who were there
would read like Colburn's list of authors, added to a
paragraph of noble diners-out from the Morning Post.

The largest lion of the evening certainly was the
new Persian ambassador, a man six feet in his slippers;
a height which, with his peaked calpack, of a foot and
a half, superadded, keeps him very much among the
chandeliers. The principal article of his dress does
not diminish the effect of his eminence—a long white
shawl worn like a cloak, and completely enveloping
him from beard to toe. From the twisted shawl
around his waist glitters a dagger's hilt, lumped with
diamonds—and diamonds, in most dazzling profusion,
almost cover his breast. I never saw so many
together except in a cabinet of regalia. Close behind
this steeple of shawl and gem, keeps, like a short
shadow when the sun is high, his excellency's secretary,
a dwarfishly small man, dressed also in cashmere
and calpack, and of a most ill-favored and bow-stringish
countenance and mien. The master and man seem
chosen for contrast, the countenance of the ambassador
expressing nothing but serene good nature. The
ambassador talks, too, and the secretary is dumb.

T— H— stood bolt upright against a mirrordoor,
looking like two T— H—s trying to see
which was taller. The one with his face to me looked
like the incarnation of the John Bull newspaper, for
which expression he was indebted to a very hearty
face, and a very round subject for a buttoned-up coat;
while the H— with his back to me looked like an
author, for which he was indebted to an exclusive view
of his cranium. I dare say Mr. H— would agree
with me that he was seen, on the whole, at a most enviable
advantage. It is so seldom we look, beyond the
man, at the author.

I have rarely seen a greater contrast in person and
expression than between H— and B—, who stood
near him. Both were talking to ladies—one bald,
burly, upright, and with a face of immovable gravity,
the other slight, with a profusion of curling hair, restless
in his movements, and of a countenance which
lights up with a sudden inward illumination. H—'s
partner in the conversation looked into his face with a
ready-prepared smile for what he was going to say,
B—'s listened with an interest complete, but without
effort. H— was suffering from what I think is the
common curse of a reputation for wit—the expectation
of the listener had outrun the performance.

H— B—, whose diplomatic promotion goes on
much faster than can be pleasing to “Lady Cheveley,”

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has just received his appointment to Paris—the object
of his first wishes. He stood near his brother, talking
to a very beautiful and celebrated woman, and I
thought, spite of her ladyship's unflattering description,
I had seldom seen a more intellectual face, or a
more gentlemanly and elegant exterior.

Late in the evening came in his royal highness the
duke of C—, and I wondered, as I had done many
times before, when in company with one of these royal
brothers, at the uncomfortable etiquette so laboriously
observed toward them. Wherever he moved in the
crowded rooms, everybody rose and stood silent, and
by giving way much more than for any one else, left
a perpetual circular space around him, in which, of
course, his conversation had the effect of a lecture to
a listening audience. A more embarrassed manner
and a more hesitating mode of speech than the duke's,
I can not conceive. He is evidently gêné to the last
degree with this burdensome deference; and one
would think that in the society of highly-cultivated
and aristocratic persons, such as were present, he
would be delighted to put his highness into his pocket
when the footman leaves him at the door, and hear no
more of it till he goes again to his carriage. There
was great curiosity to know whether the duke would
think it etiquetical to speak to the Persian, as in consequence
of the difference between the shah and the
British envoy the tall minister is not received at the
court of St. James. Lady S— introduced them,
however, and then the duke again must have felt his
rank nothing less than a nuisance. It is awkward
enough, at any time, to converse with a foreigner who
has not forty English words in his vocabulary, but
what with the duke's hesitating and difficult utterance,
the silence and attention of the listening guests, and
the Persian's deference and complete inability to comprehend
a syllable, the scene was quite painful.

There was some of the most exquisite amateur singing
I ever heard after the company thinned off a little,
and the fashionable song of the day was sung by a
most beautiful woman in a way to move half the company
to tears. It is called “Ruth,” and is a kind of
recitative of the passage in Scripture, “Where thou
goest I will go,” &c.

I have driven in the park several days, admiring the
queen on horseback, and observing the changes in the
fashions of driving, equipages, &c., &c. Her majesty
seems to me to ride very securely and fearlessly,
though it is no wonder that in a country where everybody
rides, there should be bolder and better horsewomen.
Miss Quentin, one of the maids of honor,
said to be the best female equestrian in England,
“takes the courage out” of the queen's horse every
morning before the ride—so she is secured against one
class of accidents. I met the royal party yesterday in
full gallop near the centre of Rotten Row, and the two
grooms who ride ahead had brief time to do their work
of making the crowd of carriages give way. On came
the queen upon a dun-colored, highly-groomed horse,
with her prime minister on one side of her and Lord
Byron upon the other, her cortège of maids of honor
and ladies and lords in waiting checking their more
spirited horses, and preserving always a slight distance
between themselves and her majesty. Victoria's round
and plump figure looks extremely well in her darkgreen
riding-dress, but I thought the man's hat unbecoming.
Her profile is not sufficiently good for
that trying style, and the cloth riding-cap is so much
prettier, that I wonder she does not remember that
“nice customs courtesy to great queens,” and wear
what suits her. She rode with her mouth open, and
looked exhilarated with the exercise. Lord Melbourne,
it struck me, was the only person in her party whose
face had not the constrained look of consciousness of
observation.

I observe that the “crack men” ride without martingals,
and that the best turnouts are driven without
a check-rein. The outstretched neck which is the
consequence, has a sort of Arab or blood look, probably
the object of the change; but the drooping head
when the horse is walking or standing seems to me
ugly and out of taste. All the new carriages are built
near the ground. The low park-phæton, light as a
child's plaything, and drawn by a pair of ponies, is the
fashionable equipage. I saw the prettiest thing conceivable
of this kind yesterday in the park—a lady
driving a pair of small cream-colored horses of great
beauty, with her two children in the phæton, and two
grooms behind mounted on cream-colored saddlehorses,
all four of the animals of the finest shape and
action. The new street cabs (precisely the old-fashioned
sedan-chair suspended between four wheels, a
foot from the ground) are imitated by private carriages,
and driven with two horses—ugly enough. The cabph
æton, is in great fashion, with either one or two
horses. The race of ponies is greatly improved since
I was in England. They are as well-shaped as the
large horse, with very fine coats and great spirit. The
children of the nobility go scampering through the
park upon them, looking like horsemen and horsewomen
seen through a reversed opera-glass. They
are scarce larger than a Newfoundland dog, but they
patter along with great speed. There is one fine lad
of about eight years, whose parents seem to have very
little care for his neck, and who, upon a fleet, milkwhite,
long-tailed pony, is seen daily riding at a rate
of twelve miles an hour through the most crowded
streets, with a servant on a tall horse plying whip and
spur to keep up with him. The whole system has the
droll effect of a mixture of Lilliput and Brobdignag.

We met the king of Oude a few days since at a party,
and were honored by an invitation to dine with his
majesty at his house in the Regent's park. Yesterday
was the appointed day; and with the pleasant anticipation
of an oriental feast, we drove up at seven,
and were received by his turbaned ayahs, who took
shawl and hat with a reverential salaam, and introduced
us to the large drawing-room overlooking the park.
The king was not yet down; but in the corner sat
three parsees or fire-worshippers, guests like ourselves,
who in their long white linen robes, bronze faces, and
high caps, looked like anything but “diners-out” in
London. To our surprise they addressed us in excellent
English, and we were told afterward that they
were all learned men—facts not put down to the credit
of the Ghebirs in Lalla Rookh.

