CHAPTER XI.

LETTERS DURING HIS FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE.

1851.

OFF CAPE CLEAR, June 3, 1851.1 THROUGH God's mercy I am here on the Irish coast, in our eleventh day. It has been a perpetual delight, without accident, hinderance, or "evil occurrent;" without pain, alarm, sea-sickness, languor, low spirits, or weariness; with as delightful a company as ever was thrown together, with sumptuous entertainment in a floating palace. Will you believe it-our 141 passengers have been like a loving family. Since the 25th we have had solemn and delightful worship every night, and services both Sabbaths. On each I preached once. I suppose we sang forty complete hymns on Sunday night. Mr. Tupper and Dr. Mütter2 have won my everlasting thanks and regard for the bold and noble manner in which they came out for religion. Tupper sets the tune at worship.

All my anticipations of the Atlantic have thus far been more than realized. I have seen a whale and a paper-nautilus, and several icebergs. The ship-people-140, of whom seventy are connected with the steam. We burn seventy tons of coal a day, and sixteen men are employed feeding our fourteen furnaces.

1

1 Dr. Alexander embarked in the steamer Arctic, Captain Luce, at New York, on the 24th May, 1851. In filling up this chapter I have not been limited to the letters addressed to myself, but have also had the use of those addressed to different members of his family. It was indeed the plan of his correspondence, that what he wrote to one of his friends should be circulated among the rest, and then collected as the journal of his tour. Several other letters were addressed by him, during his journey, to the editors of "The Presbyterian," Philadelphia. I should add that what is given in this chapter is but a meagre selection from the materials.

2 Mr. Martin F. Tupper, author of "Proverbial Philosophy," and the late Professor Mütter, of the Jefferson Medical School of Philadelphia.

Think of its being daylight here at 2 A. M.! On the banks of Newfoundland we had fire, and slept under full winter cover ing. Mr. Tupper is the most merry, open-hearted creature in the world, and fraught with classical learning. I have his autograph of his own proverb: "A babe in the house is a wellspring of happiness."

June 4.-I just now had the first glimpse of Britain; it is Bardsey Island, in Caernarvon. Beautiful clearness of atmos phere. The blue sea has become green in soundings, but we have the gray heaven of England and not an American

azure.

I have had frequent opportunities of religious exhortation, and was never more blessed, than on this voyage, with willing ears. I am sorry to say my health was publicly drunk at the closing dinner on board, "for his services as chaplain." Tupper made a speech, and various poems were recited.

LIVERPOOL, June 4, 1851.

My first step in England! We were half a day getting through the customs. They even dutied my sermons. The weather is smoky, muggy, and cold, about like our March, without any keenness. For the first time I see beautiful hawthorn blooms, both white and red. Liverpool buildings are high, solid, massive, every thing on a scale of majestic strength, without beauty.

On the 6th we go up to London with Dr. Mütter, who has been several times abroad, and is acquainted with several of the chief nobility and clergy. Mr. Tupper has given me some valuable letters, and offers to present me to the Presbyterian Duke of Argyll. The beauty of the rural environs surpasses all my imagination. Every charm of verdure, birds, flowers, and luxurious landscape-gardening, appears in this spring-like weather. Americans meet us, almost literally, at every corner. I suppose we have fifty in this house, (Adelphi.)

LONDON, June 6, 1851.

The season is transcendent. How can I ever describe the fairy-land we have come through this day! I had fancied much, but it is nothing to the reality. Green, green, green! Such green as I never thought of, bathed in an atmosphere of delicious moisture, a playful mixture of tiny rains and sunshine. Castles, parks, hedgerows, rivers, Trent and Avon, Cowper's birthplace and scenes, cottages, rookeries, larks. Some parts of Warwick, Herts, and Nottingham, with the approaches by Harrow, are like one's dreams of Eden. We were ten in party,

all friends, Americans; and all day no foot entered our (railway) carriage but our own. The order, the ease, the respectfulness are marvellous. I have not in several days seen a moment of hurry.

The climate is wet but lovely. You can walk all day. The sun seems to be under a fender. I have walked miles to-day in my great coat, and been in half a dozen rains; but the rain seems to be playing, and sometimes stops before you raise an umbrella.

LONDON, June 8, 1851.

Where should a man go on Whitsunday but to St. Paul's? I fancy half the auditory was American. The nave is boxed up for approaching fête of charity children. Service in the choir. Every thing chanted. I place it clearly at the top of all music I ever heard. The voice of the bassos and of the trained boys, the organ, the modulation, and the universal enunciation, surpass my highest dream of church-music. Milman preached. Large parts of antiphonal song from invisibles in loft. I could not, by search, see one man or boy among the surplices who listened to one word of the sermon. After singing like angels (I never heard such voices) the dogs would sit in their high oaken stalls, and play all manner of pranks.

For an omnibus had to go down to Bank. My heart went pit-a-pat at the corner-names: Bread street, Poultry, Cornhill, St. Swithin's, Eastcheap. Chat with six policemen, seventeen yesterday; all the same polite, even benignant; 4,000 now in London. I have never failed to say I was American. Effect all the same-overflowing kindness, with abject ignorance of the United States. Birds sing by hundreds in these parks. One is always near a friendly guide in the police. They never tire, and especially aid foreigners. The placards show a great prevalence of religious affairs. Sermons advertised in all languages. Old London rises before me, where I see the Tower, Billingsgate, Lambeth, Old Jewry, and Upper Thames street. I love to lose myself in the culs-de-sac and inn-yards opening in Cheapside and Aldersgate street.

