Sketches and Travels in London Read online

other three before the tour is done)--seemed to be enjoying, I say,

  the above-named Greek quotation at our expense. Here is the dismal

  log of Wednesday, 4th of September: --"All attempts at dining very

  fruitless. Basins in requisition. Wind hard ahead. Que diable

  allais-je faire dans cette galere? Writing or thinking impossible:

  so read 'Letters from the AEgean.'" These brief words give, I

  think, a complete idea of wretchedness, despair, remorse, and

  prostration of soul and body. Two days previously we passed the

  forts and moles and yellow buildings of Algiers, rising very

  stately from the sea, and skirted by gloomy purple lines of African

  shore, with fires smoking in the mountains, and lonely settlements

  here and there.

  On the 5th, to the inexpressible joy of all, we reached Valetta,

  the entrance to the harbour of which is one of the most stately and

  agreeable scenes ever admired by sea-sick traveller. The small

  basin was busy with a hundred ships, from the huge guard-ship,

  which lies there a city in itself;--merchantmen loading and crews

  cheering, under all the flags of the world flaunting in the

  sunshine; a half-score of busy black steamers perpetually coming

  and going, coaling and painting, and puffing and hissing in and out

  of harbour; slim men-of-war's barges shooting to and fro, with long

  shining oars flashing like wings over the water; hundreds of

  painted town-boats, with high heads and white awnings,--down to the

  little tubs in which some naked, tawny young beggars came paddling

  up to the steamer, entreating us to let them dive for halfpence.

  Round this busy blue water rise rocks, blazing in sunshine, and

  covered with every imaginable device of fortification; to the

  right, St. Elmo, with flag and lighthouse; and opposite, the

  Military Hospital, looking like a palace; and all round, the houses

  of the city, for its size the handsomest and most stately in the

  world.

  Nor does it disappoint you on a closer inspection, as many a

  foreign town does. The streets are thronged with a lively

  comfortable-looking population; the poor seem to inhabit handsome

  stone palaces, with balconies and projecting windows of heavy

  carved stone. The lights and shadows, the cries and stenches, the

  fruit-shops and fish-stalls, the dresses and chatter of all

  nations; the soldiers in scarlet, and women in black mantillas; the

  beggars, boat-men, barrels of pickled herrings and macaroni; the

  shovel-hatted priests and bearded capuchins; the tobacco, grapes,

  onions, and sunshine; the signboards, bottled-porter stores, the

  statues of saints and little chapels which jostle the stranger's

  eyes as he goes up the famous stairs from the Water-gate, make a

  scene of such pleasant confusion and liveliness as I have never

  witnessed before. And the effect of the groups of multitudinous

  actors in this busy cheerful drama is heightened, as it were, by

  the decorations of the stage. The sky is delightfully brilliant;

  all the houses and ornaments are stately; castle and palaces are

  rising all around; and the flag, towers, and walls of Fort St. Elmo

  look as fresh and magnificent as if they had been erected only

  yesterday.

  The Strada Reale has a much more courtly appearance than that one

  described. Here are palaces, churches, court-houses and libraries,

  the genteel London shops, and the latest articles of perfumery.

  Gay young officers are strolling about in shell-jackets much too

  small for them: midshipmen are clattering by on hired horses;

  squads of priests, habited after the fashion of Don Basilio in the

  opera, are demurely pacing to and fro; professional beggars run

  shrieking after the stranger; and agents for horses, for inns, and

  for worse places still, follow him and insinuate the excellence of

  their goods. The houses where they are selling carpet-bags and

  pomatum were the palaces of the successors of the goodliest company

  of gallant knights the world ever heard tell of. It seems

  unromantic; but THESE were not the romantic Knights of St. John.

  The heroic days of the Order ended as the last Turkish galley

  lifted anchor after the memorable siege. The present stately

  houses were built in times of peace and splendour and decay. I

  doubt whether the Auberge de Provence, where the "Union Club"

  flourishes now, has ever seen anything more romantic than the

  pleasant balls held in the great room there.