We were called out upon the balcony to look at a
balloon that was hovering over the park, and on stepping
back into the drawing-room, we found the company
all assembled, and our royal host alone wanting.
There were sixteen English ladies present, and five
white gentlemen beside myself. The Orient, however,
was well represented. In a corner, leaning silently
against a table, stood Prince Hussein Mirza, the
king's cousin, and a more romantic and captivating
specimen of Hindoo beauty could scarcely be imagined.
He was slender, tall, and of the clearest olive
complexion, his night-black hair falling over his
shoulders in profusion, and his large antelope eyes
fixed with calm and lustrous surprise upon the halfdenuded
forms sitting in a circle before him. We
heard afterward that he has conceived a most uncontrollable
and unhappy passion for a high-born and
beautiful English girl whom he met in society, and
that it is with difficulty he is persuaded to come out
of his room. His dress was of shawls most gracefully
draped about him, and a cap of gold cloth was thrown
carelessly on the side of his head. Altogether he was
like a picture of the imagination.

A middle-aged stout man, ashy black, with Grecian

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features, and a most determined and dignified expression
of mouth, sat between Lady — and Miss Porter,
and this was the wakeel or ambassador of the
prince of Sutara, by name Afzul Ali. He is in England
on business for his master, and if he does not succeed
it will be no fault of his under lip. His secretary,
Keeram Ali, stood behind him—the wakeel dressed in
shawls of bright scarlet, with a white cashmere turban,
and the scribe in darker stuffs of the same fashion.
Then there was the king's physician, a short, wiry,
merry-looking, quick-eyed Hindoo, with a sort of quizzical
angle in the pose of his turban: the high-priest,
also a most merry-looking Oriental, and Ali Acbar, a
Persian attaché. I think these were all the Asiatics.

The king entered in a few minutes, and made the
circuit of the room, shaking hands most cordially with
all his guests. He is a very royal-looking person indeed.
Perhaps you might call him too corpulent, if
his fine height (a little over six feet), and very fine
proportions, did not give his large size a character of
majesty. His chest is full and round, and his walk
erect and full of dignity. He has the Italian olive
complexion, with straight hair, and my own remark at
first seeing him was that of many others, “How like
a bronze cast of Napoleon!” The subsequent study
of his features remove this impression, however, for
he is a most “merry monarch,” and is seldom seen
without a smile. His dress was a mixture of oriental
and English fashions—a pair of baggy blue pantaloons,
bound around the waist with a rich shawl, a splendid
scarlet waistcoat buttoned close over his spacious
chest, and a robe of very fine snuff-colored cloth something
like a loose dressing-gown without a collar. A
cap of silver cloth, and a brilliant blue satin cravat
completed his costume, unless in his covering should
be reckoned an enormous turquoise ring, which almost
entirely concealed one of his fingers.

Ekbal-ood-Dowlah, Nawaub of Oude (his name and
title), is at present appealing to the English against
his uncle, who usurps his throne by the aid and countenance
of the East India company. The Mohammedan
law, as I understand, empowers a king to choose
his successor from his children without reference
to primogeniture, and the usurper, though an elder
brother, having been imbecile from his youth, Ekbal's
father was selected by the then king of Oude to succeed
him. The question having been referred to
Lord Wellesley, however, then governor of India, he
decided that the English law of primogeniture should
prevail, or in other words (as the king's friends say)
preferred to have for the king of a subject province an
imbecile who would give him no trouble. So slipped
from the Nawaub's hands a pretty kingdom of six
millions of faithful Mohammedans! I believe this is
the “short” of the story. I wonder (we are reproached
so very often by the English for our treatment of
the Indians) whether a counter-chapter of “expedient
wrong” might not be made out from the history of the
Indians under British government in the east?

Dinner was announced with a Hindostanee salaam,
and the king gave his arm to Lady —. The rest
of us “stood not upon the order of our going,” and
I found myself seated at table between my wife and a
Polish countess, some half dozen removes from the
Nawaub's right hand. His highness commenced helping
those about him most plentifully from a large
pillau, talking all the while most merrily in broken
English, or resorting to Hindostanee and his interpreter
whenever his tongue got into trouble. With
the exception of one or two English joints, all the
dishes were prepared with rice or saffron, and (wine
being forbidden by the Mahommedan law) iced water
was served round from Indian coolers freely. For
one, I would have compounded for a bottle of wine
by taking the sin of the entire party on my soul, for,
what with the exhaustion of a long London day, and
the cloying quality of the Nawaub's rich dishes, I
began to be sorry I had not brought a flask in my
pocket. His majesty's spirits seemed to require no
aid from wine. He talked constantly, and shrewdly,
and well. He impresses every one with a high
estimate of his talents, though a more complete and
undisguised child of nature I never saw. Good sense,
with good humor, frankness, and simplicity, seem to
be his leading qualities.

We were obliged to take our leave early after dinner,
having other engagements for the evening, but
while coffee was serving, the Hindostanee cook, a
funny little old man, came in to receive the compliments
of the company upon his dinner, and to play
and dance for his majesty's amusement. He had at
his back a long Indian drum, which he called his
“tum tum,” and playing himself an accompaniment
upon this, he sang two or three comic songs in his
own language to a sort of wild yet merry air, very
much to the delight of all the orientals. Singer,
dancer, musician, and cook, the king certainly has a
jewel of a servant in him.

One moment bowing ourselves out from the presence
of a Hindoo king, and the next beset by an Irishman
with “Heaven bless your honor for the sixpence
you mean to give me!” what contrasts strike the traveller
in this great heart of the world! Paddy lighted
us to our carriage with his lantern, implored the coachman
to “dhrive carefully,” and then stood with his
head bent to catch the sound upon the pavement of
another sixpence for his tenderness. Wherever there
is a party in the fashionable quarters of London, these
Tantaluses flit about with their lanterns—for ever at
the door of pleasure, yet shivering and starving for
ever in their rags. What a life!

One of the most rational and agreeable of the fashionable
resorts in London is Kensington Gardens, on the
days when the royal band plays from five to seven
near the bridge of the Serpentine. Some twenty of
the best instrumental musicians of London station
themselves under the trees in this superb park (for
though called “gardens,” it is but a park with old
trees and greensward), and up and down the fine silky
carpet stroll hundreds of the fashionables of “May
fair and Belgrave square,” listening a little perhaps,
and chattering a great deal certainly. It is a good
opportunity to see what celebrated beauties look like
by daylight; and, truth to say, one comes to the conclusion
there, that candle-light is your true kalydor.
It is very ingeniously contrived by the grand chamberlain
that this public music should be played in a far
away corner of the park, inaccessible except by those
who have carriages. The plebeians, for whose use
and pleasure it seems at first sight graciously contrived,
are pretty well sifted by the two miles walk,
and a very aristocratic and well-dressed assembly indeed
is that of Kensington gardens.

