Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 91
To C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH.
LONDON, May 1, 1813.
Please to take this in small doses, but not fasting.
Let us go back, if you please, to Cambridge. Thursday morning we went to breakfast with Mr. Smedley. It had been a dreadful rainy night, but luckily the rain ceased in the morning, and the streets were dried by the wind on purpose for us. In Sidney College we found your friend in neat, cheerful rooms, with orange-fringed curtains, pretty drawings, and prints: breakfast-table as plentifully prepared as you could have had it—tea, coffee, tongue, cold beef, exquisite bread, and many inches of butter. I suppose you know, but no one else at home can guess, why I say inches of butter. All the butter in Cambridge must be stretched into rolls a yard in length and an inch in diameter, and these are sold by inches, and measured out by compasses, in a truly mathematical manner, worthy of a university.
Mr. Smedley made us feel at home at once: my mother made tea, I coffee; he called you "Sneyd," and my father seemed quite pleased. After having admired the drawings and pictures, and Fanny's kettle-holder, we sallied forth with our friendly guide. It was quite fine and sunshiny, and the gardens and academic shades really beautiful. We went to the University Hall—the election of a new Professor to the Chemical Professorship was going on. Farish was one of the candidates: the man of whom Leslie Foster used to talk in such raptures when he first came from Cambridge; the man who lectured on arches, and whose paradox of the one-toothed wheel William will recollect. My father was introduced to him, and invited him to dine with us: Mr. Farish accepted the invitation. We sat on a bench with a few ladies. A number of Fellows, with black tiles on their heads, walked up and down the hall, whispering to one another; and in five minutes Mr. Smedley said, "The election is over: I must go and congratulate Mr. Professor Farish."
We next proceeded to the University Library, not nearly so fine as the Dublin College Library. Saw Edward the Sixth's famous little MS. exercise book: hand good, and ink admirable; shame to the modern chemists, who cannot make half as good ink now! Saw Faustus' first printed book and a Persian letter to Lord Wellesley, and an Indian idol, said to be made of rice, looking like, and when I lifted it feeling as heavy as, marble. Mr. Smedley smiled at my being so taken with an idol, and I told him that I was curious about this rice-marble, because we had lately seen at Derby a vase of similar substance, about which there had been great debates. Mr. Smedley then explained to me that the same word in Persian expresses rice and the composition of which these idols are made.
We saw the MS. written on papyrus leaves: I had seen the papyrus at the Liverpool Botanic Garden, and had wondered how the stiff bark could be rolled up; and here I saw that it is not rolled up, but cut in strips and fastened with strings at each end.
In this library were three casts, taken after death—how or why they came there I don't know, but they were very striking—one of Charles XII., with the hole in the forehead where the bullet entered at the siege of Fredericks-hall; that of Pitt, very like his statue from the life, and all the prints of him; and that of Fox, shocking! no character of greatness or ability—nothing but pain, weakness, and imbecility. It is said to be so unlike what he was in health, that none would know it. One looks at casts taken after death with curiosity and interest, and yet it is not probable that they should show the real natural or habitual character of the person: they can often only mark the degree of bodily pain or ease felt in the moment of death. I think these casts made me pause to reflect more than anything else I saw this day.
Went next to Trinity College Library: beautiful! I liked the glass doors opening to the gardens at the end, and trees in full leaf. The proportions of this room are excellent, and everything but the ceiling, which is too plain. The busts of Bacon and Newton excellent; but that of Bacon looks more like a courtier than a philosopher: his ruff is elegantly plaited in white marble. By Cipriani's painted window, with its glorious anachronisms, we were much amused; and I regret that it is not recorded in Irish Bulls. It represents the presentation of Sir Isaac Newton to His Majesty George the Third, seated on his throne, and Bacon seated on the steps of the said throne writing! Cipriani had made the King, Henry VIII., but the Fellows of the College thought it would be pretty to pay a compliment to His Gracious Majesty George III., so they made Cipriani cut off Henry VIII.'s head, and stick King George in his place: the junction is still to be seen in the first design of the picture, covered with a pasted paper cravat! like the figure that changes heads in the Little Henry book.