  The Church of St. John, not a handsome structure without, is

  magnificent within: a noble hall covered with a rich embroidery of

  gilded carving, the chapels of the different nations on either

  side, but not interfering with the main structure, of which the

  whole is simple, and the details only splendid; it seemed to me a

  fitting place for this wealthy body of aristocratic soldiers, who

  made their devotions as it were on parade, and, though on their

  knees, never forgot their epaulets or their quarters of nobility.

  This mixture of religion and worldly pride seems incongruous at

  first; but have we not at church at home similar relics of feudal

  ceremony?--the verger with the silver mace who precedes the vicar

  to the desk; the two chaplains of my Lord Archbishop, who bow over

  his Grace as he enters the communion-table gate; even poor John,

  who follows my Lady with a coroneted prayer-book, and makes his

  conge as he hands it into the pew. What a chivalrous absurdity is

  the banner of some high and mighty prince, hanging over his stall

  in Windsor Chapel, when you think of the purpose for which men are

  supposed to assemble there! The Church of the Knights of St. John

  is paved over with sprawling heraldic devices of the dead gentlemen

  of the dead Order; as if, in the next world, they expected to take

  rank in conformity with their pedigrees, and would be marshalled

  into heaven according to the orders of precedence. Cumbrous

  handsome paintings adorn the walls and chapels, decorated with

  pompous monuments of Grand Masters. Beneath is a crypt, where more

  of these honourable and reverend warriors lie, in a state that a

  Simpson would admire. In the altar are said to lie three of the

  most gallant relics in the world: the keys of Acre, Rhodes, and

  Jerusalem. What blood was shed in defending these emblems! What

  faith, endurance, genius, and generosity; what pride, hatred,

  ambition, and savage lust of blood were roused together for their

  guardianship!

  In the lofty halls and corridors of the Governor's house, some

  portraits of the late Grand Masters still remain: a very fine one,

  by Caravaggio, of a knight in gilt armour, hangs in the dining-

  room, near a full-length of poor Louis XVI., in Royal robes, the

  very picture of uneasy impotency. But the portrait of De

  Vignacourt is the only one which has a respectable air; the other

  chiefs of the famous Society are pompous old gentlemen in black,

  with huge periwigs, and crowns round their hats, and a couple of

  melancholy pages in yellow and red. But pages and wigs and Grand

  Maste
rs have almost faded out of the canvas, and are vanishing into

  Hades with a most melancholy indistinctness. The names of most of

  these gentlemen, however, live as yet in the forts of the place,

  which all seem to have been eager to build and christen: so that

  it seems as if, in the Malta mythology, they had been turned into

  freestone.

  In the armoury is the very suit painted by Caravaggio, by the side

  of the armour of the noble old La Valette, whose heroism saved his

  island from the efforts of Mustapha and Dragut, and an army quite

  as fierce and numerous as that which was baffled before Gibraltar,

  by similar courage and resolution. The sword of the last-named

  famous corsair (a most truculent little scimitar), thousands of

  pikes and halberts, little old cannons and wall-pieces, helmets and

  cuirasses, which the knights or their people wore, are trimly

  arranged against the wall, and, instead of spiking Turks or arming

  warriors, now serve to point morals and adorn tales. And here

  likewise are kept many thousand muskets, swords, and boarding-pikes

  for daily use, and a couple of ragged old standards of one of the

  English regiments, who pursued and conquered in Egypt the remains

  of the haughty and famous French republican army, at whose

  appearance the last knights of Malta flung open the gates of all

  their fortresses, and consented to be extinguished without so much

  as a remonstrance, or a kick, or a struggle.