Near the usual stand of the musicians runs a bridle-path
for horsemen, separated from the greensward by
a sunk fence, and as I was standing by the edge of the
ditch yesterday, the queen rode by, pulling up to listen
to the music, and smile right and left to the crowd of
cavaliers drawn up in the road. I pulled off my hat
and stood uncovered instinctively, but looking around
to see how the promenaders received her, I found to
my surprise that with the exception of a bald-headed
nobleman whem I chanced to know, the Yankee stood
alone in his homage to her.

I thought before I left America that I should find
the stamp of the new reign on manners, usages, conversation,
and all the outer form and pressure of society.
One can not fancy England under Elizabeth to
have struck a stranger as did England under James.
We think of Shakspere, Leicester, and Raleigh, and
conclude that under a female sovereign chivalry at

[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]

least shines brighter, and poetry should. A good
deal to my disappointment, I have looked in vain for
even a symptom of the queen's influence on anything.
She is as completely isolated in England, as entirely
above and out of the reach of the sympathies and
common thoughts of society, as the gilt grasshopper
on the steeple. At the opera and play, half the
audience do not even know she is there; in the park,
she rides among the throng with scarcely a head
turned to look after her; she is unthought of, and
almost unmentioned at balls, routes, and soirées; in
short, the throne seems to stand on glass—with no one
conductor to connect it with the electric chain of human
hearts and sympathies.

That Irish Channel has, as the English say, “a
nasty way with it.” I embarked at noon on the 26th,
in a magnificent steamer, the Royal Sovereign, which
had been engaged by Lord Eglinton (as per advertisement)
to set down at Ardrossan all passengers bound
to the tournament. This was a seventeen hours' job,
including a very cold, blowy, and rough night; and
of the two hundred passengers on board, one half
were so blest as to have berths or settees—the others
were unblest, indeed.

I found on board several Americans; and by the
time I had looked at the shape of the Liverpool harbor,
and seen one or two vessels run in before a slapping
breeze, the premonitory symptom (which had
already sent many to their berths) sent me to mine.
The boat was pitching backward and forward with a
sort of handsaw action that was not endurable. By
foregoing my dinner and preserving a horizontal position,
I escaped all sickness, and landed at Ardrossan
at six the next morning, with a thirty-six hours' fast
upon me, which I trusted my incipient gout would remember
as a per contra to the feast in the promised
“banquet.”

Ardrossan, built chiefly, I believe, by Lord Eglinton's
family, and about eight miles from the castle, is
a small but very clean and thrifty-looking hamlet on
that part of the western coast of Scotland which lies
opposite the Isle of Arran. Ailsa Rock, famous in
song, slumbers like a cloud in the southwestern borizon.
The long breakers of the channel lay their lines
of foam almost upon the street, and the harbor is
formed by a pier jutting out from a little promontory
on the northern extremity of the town. The one
thoroughfare of Ardrossan is kept clean by the broom
of every wind that sweeps the Irish sea. A cleaner or
bleaker spot I never saw.

A Gael, who did not comprehend a syllable of such
English as a Yankee delivers, shouldered my portmanteau
without direction or request, and travelled
away to the inn, where he deposited it and held out
his hand in silence. There was certainly quite enough
said between us; and remembering the boisterous accompaniment
with which the claims of porters are
usually pushed upon one's notice, I could well wish
that Gaelic tide-waiters were more common.

“Any room, landlord?” was the first question.—
“Not a cupboard, sir,” was the answer.—“Can you
give me some breakfast?” asked fifty others in a breath.—
“Breakfast will be put upon all the tables presently,
gentlemen,” said the dismayed Boniface, glancing at
the crowds who were pouring in, and, Scotchmanlike,
making no promises to individuals.—“Landlord!”
vociferated a gentleman from the other side of the
hall—“what the devil does this mean? Here's the
room I engaged a fortnight ago occupied by a dozen
people shaving and dressing!”—“I canna help it, sir!
Ye're welcome to turn 'em a' out—if ye can!” said
the poor man, lifting up his hands in despair, and retreating
to the kitchen. The hint was a good one,
and taking up my own portmanteau, I opened a door
in one of the passages. It led into a small apartment,
which in more roomy times might have been a pantry,
but was now occupied by three beds and a great variety
of baggage. There was a twopenny glass on the
mantel-piece, and a drop or two of water in a pitcher,
and where there were sheets I could make shift for a
towel. I found presently, by the way, that I had had
a narrow escape of surprising some one in bed, for
the sheet which did duty as a napkin was still warm
with the pressure of the newly-fled occupant.

Three or four smart-looking damsels in caps looked
in while I was engaged in my toilet, and this, with one
or two slight observations made in the apartment, convinced
me that I had intruded on the dormitory of the
ladies' maids belonging to the various parties in the
house. A hurried “God bless us!” as they retreated,
however, was all either of reproach or remonstrance
that I was troubled with; and I emerged with a
smooth chin in time for breakfast, very much to the
envy and surprise of my less-enterprising companions.

There was a great scramble for the tea and toast;
but, uniting forces with a distinguished literary man
whose acquaintance I had been fortunate enough to
make on board the steamer, we managed to get places
at one of the tables, and achieved our breakfasts in
tolerable comfort. We were still eight miles from
Eglinton, however, and a lodging was the next matter
of moment. My friend thought he was provided for
nearer the castle, and I went into the street, which I
found crowded with distressed-looking people, flying
from door to door, with ladies on their arms and wheelbarrows
of baggage at their heels, the townspeople
standing at the doors and corners staring at the novel
spectacle in open-mouthed wonder. Quite in a dilemma
whether or not to go on to Irvine (which, being
within two miles of the castle, was probably much
more over-run than Ardrossan), I was standing at the
corner of the street, when a Liverpool gentleman,
whose kindness I must record as well as my pleasure
in his society for the two or three days we were together,
came up and offered me a part of a lodging he
had that moment taken. The bed was what we call
in America a bunk, or a kind of berth sunk into the
wall, and there were two in the same garret, but the
sheets were clean; and there was a large bible on the
table—the latter a warrant for civility, neatness, and
honesty, which, after many years of travel, I have
never found deceptive. I closed immediately with
my friend; and whether it was from a smack of authorship
or no, I must say I took to my garret very
kindly.

It was but nine o'clock, and the day was on my
hands. Just beneath the window ran a railroad, built
to bring coal to the seaside, and extending to within
a mile of the castle; and with some thirty or forty
others, I embarked in a horse-car for Eglinton to see
the preparations for the following day's tournament.
We were landed near the park gate, after an hour's
drive through a flat country blackened with coal-pits;
and it was with no little relief to the eye that I entered
upon a smooth and gravelled avenue, leading by
a mile of shaded windings to the castle. The day was
heavenly; the sun-flecks lay bright as “patines of
gold” on the close-shaven grass beneath the trees;
and I thought that nature had consented for once to
remove her eternal mist-veil from Scotland, and let
pleasure and sunshine have a holyday together. The
sky looked hard and deep; and I had no more

[figure description] Page 188.[end figure description]

apprehension of rain for the morrow than I should have had
under a July sun in Asia.

