Читать книгу Famous Persons and Places - N. P. Willis - Страница 8

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LORD JEFFREY AND HIS FAMILY—LORD BROUGHAM—COUNT FLAHAULT—POLITICS—THE “GREY” BALL—ABERDEEN—GORDON CASTLE.

I was engaged to dine with Lord Jeffrey on the same day that I had breakfasted with Wilson, and the opportunity of contrasting so closely these two distinguished men, both editors of leading Reviews, yet of different politics, and no less different minds, persons, and manners, was highly gratifying.

At seven o’clock I drove to Moray-place, the Grosvenor-square of Edinburgh. I was not sorry to be early, for never having seen my host, nor his lady (who, as is well known, is an American,) I had some little advantage over the awkwardness of meeting a large party of strangers. After a few minutes’ conversation with Mrs. Jeffrey, the door was thrown quickly open, and the celebrated editor of the Edinburgh, the distinguished lawyer, the humane and learned judge, and the wit of the day, par excellence, entered with his daughter. A frank, almost merry smile, a perfectly unceremonious, hearty manner, and a most playful and graceful style of saying the half-apologetic, half-courteous things, incident to a first meeting after a letter of introduction, put me at once at my ease, and established a partiality for him, impromptu, in my feelings. Jeffrey is rather below the middle size, slight, rapid in his speech and motion, never still, and glances from one subject to another, with less abruptness and more quickness than any man I had ever seen. His head is small, but compact and well-shaped; and the expression of his face, when serious, is that of quick and discriminating earnestness. His voice is rather thin, but pleasing; and if I had met him incidentally, I should have described him, I think, as a most witty and well-bred gentleman of the school of Wilkes and Sheridan. Perhaps as distinguishing a mark as either his wit or his politeness, is an honest goodness of heart; which, however it makes itself apparent, no one could doubt, who had been with Jeffrey ten minutes.

To my great disappointment, Mrs. Jeffrey informed me that Lord Brougham, who was their guest at the time, was engaged to a dinner, given by the new lord advocate to Earl Grey. I had calculated much on seeing two such old friends and fellow-wits as Jeffrey and Brougham at the same table, and I could well believe what my neighbor told me at dinner, that it was more than a common misfortune to have missed it.

A large dinner-party began to assemble, some distinguished men in the law among them, and last of all was announced Lady Keith, rather a striking and very fashionable person, with her husband, Count Flahault, who, after being Napoleon’s aid-de-camp at the battle of Waterloo, offered his beauty and talents, both very much above the ordinary mark, to the above named noble heiress. I have seen few as striking-looking men as Count Flahault, and never a foreigner who spoke English so absolutely like a native of the country.

The great “Grey dinner” had been given the day before, and politics were the only subject at table. It had been my lot to be thrown principally among tories (conservatives is the new name,) since my arrival in England, and it was difficult to rid myself at once of the impressions of a fortnight just passed in the castle of a tory Earl. My sympathies in the “great and glorious” occasion were slower than those of the company, and much of their enthusiasm seemed to me overstrained. Then I had not even dined with the two thousand whigs under the pavilion, and as I was incautious enough to confess it, I was rallied upon having fallen into bad company, and altogether entered less into the spirit of the hour than I could have wished. Politics are seldom witty or amusing, and though I was charmed with the good sense and occasional eloquence of Lord Jeffrey, I was glad to get up stairs after dinner to chasse-café and the ladies.

We were all bound to the public ball that evening, and at eleven I accompanied my distinguished host to the assembly-room. Dancing was going on with great spirit when we entered; Lord Grey’s statesman-like head was bowing industriously on the platform; Lady Grey and her daughters sat looking on from the same elevated position, and Lord Brougham’s ugliest and shrewdest of human faces, flitted about through the crowd, good fellow to everybody, and followed by all eyes but those of the young. One or two of the Scotch nobility were there, but whigism is not popular among les hautes volailles, and the ball, though crowded, was but thinly sprinkled with “porcelain.” I danced till three o’clock, without finding my partners better or worse for their politics, and having aggravated a temporary lameness by my exertions, went home with a leg like an elephant to repent my abandonment of tory quiet.

Two or three days under the hands of the doctor, with the society of a Highland crone, of whose ceaseless garrulity over my poultices and plasters I could not understand two consecutive words, fairly finished my patience, and abandoning with no little regret a charming land route to the north of Scotland, I had myself taken, “this side up,” on board the steamer for Aberdeen. The loss of a wedding in Perthshire by the way, of a week’s deer-shooting in the forest of Athol, and a week’s fishing with a noble friend at Kinrara, (long-standing engagements all,) I lay at the door of the whigs. Add to this Loch Leven, Cairn-Gorm, the pass of Killicrankie, other sights lost on that side of Scotland, and I paid dearly for “the Grey ball.”

We steamed the hundred and twenty miles in twelve hours, paying about three dollars for our passage. I mention it for the curiosity of a cheap thing in this country.

I lay at Aberdeen four days, getting out but once, and then for a drive to the “Marichal College,” the Alma Mater of Dugald Dalgetty. It is a curious and rather picturesque old place, half in ruins, and is about being pulled down. A Scotch gentleman, who was a fellow-passenger in the steamer, and who lived in the town, called on me kindly twice a day, brought me books and papers, offered me the use of his carriage, and did everything for my comfort that could have been suggested by the warmest friendship. Considering that it was a casual acquaintance of a day, it speaks well, certainly, for the “Good Samaritanism” of Scotland.

I took two places in the coach at last (one for my leg,) and bowled away seventy miles across the country, with the delightful speed of these admirable contrivances, for Gordon Castle. I arrived at Lochabers, a small town on the estate of the Duke of Gordon, at three in the afternoon, and immediately took a post-chaise for the castle, the gate of which was a stone’s throw from the inn.

The immense iron gate surmounted by the Gordon arms, the handsome and spacious stone lodges on either side, the canonically fat porter in white stockings and gay livery, lifting his hat as he swung open the massive portal, all bespoke the entrance to a noble residence. The road within was edged with velvet sward, and rolled to the smoothness of a terrace walk, the winding avenue lengthened away before, with trees of every variety of foliage; light carriages passed me driven by ladies or gentlemen bound on their afternoon airing; a groom led up and down two beautiful blood horses, prancing along, with side-saddles and morocco stirrups, and keepers with hounds and terriers; gentlemen on foot, idling along the walks, and servants in different liveries, hurrying to and fro, betokened a scene of busy gayety before me. I had hardly noted these various circumstances, before a sudden curve in the road brought the castle into view, a vast stone pile with castellated wings, and in another moment I was at the door, where a dozen lounging and powdered menials were waiting on a party of ladies and gentlemen to their several carriages. It was the moment for the afternoon drive.