Saw Milton's original MSS. of his lesser poems, and his letters and his plan of a tragedy on the subject of Paradise Lost, which tragedy I rejoice he did not write. I have not such delight in seeing the handwriting of great authors and great folk as some people have; besides by this time I had become very hungry, and was right glad to accept Mr. Smedley's proposal that we should repair to his rooms and take some sandwiches.
Rested, ate, talked, looked at the engravings of Clarke's marbles, and read the account of how these ponderous marbles had been transported to England. We saw the marbles themselves. The famous enormous head of Ceres must have belonged to a gigantic statue, and perhaps at a great height may have had a fine effect. It is in a sadly mutilated condition; there is no face; the appearance of the head in front is exactly like that of Sophy's doll, whose face has peeled off, yet Clarke strokes it and talks of its beautiful contour. The hair is fine, and the figure, from its vast size, may be sublime.
After having recruited our strength, we set out again to the Vice-Chancellor Davis's, to see a famous picture of Cromwell. As we knocked at his Vice-Chancellorship's door, Mr. Smedley said to me, "Now, Miss Edgeworth, if you would but settle in Cambridge! here is our Vice-Chancellor a bachelor ... do consider about it."
We went upstairs; found the Vice-Chancellor's room empty; had leisure before he appeared to examine the fine picture of Cromwell, in which there is more the expression of greatness of mind and determination than his usual character of hypocrisy. This portrait seems to say, "Take away that bauble," not "We are looking for the corkscrew."
The Vice-Chancellor entered, and such a wretched, pale, unhealthy object I have seldom beheld! He seemed crippled and writhing with rheumatic pains, hardly able to walk. After a few minutes had passed, Mr. Smedley came round to me and whispered, "Have you made up your mind?" "Yes, quite, thank you."
Now for the beauty of Cambridge—the beauty of beauties—King's College Chapel! On the first entrance I felt silenced by admiration. I never saw anything at once so beautiful and so sublime. The prints give a good idea of the beauty of the spandrilled ceiling, with its rich and light ornaments; but no engraved representation can give an idea of the effect of size, height, and continuity of grandeur in the whole building. Besides, the idea of DURATION, the sublime idea of having lasted for ages, is more fully suggested by the sight of the real building than it can be by any representation or description: for which reason I only tell you the effect it had upon my mind.
The organ began to play an anthem of Handel's while we were in the chapel: I wished for you, my dear Sneyd, particularly at that moment! Your friend took us up the hundred stairs to the roof, where he was delighted with the sound of the organ and the chanting voices rising from the choir below. My father was absorbed in the mechanical wonders of the roof: that stone roof, of which Sir Christopher Wren said, "Show me how the first stone was laid, and I will show you how the second is laid."
Mr. Smedley exclaimed, "Is not the sound of the organ fine?" To which my father, at cross purposes, answered, "Yes, the iron was certainly added afterwards."
Mr. Smedley at once confessed that he had no knowledge or taste for mechanics, but he had the patience and good-nature to walk up and down this stone platform for three-quarters of an hour. He stood observing my mother's very eager examination with my father of the defects in the wooden roof, and pointing out where it had been cut away to admit the stone, as a proof that the stone roof had been an afterthought; and at last turned to me with a look of astonishment. "Mrs. Edgeworth seems to have this taste for mechanics too." He spoke of it as a kind of mania. So I nodded at him very gravely, and answered, "Yes, you will find us all tinctured with it, more or less." At last, to Mr. Smedley's great joy, he got my father alive off this roof, and on his way to Downing, the new college of which Leslie Foster talked so much, and said was to be like the Parthenon. Shockingly windy walk: thought my brains would have been blown out. Passed Peter House, and saw the rooms in which Gray lived, and the irons of his fire-escape at the window. Warned Mr. Smedley of the danger of my father being caught by a coachmaker's yard which we were to pass. My father overheard me, laughed, and contented himself with a side glance at the springs of gigs, and escaped that danger. I nearly disgraced myself, as the company were admiring the front of Emmanuel College, by looking at a tall man stooping to kiss a little child. Got at last, in spite of the wind and coachmakers' yards, within view of Downing College, and was sadly disappointed. It will never bear comparison with King's College Chapel.