Crossing a bright little river (the Lugton, I think
it is called), whose sloping banks, as far as I could see
up and down, were shaven to the rich smoothness of
“velvet of three-pile,” I came in sight of the castle
towers. Another bridge over a winding of the same
river lay to the left, a Gothic structure of the most
rich and airy mould, and from either end of this extended
the enclosed passage for the procession to the
lists. The castle stood high upon a mound beyond. Its
round towers were half concealed by some of the finest
trees I ever saw; and though less antique and of a less
rowning and rude aspect than I had expected, it was
a very perfect specimen of modern castellated architecture.
On ascending to the lawn in front of the
castle, I found that it was built less upon a mound
than upon the brow of a broad plateau of table-land,
turned sharply by the Lugton, close under the castle
walls—a natural sight of singular beauty. Two Saracenic-looking
tents of the gayest colors were pitched
upon the bright-green lawn at a short distance, and
off to the left, by several glimpses through the trees,
I traced along the banks of the river the winding enclosures
for the procession.

The large hall was crowded with servants; but presuming
that a knight who was to do his devoir so conspicuously
on the morrow would not be stirring at so
early an hour, I took merely a glance of the armor
upon the walls in passing, and deferring the honor of
paying my respects, crossed the lawn and passed over
the Lugton by a rustic foot-bridge in search of the
lists. A cross-path (leading by a small temple enclosed
with wire netting, once an aviary, perhaps, but
now hung around in glorious profusion with game,
venison, a boar's head, and other comestibles), brought
me in two or three minutes to a hill-side overlooking
the chivalric arena. It was a beautiful sight of itself
without plume or armor. In the centre of a verdant
plain, shut in by hills of an easy slope, wooded richly,
appeared an oblong enclosure glittering at either end
with a cluster of tents, striped with the gayest colors
of the rainbow. Between them, on the farther side,
stood three galleries, of which the centre was covered
with a Gothic roof highly ornamented, the four front
pillars draped with blue damask, and supporting a canopy
over the throne intended for the queen of beauty.
A strongly-built barrier extended through the lists;
and heaps of lances, gay flags, and the heraldic ornaments,
still to be added to the tents, lay around on
the bright grass in a picture of no little richness. I
was glad afterward that I had seen thus much with
the advantage of an unclouded sun.

In returning, I passed in the rear of the castle, and
looked into the temporary pavilions erected for the
banquet and ball. They were covered exteriorly with
rough board and sails, and communicated by an enclosed
gallery with one of the larger apartments of the
castle. The workmen were still nailing up the drapery,
and arranging lamps and flowers; but with all this disadvantage,
the effect of the two immense halls, lined as
they were with crimson and white in broad alternate
stripes, resembling in shape and fashion two gigantic
tents, was exceedingly imposing. Had the magnificent
design of Lord Eglinton been successfully carried out,
it would have been a scene, with the splendor of the
costumes, the lights, music, and revelry, unsurpassed,
probably, by anything short of enchantment.

I was awakened at an early hour the morning after
my arrival at Ardrossan by a band of music in the
street. My first feeling was delight at seeing a bit of
blue sky of the size of my garret skylight, and a dazzling
sunshine on the floor. “Skirling” above all the
other instruments of the band, the Highland bagpipe
made the air reel with “A' the blue bonnets are over
the border,” and, hoisting the window above my head,
I strained over the house-leads to get a look at the
performer. A band of a dozen men in kilt and bonnet
were marching up and down, led by a piper, something
in the face like the heathen representations of Boreas;
and on a long line of roughly-constructed rail-cars
were piled, two or three deep, a crowd resembling, at
first sight, a crushed bed of tulips. Bonnets of every
cut and color, from the courtier's green velvet to the
shepherd's homely gray, struggled at the top; and
over the sides hung red legs and yellow legs, crossbarred
stockings and buff boots, bare feet and pilgrim's
sandals. The masqueraders scolded and laughed, the
boys halloed, the quiet people of Ardrossan stared in
grave astonishment, and, with the assistance of some
brawny shoulders, applied to the sides of the overladen
vehicles, the one unhappy horse got his whimsical
load under way for the tournament.

Train followed train, packed with the same motley
array; and at ten o'clock, after a clean and comfortable
Scotch breakfast in our host's little parlor, we sallied
forth to try our luck in the scramble for places.
After a considerable fight we were seated, each with a
man in his lap, when we were ordered down by the
conductor, who informed us that the chief of the
Campbells had taken the car for his party, and that,
with his band in the succeeding one, he was to go in
state (upon a railroad!) to Eglinton. Up swore half-a-dozen
Glasgow people, usurpers like ourselves, that
they would give way for no Campbell in the world;
and finding a stout hand laid on my leg to prevent my
yielding to the order to quit, I gave in to what might
be called as pretty a bit of rebellious republicanism as
you would find on the Mississippi. The conductor
stormed, but the Scotch bodies sat firm; and as Scot
met Scot in the fight, I was content to sit in silence
and take advantage of the victory. I learned afterward
that the Campbell chieftain was a Glasgow manufacturer;
and though he undoubtedly had a right to
gather his clan, and take piper and eagle's plume, there
might, possibly, be some jealous disapprobation at the
bottom of his townsmen's rudeness.

Campbell and his party presently appeared, and a
dozen or twenty very fine looking men they were. One
of the ladies, as well as I could see through the black
lace veil thrown over her cap and plumes, was a remarkably
handsome woman; and I was very glad when
the matter was compromised, and the Campbells were
distributed among our company. We jogged on at a
slow pace toward the tournament, passing thousands
of pedestrians, the men all shod, and the women all
barefoot, with their shoes in their hands, and nearly
every one, in accordance with Lord Eglinton's printed
request, showing some touch of fancy in his dress. A
plaid over the shoulder, or a Glengary bonnet, or, perhaps,
a goose-feather stuck jauntily in the cap, was
enough to show the feeling of the wearer, and quite
enough to give the crowd, all in all, a most festal and
joyous aspect.

The secluded bit of road between the rail-track and
the castle lodge, probably never before disturbed by
more than two vehicles at a time, was thronged with a
press of wheels, as closely jammed as Fleet street at
noon. Countrymen's carts piled with women and
children like loads of market-baskets in Kent; postchaises
with exhausted horses and occupants straining
their eyes forward for a sight of the castle; carriages
of the neighboring gentry with “bodkins” and overpacked
dickeys, all in costume; stout farmers on
horseback, with plaid and bonnet; gingerbread and
ale-carts, pony-carts, and coal-carts; wheelbarrows
with baggage, and porters with carpet-bags and

[figure description] Page 189.[end figure description]

hatboxes, were mixed up in merry confusion with the
most motley throng of pedestrians it has ever been my
fortune to join. The vari-colored tide poured in at
the open gate of the castle; and if I had seen no other
procession, the long-extended mass of caps, bonnets,
and plumes, winding through that shaded and beautiful
avenue, would have repaid me for no small proportion
of my subsequent discomfort. I remarked, by the
way, that I did not see a hat in the entire mile between
the porter's lodge and the castle.

The stables, which lay on the left of the approach
(a large square structure with turret and clock, very
like four methodist churches, dos-à-dos), presented
another busy and picturesque scene—horses half-caparisoned,
men-at-arms in buff and steel, and the
gay liveries of the nineteenth century paled by the revived
glories of the servitude of more knightly times.
And this part of the scene, too, had its crowd of laughing
and wondering spectators.

