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he is to be seen walking about the streets of Edinburgh with Ticknor, pointing out the sights which had association with the great of Scotland; in Paris the Scottish met the American lion, Cooper (in Scott's own phrase); in London he dined, together with Cooper, at Sotheby's, and afterwards advanced graciously into the adjoining room, "a maze of petticoats," so that the fair one might "play with his mane." At Abbotsford, with his children, Sophia and William, and his dogs and cats, he threw open his doors to Irving, Cooper, Willis, Edward Everett, and almost every American visitor who passed his house with or without introduction; and few who came to spend an hour left at the end of the second day. The education of the sport-loving and altogether unliterary William, the charms of Sophia, the beauties and associations of the surrounding country, Melrose and Dryburgh Abbeys, and the locality of what was once the Forest of Sherwood, were the chief subjects of discussion with these strangers, and when they left, it was with a promise to visit again before returning to America.

After the death of its owner, Abbotsford was second only to Stratford as a literary shrine, and the thought of standing before the desk at which the Waverly novels were in all probability written was enough to make the hurried traveler take as much as a day from his tour, and a night as well, if the moon were clear, for Scott himself had advised:

"If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,

Go visit it by the pale moonlight.”

The Scott country too was hallowed by his touch. The barren borderland was made fertile for the imagination, the charms of the magnificent scenery of the lakes were doubled, and the owner of Ellen's Isle set up a bower after the description given in the poem as a memorial to its author and, it is safe to add, as a bait to these tourists. Derbyshire, Kenilworth, Tantallon Castle near Yester and other spots scattered over the entire island called forth memories of this or that novel or poem, while the people who furnished the originals for some of the characters were visited as though they had something of greatness in them thereby.

4 Gleanings in England, 1, 219.

Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto II.

The extent of this attitude of reverence may be estimated by the remark of Dr. Valentine Mott that, upon visiting Edinburgh in 1834, he was not unmindful of "breathing within the atmosphere that had been enchanted by her own Great Wizard of the North." It was with the man more than with the novels and poems that these travelers were concerned. The most frequent picture of Scott which they present is that of a warm-hearted country gentleman, and the popularity of the Waverly novels seems to have established their excellences and to have precluded even a thought of criticism.

None equals Scott in the fullness of his place in the heart of the American visitor, but the kindness of Professor Wilson, the "Christopher North" of Blackwood's, of Francis Jeffrey, and of Sydney Smith added to the pleasure of a visit to Edinburgh. Henry B. McLellan, a young American student of theology, describes "a fine burst of eloquence from Professor Wilson on the loud whispering of the students in the lecture room." Later, he says, he called on Wilson and was ushered into his study, where among a chaotic mass of books and papers, he found him reclining on an easy elbow chair, and Wilson told him of the time when De Quincey had stayed with him and spent most of his day in bed drinking coffee.

Jeffrey was always interesting, but did not create a uniformly favorable impression. The American naturalist, Audubon, describes him as he entered the room with his wife as a "small (not to say tiny) being, with a woman under one arm and a hat under the other," but "fully aware of his weight in society" and with a shrewd, not to say cunning, eye. But to Dr. Gibson, who saw him several years later, he appeared thoroughly engaging, of a "light, slender figure, florid complexion, round, sparkling, prominent, black, eye, animated and rapid elocution, and stylish dress."

It was Sydney Smith, however, who was most famed for his talk. Ticknor exclaims that he "never saw a man so formed to float down the stream of conversation, and, without seeming to have any direct influence upon it, to give it his own hue and

• Travels in Europe and the East, p. 26.

"Journal of a Residence in Scotland, pp. 204 ff.

Audubon, Maria R., Audubon and his Journals, 1, 200-1.

• Rambles in Europe, pp. 180 ff.

