Recollections of Europe. James Fenimore Cooper

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СКАЧАТЬ celebrated for its butter, and yet we found it difficult to eat it! The English, and many other European nations, put no salt in their table butter; and we, who had been accustomed to the American usage, exclaimed with one voice against its insipidity. A near relation of A——'s who once served in the British army, used to relate an anecdote on the subject of tastes, that is quite in point. A brother officer, who had gone safely through the celebrated siege of Gibraltar, landed at Portsmouth, on his return home. Among the other privations of his recent service, he had been compelled to eat butter whose fragrance scented the whole Rock. Before retiring for the night, he gave particular orders to have hot rolls and Isle of Wight butter served for breakfast. The first mouthful disappointed him, and of course the unlucky waiter suffered. The latter protested that he had executed the order to the letter. "Then take away your Isle of Wight butter," growled the officer, "and bring me some that has a taste."

      Like him of Gibraltar, we were ready to exclaim, "Take away your Isle of Wight butter, and bring us some from the good ship Hudson," which, though not quite as fragrant as that which had obtained its odour in a siege, was not entirely without a taste. This little event, homely as it may appear, is connected with the principle that influences the decisions of more than half of those who visit foreign nations. Usages are condemned because they are not our own; practices are denounced if their connexion with fitness is not self-apparent to our inexperience; and men and things are judged by rules that are of local origin and local application. The moral will be complete when I add, that we, who were so fastidious about the butter at Cowes, after an absence of nearly eight years from America, had the salt regularly worked out of all we ate, for months after our return home, protesting there was no such thing as good butter in America. Had Mrs. ——introduced the Philadelphia butter, however, I think her husband must have succumbed, for I believe it to be the best in the world, not even excepting that of Leyden.

      Towards evening, the Hudson having landed all her passengers, and the most of those who were in the steerage, went round the eastern point of the little port, on her way to London.

      After taking an early breakfast, we all got into a carriage called a sociable, which is very like a larger sort of American coaches and went to Newport, the principal town in the island. The road ran between hedges, and the scenery was strictly English. Small enclosures, copses, a sward clipped close as velvet, and trees (of no great size or beauty, however,) scattered in the fields, with an effect nearly equal to landscape gardening, were the predominant features. The drought had less influence on the verdure here than in Dorsetshire. The road was narrow and winding, the very beau idéal of a highway; for, in this particular, the general rule obtains that what is agreeable is the least useful. Thanks to the practical good sense and perseverance of Mr. McAdam, not only the road in question, but nearly all the roads of Great Britain have been made, within the last five-and-twenty years, to resemble in appearance, but really to exceed in solidity and strength, the roads one formerly saw in the grounds of private gentlemen. These roads are almost flat, and when they have been properly constructed, the wheel rolls over them as if passing along a bed of iron. Apart from the levels, which, of course, are not so rigidly observed, there is not, any very sensible difference between the draught on a really good McAdamized road and on a railroad. We have a few roads in America that are nearly as good as most one meets with, but we have nothing that deserves to be termed a real imitation of the system of Mr. McAdam.

      The distance to Newport was only four or five miles. The town itself, a borough, but otherwise of little note, lies in a very sweet vale, and is neat but plain, resembling, in all but its greater appearance of antiquity and the greater size of its churches, one of our own provincial towns of the same size. A—— and myself took a fly, and went, by a very rural road, to Carisbrooke, a distance of about a mile, in quest of lodgings. Carisbrooke is a mere village, but the whole valley in this part of the island is so highly cultivated, and so many pretty cottages meet the eye—not cottages of the poor, but cottages of the rich—that it has an air of finish and high cultivation that we are accustomed to see only in the immediate vicinity of large towns, and not always even there.

      On reaching the hamlet of Carisbrooke we found ourselves immediately beneath the castle. There was a fine old village church, one of those picturesque rustic edifices which abound in England, a building that time had warped and twisted in such a way as to leave few parallel lines, or straight edges, or even regular angles, in any part of it. They told us, also, that the remains of a ruined priory were at hand. We had often laughed since at the eagerness and delight with which we hurried off to look at these venerable objects. It was soon decided, however, that it was a pleasure too exquisite to be niggardly enjoyed alone, and the carriage was sent back with orders to bring up the whole party.

      While the fly—a Liliputian coach drawn by a single horse, a sort of diminutive buggy—was absent, we went in quest of the priory. The people were very civil, and quite readily pointed out the way. We found the ruin in a farmyard. There was literally nothing but a very small fragment of a blind wall, but with these materials we went to work with the imagination, and soon completed the whole edifice. We might even have peopled it, had not Carisbrooke, with its keep, its gateway, and its ivy-clad ramparts, lain in full view, inviting us to something less ideal. The church, too—the rude, old, hump-backed church was already opened, waiting to be inspected.

      The interior of this building was as ancient, in appearance, at least, and quite as little in harmony with right lines and regular angles, as its exterior. All the wood-work was of unpainted oak, a colour, however, that was scarcely dark enough to be rich; a circumstance which, to American eyes, at least—eyes on whose lenses paint is ever present—gave it an unfinished look. Had we seen this old building five years later, we might have thought differently. As for the English oak, of which one has heard so much, it is no great matter: our own common oaks are much prettier, and, did we understand their beauty, there would not be a village church in America that, in this particular, would not excel the finest English cathedral. I saw nothing in all Europe, of this nature, that equalled the common oaken doors of the hall at C——, which you know so well.

      A movement in the church-yard called us out, and we became pained witnesses of the interment of two of the "unhonoured dead." The air, manner and conduct of these funerals made a deep impression on us both. The dead were a woman and a child, but of different families. There were three or four mourners belonging to each party. Both the bodies were brought in the same horse-cart, and they were buried by the same service. The coffins were of coarse wood, stained with black, in a way to betray poverty. It was literally le convoi du pauvre. Deference to their superiors, and the struggle to maintain appearances—for there was a semblance of the pomp of woe, even in these extraordinary groups, of which all were in deep mourning—contrasted strangely with the extreme poverty of the parties, the niggardly administration of the sacred offices, and the business-like manner of the whole transaction. The mourners evidently struggled between natural grief and the bewilderment of their situation. The clergyman was a good-looking young man, in a dirty surplice. Most probably he was a curate. He read the service in a strong voice, but without reverence, and as if he were doing it by the job. In every way short measure was dealt out to the poor mourners. When the solemn words of "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," were uttered, he bowed hastily towards each grave—he stood between them—and the assistants met his wholesale administration of the rites with a wholesale sympathy.

      The ceremony was no sooner over, than the clergyman and his clerk retired into the church. One or two of the men cast wistful eyes towards the graves, neither of which was half filled, and reluctantly followed. I could scarcely believe my senses, and ventured to approach the door. Here I met such a view as I had never before seen, and hope never to witness again. On one side of me two men were filling the graves; on the opposite, two others were actually paying the funeral fees. In one ear was the hollow sound of the clod on the coffin; in the other the chinking of silver on the altar! Yea, literally on the altar! We are certainly far behind this great people in many essential particulars; our manners are less formed; our civilization is less perfect; but, thanks to the spirit which led our ancestors into the wilderness! such mockery of the Almighty and his worship, such a mingling of God and Mammon, СКАЧАТЬ