On reaching the Gothic bridge over the Lugton,
we came upon a cordon of police who encircled the
castle, turning the crowd off by the bridge in the direction
of the lists. Sorry to leave my merry and
motley fellow-pedestrians, I presented my card of invitation
and passed on alone to the castle. The sun
was at this time shining with occasional cloudingsover;
and the sward and road, after the two or three
fine days we had had, were in the best condition for
every purpose of the tournament.

Two or three noble trees with their foliage nearly
to the ground stood between me and the front of the
castle, as I ascended the slope above the river; and
the lifting of a stage curtain could scarce be more
sudden, or the scene of a drama more effectively composed,
than the picture disclosed by the last step upon
the terrace. Any just description of it, indeed, must
read like a passage from the “prompter's book.” I
stood for a moment, exactly where you would have
placed an audience. On my left rose a noble castle
with four round towers, the entrance thronged with
men-at-arms, and busy comers and goers in every
variety of costume. On the greensward in front of the
castle lounged three or four gentlemen archers in
suits of green silk and velvet. A cluster of grooms
under an immense tree on the right were fitting two
or three superb horses with their armor and caparisons,
while one beautiful blood palfrey, whose fine limbs
and delicately veined head and neck were alone visible
under his embroidered saddle and gorgeous trappings
of silk, was held by two “tigers” at a short distance.
Still farther on the right, stood a cluster of gayly decorated
tents; and in and out of the looped-up curtain
of the farthest passed constantly the slight forms of
lady archers in caps with snowy plumes, kirtles of
green velvet, and petticoats of white satin, quivers at
their backs and bows in their hands—one tall and
stately girl (an Ayrshire lady of very uncommon
beauty, whose name I took some pains to inquire),
conspicuous by her grace and dignity above all.

The back-ground was equally well composed—the
farther side of the lawn making a sharp descent to the
small river which bends around the castle, the opposite
shore thronged with thousands of spectators watching
the scene I have described; and in the distance behind
them, the winding avenue, railed in for the procession,
hidden and disclosed by turns among the
noble trees of the park, and alive throughout its whole
extent with the multitudes crowding to the lists.
There was a chivalric splendor in the whole scene,
which I thought at the time would repay one for a
long pilgrimage to see it—even should the clouds,
which by this time were coming up very threateningly
from the horizon, put a stop to the tournament altogether.

On entering the castle hall, a lofty room hung
round with arms, trophies of the chase, ancient
shields, and armor of every description, I found myself
in a crowd of a very merry and rather a motley
character—knights half armed, esquires in buff, palmers,
halberdiers, archers, and servants in modern
livery, here and there a lady, and here and there a
spectator like myself, and in a corner by one of the
Gothic windows—what think you?—a minstrel?—a
gray-haired harper?—a jester? Guess again—a reporter
for the Times! With a “walking dictionary”
at his elbow, in the person of the fat butler of the
castle, he was inquiring out the various characters in
the crowd, and the rapidity of his stenographic jottings-down
(with their lucid apparition in print two
days after in London) would, in the times represented
by the costumes about him, have burnt him at the
stake for a wizard with the consent of every knight in
Christendom.

I was received by the knight-marshal of the lists,
who did the honors of hospitality for Lord Eglinton
during his preparation for the “passage of arms;”
and finding an old friend under the gray beard and
scallop shell of a venerable palmer, whose sandal and
bare toes I chanced to stumble over, we passed in
together to the large dining-room of the castle.
“Lunch” was on the long table, and some two hundred
of the earl's out-lodging guests were busy at
knife and fork, while here and there were visible some
of those anachronisms which, to me, made the zest
of the tournament—pilgrims eating Périgord pics,
esquires dressing after the manner of the thirteenth
century diving most scientifically into the richer veins
of pátés de foie-gras, dames in ruff and farthingale discussing
blue blanc-mange, and a knight with an over-night
headache calling out for a cup of tea!

On returning to the hall of the castle, which was
the principal place of assemblage, I saw with no little
regret that ladies were coming from their carriages
under umbrellas. The fair archers tripped in doors
from their crowded tent, the knight of the dragon,
who had been out to look after his charger, was being
wiped dry by a friendly pocket handerckief, and all
countenances had fallen with the barometer. It was
time for the procession to start, however, and the
knights appeared, one by one, armed cap-à-pic, all
save the helmet, till at last the hall was crowded with
steel-clad and chivalric forms; and they waited only
for the advent of the queen of beauty. After admiring
not a little the manly bearing and powerful “thewes
and sinews” displayed by the array of modern English
nobility in the trying costumes and harness of olden
time, I stepped out upon the lawn with some curiosity
to see how so much heavy metal was to be got into a
demipique saddle. After one or two ineffectual attempts,
foiled partly by the restlessness of his horse,
the first knight called ingloriously for a chair. Another
scrambled over with great difficulty; and I fancy,
though Lord Waterford and Lord Eglinton, and one
other whom I noticed, mounted very gallantly and
gracefully, the getting to saddle was possibly the most
difficult feat of the day. The ancient achievement
of leaping on the steed's back from the ground in
complete armor would certainly have broken the
spine of any horse present, and was probably never
done but in story. Once in the saddle, however,
English horsemanship told well; and one of the finest
sights of the day I thought was the breaking away of
a powerful horse from the grooms, before his rider had
gathered up his reins, and a career at furious speed
through the open park, during which the steel-encumbered
horseman rode as safely as a fox-hunter, and
subdued the affrighted animal, and brought him back
in a style worthy of a wreath from the queen of
beauty.

Driven in by the rain, I was standing at the upper
side of the hall, when a movement in the crowd and
an unusual “making-way” announced the coming of

[figure description] Page 190.[end figure description]

the “cynosure of all eyes.” She entered from the
interior of the castle with her train held up by two
beautiful pages of ten or twelve years of age, and attended
by two fair and very young maids of honor.
Her jacket of ermine, her drapery of violet and blue
velvet, the collars of superb jewels which embraced
her throat and bosom, and her sparkling crown, were
on her (what they seldom are, but should be only)
mere accessaries to her own predominating and radiant
beauty. Lady Seymour's features are as nearly faultless
as is consistent with expression; her figure and
face are rounded to the complete fulness of the mould
for a Juno; her walk is queenly, and peculiarly unstudied
and graceful, yet (I could not but think then
and since) she was not well chosen for the queen of a
tournament. The character of her beauty, uncommon
and perfect as it is, is that of delicacy and loveliness—
the lily rather than the rose—the modest pearl,
not the imperial diamond. The eyes to flash over a
crowd at a tournament, to be admired from a distance,
to beam down upon a knight kneeling for a public
award of honor, should be full of command, dark,
lustrous, and fiery. Hers are of the sweetest and
most tranquil blue that ever reflected the serene
heaven of a happy hearth—eyes to love, not wonder
at, to adore and rely upon, not admire and tremble for.
At the distance at which most of the spectators of the
tournament saw Lady Seymour, Fanny Kemble's
stormy orbs would have shown much finer, and the
forced and imperative action of a stage-taught head
and figure would have been more applauded than the
quiet, nameless, and indescribable grace lost to all but
those immediately round her. I had seen the Queen
of Beauty in a small society, dressed in simple white,
without an ornament, when she was far more becomingly
dressed and more beautiful than here, and I have
never seen, since, the engravings and prints of Lady
Seymour which fill every window in the London
shops, without feeling that it was a profanation of a
style of loveliness that would be