  We took a drive into what may be called the country; where the

  fields are rocks, and the hedges are stones--passing by the stone

  gardens of the Florian, and wondering at the number and

  handsomeness of the stone villages and churches rising everywhere

  among the stony hills. Handsome villas were passed everywhere, and

  we drove for a long distance along the sides of an aqueduct, quite

  a Royal work of the Caravaggio in gold armour, the Grand Master De

  Vignacourt. A most agreeable contrast to the arid rocks of the

  general scenery was the garden at the Governor's country-house;

  with the orange-trees and water, its beautiful golden grapes,

  luxuriant flowers, and thick cool shrubberies. The eye longs for

  this sort of refreshment, after being seared with the hot glare of

  the general country; and St. Antonio was as pleasant after Malta as

  Malta was after the sea.

  We paid the island a subsequent visit in November, passing

  seventeen days at an establishment called Fort Manuel there, and by

  punsters the Manuel des Voyageurs; where Government accommodates

  you with quarters; where the authorities are so attentive as to

  scent your letters with aromatic vinegar before you receive them,

  and so careful of your health as to lock you up in your room every

  night lest you should walk in your sleep, and so over the

  battlements into the sea--if you escaped drowning in the sea, the

  sentries on the opposite shore would fire at you, hence the nature

  of the precaution. To drop, however, this satirical strain: those

  who know what quarantine is, may fancy that the place somehow

  becomes unbearable in which it has been endured. And though the

  November climate of Malta is like the most delicious May in

  England, and though there is every gaiety and amusement in the

  town, a comfortable little opera, a good old library filled full of

  good old books (none of your works of modern science, travel, and

  history, but good old USELESS books of the last two centuries), and

  nobody to trouble you in reading them, and though the society of

  Valetta is most hospitable, varied, and agreeable, yet somehow one

  did not feel SAFE in the island, with perpetual glimpses of Fort

  Manuel from the opposite shore; and, lest the quarantine

  authorities should have a fancy to fetch one back again, on a

  pretext of posthumous plague, we made our way to Naples by the very

  first opportunity--those who remained, that is, of the little

  Eastern Expedition. They were not all there. The Giver of life

  and death had removed two of our company: one was left behind to

  die in Egypt, with a mother to bewail his loss, another we buried

  in the dismal lazaretto cemetery.

  * * *

  One is bound to look at this, too, as a part of our journey.

  Disease and death are knocking perhaps at your next cabin door.

  Your kind and cheery companion has ridden his last ride and emptied

  his last glass beside you. And while fond hearts are yearning for

  him far away, and his own mind, if conscious, is turning eagerly

  towards the spot of the world whither affection or interest calls

  it--the Great Father summons the anxious spirit from earth to

  himself, and ordains that the nearest and dearest shall meet here

  no more.

  Such an occurrence as a death in a lazaretto, mere selfishness

  renders striking. We were walking with him but two days ago on

  deck. One has a sketch of him, another his card, with the address

  written yesterday, and given with an invitation to come and see him

  at home in the country, where his children are looking for him. He

  is dead in a day, and buried in the walls of the prison. A doctor

  felt his pulse by deputy--a clergyman comes from the town to read

  the last service over him--and the friends, who attend his funeral,

  are marshalled by lazaretto-guardians, so as not to touch each

  other. Every man goes back to his room and applies the lesson to

  himself. One would not so depart without seeing again the dear

  dear faces. We reckon up those we love: they are but very few,

  but I think one loves them better than ever now. Should it be your

  turn next?--and why not? Is it pity or comfort to think of that

  affection which watches and survives you?

  The Maker has linked together the whole race of man with this chain

  of love. I like to think that there is no man but has had kindly

  feelings for some other, and he for his neighbour, until we bind

  together the whole family of Adam. Nor does it end here. It joins

  heaven and earth together. For my friend or my child of past days

  is still my friend or my child to me here, or in the home prepared

  for us by the Father of all. If identity survives the grave, as

  our faith tells us, is it not a consolation to think that there may

  be one or two souls among the purified and just, whose affection

  watches us invisible, and follows the poor sinner on earth?