Home to dinner: Mr. Farish and Mr. Smedley were very agreeable and entertaining, and did very well together, though such different persons. Mr. Farish is the most primitive, simple-hearted man I ever saw.
The bells were ringing in honour of Professor Farish's election, or, as Mr. Smedley said, at the Professor's expense.
Farish insisted upon it very coolly that they were not ringing for him, but for a shoulder of mutton.
"A shoulder of mutton! what do you mean?"
"Why, a man left to the University a shoulder of mutton for every Thursday, on condition that the bells should always ring for him on that day: so this is for the shoulder of mutton."
Mr. Farish paid us no compliments in words, but his coming to spend the evening with us the day of his election, when I suppose he might have been feasted by all the grand and learned in the University, was, I think, the greatest honour my father has received since he came to England; and so he felt it.
I suppose you know that Mr. Smedley has published minutes of the trial of that Mr. Kendal who was accused of having set fire to Sidney College, and who, though brought off by the talents of Garrow, was so generally thought to be guilty, and to have only escaped by a quirk of the law, that he has been expelled the University. What a strange thing that this trial at Cambridge and that in Dublin, of incendiaries,[1] should take place within so short a time of each other! It seems as if the fashion of certain crimes prevailed at certain times.
"Good-bye, Mr. Smedley! I hope you like us half as well as we liked you." We thought it well worth our while to have come thirty miles out of our way to see him and Cambridge, and you, Sneyd, have the thanks of the whole party for your advice.
In passing through the village of Trumpington, and just as we came within sight of Dr. Clarke's house,[2] I urged my father to call upon him.
"Without an introduction, and two ladies with me! No, with all my impudence, my dear Maria, I cannot do that."
"Oh, do! you will repent afterwards if you do not: we shall never have another opportunity of seeing him."
"Well, at your peril, then, be it."
He let down the glass, and ordered the postillion to drive up to Dr. Clarke's house. I quailed in the corner the moment I heard the order given, but said nought. Out jumped my father, and during two or three minutes whilst he was in the house, and my mother and I waiting in the carriage at the door, I was in an agony. But it was soon over; for out came little Dr. Clarke flying to us, all civility, and joy, and gratitude, and honour, and pleasure, "ashamed and obliged," as he handed us up the steps and into a very elegant drawing-room.
I do not know whether you have seen him, but from the print I had imagined he was a large man, with dark eyes and hair, and a penetrating countenance. No such thing: he is a little, square, pale, flat-faced, good-natured-looking, fussy man, with very intelligent eyes, yet great credulity of countenance, and still greater benevolence. In a moment he whisked about the different rooms upstairs and down, to get together books, sketches, everything that could please us; and Angelica's drawings—she draws beautifully.
Angelica herself, Mrs. Clarke, is a timid, dark, soft-eyed woman, with a good figure. I am told it is rude to say a person is very clean, but I may praise Angelica for looking elegantly clean, brilliantly white, with a lace Mary Queen of Scots cap, like that which I am sure you remember on Lady Adelaide Forbes. She received us with timid courtesy, but her timidity soon wore off, and the half-hour we spent here made us wish to have spent an hour. Dr. Clarke seemed highly gratified that his travels in Greece had interested us so much: showed us the original drawings of Moscow, and a book of views of the ruins at Athens by the draughtsman who went out with the Duc de Choiseul Gouffier—beautifully done; mere outlines, perfectly distinct, and giving, I think, better architectural ideas than we have from more finished and flattered drawings.
We were sorry not to see more, and glad we had seen so much, of Dr. Clarke and his Angelica, and his fine little boy about five years old. A tall, dark-eyed, fine fashionable-looking man, Dr. Clarke introduced to us as Mr. Walpole. My father entered into conversation with him, and found he had known Captain Beaufort in the Mediterranean.
When we were going away, Dr. Clarke, between my mother and me, seemed puzzled how to get us both into the carriage at once; but he called to Mr. Walpole. "Walpole, put this lady into the carriage."
And with a "Meadows" air he obeyed.
Now we are again on the London road, and nothing interrupted our perusal Pride and Prejudice for the rest of the morning. I am desired not to give you my opinion of Pride and Prejudice, but desire you to get it directly, and tell us yours.