—“prodigal enough
If it unveiled its beauty to the moon.”
The day wore on, and the knight-marshal of the
lists (Sir Charles Lamb, the stepfather of Lord
Eglinton, by far the most knightly looking person at
the tournament), appeared in his rich surcoat and
embossed armor, and with a despairing look at the increasing
torrents of rain, gave the order to get to
horse. At the first blast of the trumpet, the thick-leaved
trees around the castle gave out each a dozen
or two of gay colored horsemen who had stood almost
unseen under the low-hanging branches—mounted
musicians in silk and gay trappings, mounted men-at-arms
in demi-suits of armor, deputy marshals and
halberdiers; and around the western tower, where
their caparisons had been arranged and their horse-armor
carefully looked to, rode the glittering and
noble company of knights, Lord Eglinton in his armor
of inlaid gold, and Lord Alford, with his athletic
frame and very handsome features, conspicuous above
all. The rain, meantime, spared neither the rich
tabard of the pursuivant, nor the embroidered saddle-cloths
of the queen's impatient palfrey; and after a
half-dozen of dripping detachments had formed and
led on, as the head of the procession, the lady-archers
(who were to go on foot) were called by the marshal
with a smile and a glance upward which might have
been construed into a tacit advice to stay in doors.
Gracefully and majestically, however, with quiver at
her back, and bow in hand, the tall and fair archer of
whose uncommon beauty I have already spoken,
stepped from the castle door; and, regardless of the
rain which fell in drops; a large as pearls on her unprotected
forehead and snowy shoulders, she took her
place in the procession with her silken-booted troop
picking their way very gingerly over the pools behind
her. Slight as the circumstance may seem, there
was in the manner of the lady, and her calm disregard
of self in the cause she had undertaken, which would
leave me in no doubt where to look for a heroine
were the days of Wallace (whose compatriot she is)
to come over again. The knight-marshal put spurs
to his horse, and re-ordered the little troop to the
castle; and regretting that I had not the honor of the
lady's acquaintance for my authority, I performed my
only chivalric achievement for the day, the sending a
halberdier whom I had chanced to remember as the
servant of an old friend, on a crusade into the castle
for a lady's maid and a pair of dry stockings! Whether
they were found, and the fair archer wore them, or
where she and her silk-shod company have the tournament
consumption, rheumatism, or cough, at this
hour, I am sorry I can not say.

The judge of peace, Lord Saltoun, with his wand,
and retainers on foot bearing heavy battle-axes, was
one of the best figures in the procession; though, as
he was slightly gray, and his ruby velvet cap and saturated
ruff were poor substitutes for a warm cravat
and hat-brim, I could not but associate his fine horse-manship
with a sore throat, and his retainers and their
battle-axes with relays of nurses and hot flannels. The
flower of the tournament, in the representing and
keeping up of the assumed character, however, was its
king, Lord Londonderry. He, too, is a man, I should
think, on the shady side of fifty, but of just the high
preservation and embonpoint necessary for a royal presence.
His robe of red velvet and ermine swept the
ground as he sat in his saddle; and he managed to
keep its immense folds free of his horse's legs, and
yet to preserve its flow in his prancing motion, with a
grace and ease, I must say, which seemed truly imperial.
His palfrey was like a fiery Arabian, all action,
nerve, and fire; and every step was a rearing
prance, which, but for the tranquil self-possession and
easy control of the king, would have given the spectators
some fears for his royal safety. Lord Londonderry's
whole performance of his part was without a
fault, and chiefly admirable, I thought, from his sustaining
it with that unconsciousness and entire freedom
from mauvaise honte which the English seldom can
command in new or conspicuous situations.

The queen of beauty was called, and her horse led
to the door; but the water ran from the blue saddlecloth
and housings like rain from a roof, and the storm
seemed to have increased with the sound of her name.
She came to the door, and gave a deprecating look
upward which would have mollified anything but a
Scotch sky, and, by the command of the knight marshal,
retired again to wait for a less chivalric but drier
conveyance. Her example was followed by the other
ladies, and their horses were led riderless in the procession.

The knights were but half called when I accepted
a friend's kind offer of a seat in his carriage to the lists.
The entire park, as we drove along, was one vast expanse
of umbrellas; and it looked from the carriagewindow,
like an army of animated and gigantic mushrooms,
shouldering each other in a march. I had no
idea till then of the immense crowd the occasion had
drawn together. The circuitous route railed in for
the procession was lined with spectators six or seven
deep, on either side, throughout its whole extent of a
mile; the most distant recesses of the park were
crowded with men, horses, and vehicles, all pressing
onward; and as we approached the lists we found the
multitude full a quarter of a mile deep, standing on all
the eminences which looked down upon the enclosure,
as closely serried almost as the pit of the opera, and
all eyes bent in one direction, anxiously watching the
guarded entrance. I heard the number of persons
present variously estimated during the day, the

[figure description] Page 191.[end figure description]

estimates ranging from fifty to seventy-five thousand, but
I should think the latter was nearer the mark.

We presented our tickets at the private door, in the
rear of the principal gallery, and found ourselves introduced
to a very dry place among the supports and
rafters of the privileged structure. The look-out was
excellent in front, and here I proposed to remain, declining
the wet honor of a place above stairs. The
gentleman-usher, however, was very urgent for our
promotion; but as we found him afterward chatting
very familiarly with a party who occupied the seats
we had selected, we were compelled to relinquish the
flattering unction that he was actuated by an intuitive
sense of our deservings. On ascending to the covered
gallery, I saw, to my surprise, that some of the best
seats in front were left vacant, and here and there,
along the different tiers of benches, ladies were crowding
excessively close together, while before or behind
them there seemed plenty of unoccupied room. A
second look showed me small streams of water coming
through the roof, and I found that a dry seat was
totally unattainable. The gallery held about a thousand
persons (the number Lord Eglinton had invited
to the banquet and ball), and the greater part of these
were ladies, most of them in fancy dresses, and the remainder
in very slight demi-toilette—everybody having
dressed apparently with a full reliance on the morning's
promise of fair weather. Less fortunate than
the multitude outside, the earl's guests seemed not to
have numbered umbrellas among the necessities of a
tournament; and the demand for this despised invention
was sufficient (if merit were ever rewarded) to
elevate it for ever after to a rank among chivalric appointments.
Substitutes and imitations of it were
made of swords and cashmeres; and the lenders of
veritable umbrellas received smiles which should induce
them, one would think, to carry half-a-dozen to
all future tournaments in Scotland. It was pitiable
to see the wreck going on among the perishable elegancies
of Victorine and Herbault—chip hats of the
most faultless tournure collapsing with the wet;
starched ruffs quite flat; dresses passing helplessly
from “Lesbia's” style to “Nora Creina's;” shawls,
tied by anxious mammas over chapeau and coiffure,
crushing pitilessly the delicate fabric of months of invention;
and, more lamentable still, the fair brows and
shoulders of many a lovely woman proving with rainbow
clearness that the colors of the silk or velvet composing
her head-dress were by no means “fast.” The
Irvine archers, by the way, who, as the queen's bodyguard,
were compelled to expose themselves to the
rain on the grand staircase, resembled a troop of New-Zealanders
with their faces tattooed of a delicate
green; though, as their Lincoln bonnets were all
made of the same faithless velvet, they were fortunately
streaked so nearly alike as to preserve their uniform.