Our hotel (Euston) is at the terminus of the North-Western Railway. There are indeed two of them, quite alike, with a place between them. No bar. Large coffee-rooms, columns, curtains, head-waiter like a clergyman, speaks French and Spanish; no loud syllable spoken; tables far apart. Sparrows numerous in our court, which is clean as a parlour. I heard Dr. Hamilton at 6 P. M. Mean, large church. Like every minister here, he has trimmed whiskers. Gown and band.

Subject: Eternity of hell-torments. Able, faithful, tender, original, and not flowing. Voice gentle, but intonation positively shocking. No gesture but with head and body. Voice dropped on every cadence, several notes lower than the expected one, with an effect that is horrible. Deep solemnity in people, as much as in any revival. Precentor. All sing, but hideously. People all sit down a minute after blessing, which is delightful. Alms at the door.

Nothing so amazes me as the order of the streets. Even by the river-stairs and in Southwark, no fuss, no groups of b'hoys, nothing like loud laughter. Indeed the policemen, with their handsome uniform, are everywhere; as grave as clergymen, and constantly helping some one. Around the Crystal Palace for some squares, no one is allowed to stop and chat, but the notice is given thus: "Excuse me, Sir; I have indulged you as long as my orders allow; you will find it agreeable to walk on.” Common people all say could for cold. Everybody says 'ouse, believin, and 'bus. If you want a cabman you hollow keb! In Liverpool I had my watch, once my father's, set to English time at the shop where it was made, as the number (6,900) showed, in 1804; they now number 59,000 and odd. Everybody expresses assent by "quite so," and no sentence seems complete All words like " without "you know," (naow.) member,' "Hear" and "year "waiter" are almost spondees, "waitarr." are “hyurr" and "yurr." The favourite drink is 'alf-and-'alf, or ale and porter. The bell is always answered by a chambermaid, a comely person in a cap.

On the 7th I was in Westminster, and surveyed the courts of law. In Chancery, Lord Truro, sniffing camphor or the like, as if sick. In Vice Chancellor's court, Sir J. Knight Bruce sitting. In Queen's Bench, Lord Campbell, Sir J. T. Coleridge, &c. Lawyers crowded in pews, like people in church. The wigs looked like making fun. The gown and band were becoming. The queues of the barristers' wigs like floured rat-tails.

LONDON, 142 STRAND; June 10, 1851. This is in Old London, the only London that I care for. I have had a couple of good days, one at Greenwich Fair and hospital, and one at Windsor and Eton. My whole day-light I spend, rain or shine, (mostly rain,) on the tops of omnibuses. In my opinion a lady might journey all over rail-road-England, with as much safety as she could go from Trenton to Princeton. In the carriages all is exactly as if you were in your private coach. No passing through. No outcry; the whole mien that of genteel, deferential servants.

I attended the Crystal Palace Exhibition for the first time today. I was chiefly attracted by the Fine Art department. The sculptures are innumerable. The only ones which greatly impressed me, were Italian, but placed, alas! under the sign of "Austria." A number of fine ladies, perhaps noble, were trying to lift a little boy up to see the great diamond. I gave my place and offered to hold him. The lady looked surprised-such things are not done here--but when I said "I have such another 3,000 miles from here," she complied and thanked me with much grace. No respect is shown to sex. No one gives place to a lady as such. There is great respect, however, to every one in public, for they do not know but the man in plain dress is a lord. The beautiful skin and teeth of all classes, except artisans, keeps me admiring. The gray hair, even of quite young ladies, is universally exposed. It strikes you, when you see it repeated among ten thousand. Whitsun holidays have brought the provincials in by shoals. You would laugh to see vans, or long and wide cars, crammed full of rosy lads and lasses, perhaps thirty in one, riding twenty and thirty miles for sixpence. My Virginia friends agree that they never saw such horses as came up to London. They are like elephants in the brewers' drays. I understand better now what Dickens and the Earl of Carlisle mean by calling the Americans a grave people. At these fêtes of Whitsun-week the whole bourgeoisie seem to be pleasuring, all on a broad grin, all gratified, and without strong drink or any rowdyism. Nurses and young mothers, with little children, go seven miles by water, and stay all day amidst thousands. Every time I lift my eyes from this paper, I see St. Paul's. I blame myself for contemning St. Paul's. How gloriously it predominates over every part of the city! Temple Bar and Charing Cross are pleasantly near. I have seen the paintings at Hampton. You know my peculiarity as to portraits; but these are the men themselves, as they lived and moved. Corregio's enchanted me more than any before I knew they were his. The very clocks and furniture of 1536 are at Hampton. The horse guards passed me to barracks, in Hyde Park, in the rain, cloaked, and each leading a second horse. There are always two regiments on duty, picked men, six feet high. They are just as polite as the police. Every common man I have talked with, wishes to go to America. The last cad that took my sixpence asked me "is not New York in Philadelphia?" Another, when I said I was a foreigner, said: "Ay! you must be talkin' hyperbolical. I suppose you know the meaning of the word; you may be a furriner to London, but you're an Englishman born."

Windsor Castle covers thirty-two acres. The park (see