  CHAPTER V: ATHENS

  Not feeling any enthusiasm myself about Athens, my bounden duty of

  course is clear, to sneer and laugh heartily at all who have. In

  fact, what business has a lawyer, who was in Pump Court this day

  three weeks, and whose common reading is law reports or the

  newspaper, to pretend to fall in love for the long vacation with

  mere poetry, of which I swear a great deal is very doubtful, and to

  get up an enthusiasm quite foreign to his nature and usual calling

  in life? What call have ladies to consider Greece "romantic," they

  who get their notions of mythology from the well-known pages of

  "Tooke's Pantheon"? What is the reason that blundering Yorkshire
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  squires, young dandies from Corfu regiments, jolly sailors from

  ships in the harbour, and yellow old Indians returning from

  Bundelcund, should think proper to be enthusiastic about a country

  of which they know nothing; the mere physical beauty of which they

  cannot, for the most part, comprehend; and because certain

  characters lived in it two thousand four hundred years ago? What

  have these people in common with Pericles, what have these ladies

  in common with Aspasia (O fie)? Of the race of Englishmen who come

  wandering about the tomb of Socrates, do you think the majority

  would not have voted to hemlock him? Yes: for the very same

  superstition which leads men by the nose now, drove them onward in

  the days when the lowly husband of Xantippe died for daring to

  think simply and to speak the truth. I know of no quality more

  magnificent in fools than their faith: that perfect consciousness

  they have, that they are doing virtuous and meritorious actions,

  when they are performing acts of folly, murdering Socrates, or

  pelting Aristides with holy oyster-shells--all for Virtue's sake;

  and a "History of Dulness in all Ages of the World," is a book

  which a philosopher would surely be hanged, but as certainly

  blessed, for writing.

  If papa and mamma (honour be to them!) had not followed the faith

  of their fathers, and thought proper to send away their only

  beloved son (afterwards to be celebrated under the name of

  Titmarsh) into ten years' banishment of infernal misery, tyranny,

  annoyance; to give over the fresh feelings of the heart of the

  little Michael Angelo to the discipline of vulgar bullies, who, in

  order to lead tender young children to the Temple of Learning (as

  they do in the spelling-books), drive them on with clenched fists

  and low abuse; if they fainted, revive them with a thump, or

  assailed them with a curse; if they were miserable, consoled them

  with a brutal jeer--if, I say, my dear parents, instead of giving

  me the inestimable benefit of a ten years' classical education, had

  kept me at home with my dear thirteen sisters, it is probable I

  should have liked this country of Attica, in sight of the blue

  shores of which the present pathetic letter is written; but I was

  made so miserable in youth by a classical education, that all

  connected with it is disagreeable in my eyes; and I have the same

  recollection of Greek in youth that I have of castor-oil.

  So in coming in sight of the promontory of Sunium, where the Greek

  Muse, in an awful vision, came to me, and said in a patronising

  way, "Why, my dear" (she always, the old spinster, adopts this high

  and mighty tone)--"Why, my dear, are you not charmed to be in this

  famous neighbourhood, in this land of poets and heroes, of whose

  history your classical education ought to have made you a master?

  if it did not, you have wofully neglected your opportunities, and

  your dear parents have wasted their money in sending you to

  school." I replied, "Madam, your company in youth was made so

  laboriously disagreeable to me, that I can't at present reconcile

  myself to you in age. I read your poets, but it was in fear and

  trembling; and a cold sweat is but an ill accompaniment to poetry.

  I blundered through your histories; but history is so dull (saving

  your presence) of herself, that when the brutal dulness of a

  schoolmaster is superadded to her own slow conversation, the union

  becomes intolerable: hence I have not the slightest pleasure in

  renewing my acquaintance with a lady who has been the source of so

  much bodily and mental discomfort to me." To make a long story

  short, I am anxious to apologise for a want of enthusiasm in the

  classical line, and to excuse an ignorance which is of the most

  undeniable sort.

  This is an improper frame of mind for a person visiting the land of

  AEschylus and Euripides; add to which, we have been abominably

  overcharged at the inn: and what are the blue hills of Attica, the

  silver calm basin of Piraeus, the heathery heights of Pentelicus,