After a brief consultation between the rheumatisms
in my different limbs, it was decided (since it was vain
to hope for shelter for the entire person) that my clothcap
would be the best recipient for the inevitable wet;
and selecting the best of the vacated places, I seated
myself so as to receive one of the small streams as
nearly as possible on my organ of firmness. Here I
was undisturbed, except that once I was asked (my
seat supposed to be a dry one) to give place to a lady
newly arrived, who, receiving my appropriated rivulet
in her neck, immediately restored it to me with many
acknowledgments, and passed on. In point of position,
my seat, which was very near the pavilion of the
queen of beauty, was one of the best at the tournament;
and diverting my aqueduct, by a little management,
over my left shoulder, I contrived to be more
comfortable, probably, than most of my shivering and
melancholy neighbors.

A great agitation in the crowd, and a dampish sound
of coming trumpets, announced the approach of the
procession. As it came in sight, and wound along the
curved passage to the lists, its long and serpentine line
of helmets and glittering armor, gonfalons, spearpoints,
and plumes, just surging above the moving sea
of umbrellas, had the effect of some gorgeous and
bright-scaled dragon swimming in troubled waters.
The leaders of the long cavalcade pranced into the
arena at last, and a tremendous shout from the multitude
announced their admiration of the spectacle. On
they came toward the canopy of the queen of beauty,
men-at-arms, trumpeters, heralds, and halberdiers, and
soon after them the king of the tournament, with his
long scarlet robe flying to the tempest, and his rearing
palfrey straining every nerve to show his pride and
beauty. The first shout from the principal gallery
was given in approbation of this display of horsemanship,
as Lord Londonderry rode past; and considering
the damp state of the enthusiasm which prompted
it, it should have been considered rather flattering.
Lord Eglinton came on presently, distinguished above
all others no less by the magnificence of his appointments
than by the ease and dignity with which he
rode, and his knightly bearing and stature. His
golden armor sat on him as if he had been used to
wear it; and he managed his beautiful charger, and
bowed in reply to the reiterated shouts of the multitude
and his friends, with a grace and chivalric courtesy
which drew murmurs of applause from the spectators
long after the cheering had subsided.

The jester rode into the lists upon a gray steed,
shaking his bells over his head, and dressed in an odd
costume of blue and yellow, with a broad-flapped hat,
asses' ears, &c. His character was not at first understood
by the crowd, but he soon began to excite merriment
by his jokes, and no little admiration by his
capital riding. He was a professional person, I think
it was said, from Astley's, but as he spoke with a most
excellent Scotch “burr,” he easily passed for an indigenous
“fool.” He rode from side to side of the
lists during the whole of the tournament, borrowing
umbrellas, quizzing the knights, &c.

One of the most striking features of the procession
was the turn-out of the knight of the Gael, Lord
Glenlyon, with seventy of his clansmen at his back
in plaid and philibeg, and a finer exhibition of calves
(without a joke) could scarce be desired. They followed
their chieftain on foot, and when the procession
separated, took up their places in line along the
palisade, serving as a guard to the lists.

After the procession had twice made the circuit of
the enclosure, doing obeisance to the queen of beauty,
the jester had possession of the field while the knights
retired to don their helmets (hitherto carried by their
esquires), and to await the challenge to combat. All
eyes were now bent upon the gorgeous clusters of
tents at either extremity of the oblong area; and in a
very few minutes the herald's trumpet sounded, and
the knight of the swan rode forth, having sent his defiance
to the knight of the golden lion. At another
blast of the trumpet they set their lances in rest, selected
opposite sides of the long fence or barrier running
lengthwise through the lists, and rode furiously
past each other, the fence of course preventing any
contact except that of their lances. This part of the
tournament (the essential part, one would think) was,
from the necessity of the case, the least satisfactory of
all. The knights, though they rode admirably, were
so oppressed by the weight of their armor, and so embarrassed
in their motions by the ill-adjusted joints,
that they were like men of wood, unable apparently
even to raise the lance from the thigh on which it
rested. I presume no one of them either saw where
he should strike his opponent, or had any power of
directing the weapon. As they rode close to the
fence, however, and a ten-foot pole sawed nearly off
in two or three places was laid crosswise on the legs

[figure description] Page 192.[end figure description]

of each, it would be odd if they did not come in contact;
and the least shock of course splintered the lance—
in other words, finished what was begun by the carpenter's
saw. The great difficulty was to ride at all
under such a tremendous weight, and manage a horse
of spirit, totally unused both to the weight and the
clatter of his own and his rider's armor. I am sure
that Lord Eglinton's horse, for one, would have
bothered Ivanhoe himself to “bring to the scratch;”
and Lord Waterford's was the only one that, for all
the fright he showed, might have been selected (as
they all should have been) for the virtue of having
peddled tin-ware. These two knights, by the way, ran
the best career, Lord Eglinton, malgre his bolter,
coming off the victor.

The rain, meantime, had increased to a deluge, the
queen of beauty sat shivering under an umbrella, the
jester's long ears were water-logged, and lay flat on
his shoulders, and everybody in my neighborhood had
expressed a wish for a dry seat and a glass of sherry.
The word “banquet” occurred frequently right and
left; hopes for “mulled wine or something hot before
dinner” stole from the lips of a mamma on the
seat behind; and there seemed to be but one chance
for the salvation of health predominant in the minds
of all, and that was drinking rather more freely than
usual at the approaching banquet. Judge what must
have been the astonishment, vexation, dread, and despair,
of the one thousand wet, shivering, and hungry
candidates for the feast, when Lord Eglinton rode up
to the gallery unhelmeted, and delivered himself as
follows:—

“Ladies and gentlemen, I had hoped to have given
you all a good dinner; but to my extreme mortification
and regret, I am just informed that the rain has
penetrated the banqueting pavilions, and that, in consequence,
I shall only be able to entertain so many of
my friends as can meet around my ordinary table.”

About as uncomfortable a piece of intelligence, to
some nine hundred and sixty of his audience, as they
could have received, short of a sentence for their immediate
execution.

To comprehend fully the disastrous extent of the
disappointment in the principal gallery, it must be
taken into consideration that the domicils, fixed or
temporary, of the rejected sufferers, were from five to
twenty miles distant—a long ride at best, if begun on
the point of famishing, and in very thin and well-saturated
fancy dresses. Grievance the first, however,
was nothing to grievance the second; viz., that from
the tremendous run upon post-horses and horses of all
descriptions, during the three or four previous days,
the getting to the tournament was the utmost that
many parties could achieve. The nearest baitingplace
was several miles off; and in compassion to the
poor beasts, and with the weather promising fair on
their arrival, most persons had consented to take
their chance for the quarter of a mile from the lists to
the castle, and had dismissed their carriages with
orders to return at the close of the banquet and ball—
daylight the next morning! The castle, everybody
knew, was crammed, from “donjon-keep to turrettop,”
with the relatives and intimate friends of the
noble earl, and his private table could accommodate
no more than these. To get home was the inevitable
alternative.

The rain poured in a deluge. The entire park was
trodden into a slough, or standing in pools of water—
carts, carriages, and horsemen, with fifty thousand
flying pedestrians, crowding every road and avenue.
How to get home with a carriage! How the deuce
to get home without one!

A gentleman, who had been sent out on the errand
of Noah's dove by a lady whose carriage and horses
were ordered at four the following morning, came
back with the mud up to his knees, and reported that
there was not a wheel-barrow to be had for love or
money. After threading the crowd in every direction,
he had offered a large sum, in vain, for a one-horse
cart!

Night was coming on, meantime, very fast; but
absorbed by the distresses of the shivering groups
around me, I had scarce remembered that my own invitation
was but to the banquet and ball—and my
dinner, consequently, nine miles off, at Ardrossan.
Thanking Heaven, that, at least, I had no ladies to
share my evening's pilgrimage, I followed the queen
of beauty down the muddy and slippery staircase, and,
when her majesty had stepped into her carriage, I
stepped over ankles in mud and water, and began my
wade toward the castle.

Six hours of rain, and the trampling of such an immense
multitude of men and horses, and converted
the soft and moist sod and soil of the park into a deep
and most adhesive quagmire. Glancing through the
labyrinth of vehicles on every side, and seeing men
and horses with their feet completely sunk below the
surface, I saw that there was no possibility of shying
the matter, and that wade was the word. I thought,
at first, that I had a claim for a little sympathy on the
score of being rather slenderly shod (the impalpable
sole of a pattern leather-boot being all that separated
me from the subsoil of the estate of Eglinton); but
overtaking, presently, a party of four ladies who had
lost several shoes in the mire, and were positively
wading on in silk stockings, I took patience to myself
from my advantage in the comparison, and thanked
fate for the thinnest sole with leather to keep it on.
The ladies I speak of were under the charge of a most
despairing-looking gentleman, but had neither cloak
nor umbrella, and had evidently made no calculations
for a walk. We differed in our choice of the two
sides of a slough, presently, and they were lost in the
crowd; but I could not help smiling, with all my pity
of their woes, to think what a turning up of prunella
shoes there will be, should Lord Eglinton ever plough
the chivalric field of the Tournament.

As I reached the castle, I got upon the Macadamised
road, which had the advantage of a bottom somewhere,
though it was covered with a liquid mud, of which
every passing foot gave you a spatter to the hips. My
exterior was by this time equally divided between
water and dirt, and I trudged on in comfortable fellowship
with farmers, coal-miners, and Scotch lasses—
envying very much the last, for they carried their
shoes in their hands, and held their petticoats, to say
the least, clear of the mud. Many a good joke they
seemed to have among them, but as they spoke in
Gaelic, it was lost on my Sassenach ears.

I had looked forward with a faint hope to a gingerbread
and ale-cart, which I remembered having seen
in the morning established near the terminus of the
railroad, trusting to refresh my strength and patience
with a glass of anything that goes under the generic
appellation of “summat;” but though the cart was
there, the gingerbread shelf was occupied by a row of
Scotch lasses, crouching together under cover from
the rain, and the pedlar assured me that “there wasna
a drap o' speerit to be got within ten mile o' the castle.”
One glance at the railroad, where a car with a single
horse was beset by some thousands of shoving and
fighting applicants, convinced me that I had a walk
of eight miles to finish my “purgation by” tournament;
and as it was getting too dark to trust to any
picking of the way, I took the middle of the rail-track,
and set forward.

Eight miles in a heavy rain, with boots of the consistence
of brown paper, and a road of alternate deep
mud and broken stone, should entitle one to the green

[figure description] Page 193.[end figure description]

turban. I will make the pilgrimage of a Hadji from
the “farthest inn” with half the endurance.

I found my Liverpool friends over a mutton-chop
in the snug parlor of our host, and with a strong brew
of hot toddy, and many a laugh at the day's adventures
by land and water, we got comfortably to bed “somewhere
in the small hours.” And so ended the great
day of the tournament.

After witnessing the disasters of the first day, the
demolition of costumes, and the perils by water, of
masqueraders and spectators, it was natural to fancy
that the tournament was over. So did not seem to
think several thousands of newly-arrived persons,
pouring from steamer after steamer upon the pier of
Ardrossan, and in every variety of costume, from the
shepherd's mand to the courtier's satin, crowding to
the rail-cars for Eglinton. It appeared from the
chance remarks of one or two who came to our lodgings
to deposite their carpet-bags, that it had rained
very little in the places from which the steamers had
come, and that they had calculated on the second as
the great day of the joust. No dissuasion had the
least effect upon them, and away they went, bedecked
and merry, the sufferers of the day before looking out
upon them, from comfortable hotel and lodging, with
prophetic pity.

At noon the sky brightened; and as the cars were
running by this time with diminished loads, I parted
from my agreeable friends, and bade adieu to my
garret at Ardrossan. I was bound to Ireland, and my
road lay by Eglinton to Irvine and Ayr. Fellowpassengers
with me were twenty or thirty men in
Glengary bonnets, plaids, &c.; and I came in for my
share of the jeers and jokes showered upon them by
the passengers in the return-cars, as men bound on a
fruitless errand. As we neared the castle, the crowds
of people with disconsolate faces waiting for conveyances,
or standing by the reopened gingerbread carts
in listless idleness, convinced my companions, at last,
that there was nothing to be seen, for that day at least,
at Eglinton. I left them sitting in the cars, undecided
whether to go on or return without losing their places;
and seeing a coach marked “Irvine” standing in the
road, I jumped in without question or ceremony. It
belonged to a private party of gentlemen, who were to
visit the castle and tilting-ground on their way to
Irvine; and as they very kindly insisted on my remaining
after I had apologised for the intrusion, I
found myself “booked” for a glimpse of the second
day's attractions.

The avenue to the castle was as crowded as on the
day before; but it was curious to remark how the
general aspect of the multitude was changed by the
substitution of disappointment for expectation. The
lagging gait and surly silence, instead of the elastic
step and merry joke, seemed to have darkened the
scene more than the withdrawal of the sun, and I was
glad to wrap myself in my cloak, and remember that
I was on the wing. The banner flying at the castle
tower was the only sign of motion I could see in its
immediate vicinity; the sail-cloth coverings of the
pavilion were dark with wet; the fine sward was everywhere
disfigured with traces of mud, and the whole
scene was dismal and uncomfortable. We kept on to
the lists, and found them, as one of my companions
expressed it, more like a cattle-pen after a fair than a
scene of pleasure—trodden, wet, miry, and deserted.
The crowd, content to view them from a distance,
were assembled around the large booths on the ascent
of the rising ground toward the castle, where a band
was playing some merry reels, and the gingerbread
and ale venders plied a busy vocation. A look was
enough; and we shaped our course for Irvine, sympathizing
deeply with the disappointment of the highspirited
and generous lord of the Tourney. I heard
at Irvine, and farther on, that the tilting would be re
newed, and the banquet and ball given on the succeeding
days; but after the wreck of dresses and peril of
health I had witnessed, I was persuaded that the best
that could be done would be but a slender patching
up of the original glories, as well as a halting rally of
the original spirits of the tournament. So I kept on
my way.

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