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charm." A corpulent gentleman of fifty he was at the time (1819), yet a man of brilliant wit and sound judgment. Later, from Smith's own pew in St. Paul's, Ticknor heard him preach a moral sermon of "great condensation of thought and purity of style," by far the best, he asserts, that he had ever heard in Great Britain.

In Liverpool the man who was most cordial to the Americans was the banker, William Roscoe, who was likewise an historian, a philanthropist and something of a literary man. As Liverpool was the commonest port of entry, few Americans missed a visit to this hospitable Englishman; while in London Sir James Mackintosh occupied a like position, going out of his way to discover the American visitors and invite them to his table.

This sort of welcome of course colored the American travelers' estimates of their hosts, but not so far as to rank them second to Scott in literary interest. It was Wordsworth who was accorded this honor. To many, however, the motive for the visit to Cumberland was one of sceptical curiosity rather than of reverence. Southey was almost equally worthy of a visit in the American estimation, and very often the two were seen together at the house of one or the other. To some the trip to the lakes was primarily for the scenery, and a visit to the poets was most incidental. The picture of Wordsworth most frequently drawn is that of a quiet, rather old man, living among the lakes in philosophic calm and interesting himself in America, although not believing in the ultimate success of her experiment in democracy or in the practicality of reform in his own country. When the subject of conversation was religion, he usually took his guest for a walk at sundown to a high place where they sat for a time in devout silence; and when it was politics and Southey was present, they sat in the well furnished library or walked about the garden. Dorothy was often present with her welcome, but neither Coleridge nor any of the other frequent English visitors to Grassmere appeared. Of the two, Wordsworth and Southey, the former left the more favorable impression upon those of a devout turn of mind; while the latter was invariably recalled for his facility of conversation and his wide knowledge.

10 Life, Letters and Journals, I, 265-6.

Coleridge was, in these latter days, resident at Highgate under constant medical supervision. Nevertheless, he became a close friend of Allston, Irving, Samuel F. B. Morse, and C. R. Leslie, and was accorded the honor of a reverential visit by many another. It was into the studio of the two last-named artists that he once came in one of those fits of deep despondency so frequent with him at that time. His friends, however, had planned a means of attack. Morse saw that diplomacy was needed and immediately greeted Coleridge with the statement that he and Leslie had just been discussing the nature of beauty and wanted his opinion. Leslie sensed the situation and took up the argument, as it were, in the midst. Coleridge soon became interested and launched forth on one of those floods of eloquence which were at once the joy and the dismay of his friends.11 White haired and dignified, with a mind absorbed in his own vague thought, he presented a somewhat formidable though cordial aspect to his less intimate visitors.

Of the other poets, Keats and Shelley are scarcely ever mentioned, while the scandal connected with Byron made him more an object of gossip than of visit. Their absence in Italy for so much of the time may likewise have had something to do with this oversight. Ticknor called on Byron, however, and discussed many things, among them the prospects of a visit to America. Willis followed his footsteps through Greece and discussed him with the Countess Guiccioli, whom he met in the Tuileries. Irving and many others visited Newstead Abbey, where the memories of his destructive actions were softened by a visit to Annesley Hall, the former home of Mary Chaworth, enriched by the romantic associations with Byron's early love and disappointment. There was reason for staying at Newstead also; for its new master, Colonel Wildman, was among the most cordial of country-house gentlemen in England. Fourteen years after Byron had so despoiled it of its timber that not a tree remained and had allowed the abbey to deteriorate until hardly a room was habitable, C. S. Stewart, another American, spent some time there and found that the new owner had surrounded the estate with six miles of high and substantial brick wall, planted thousands of young trees, and built

11 Morse, Letters and Journals, Boston, 1914, 1, 95.

new dwellings and outhouses. He was assigned to the top of the tower adjoining the old ivy-covered arch and accessible only by a winding stone staircase, up which Byron had retreated after the rest of the building had almost fallen in ruins.12

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It is curious to note, after this neglect of those poets whom we have since numbered among the great, the large number of Americans who stopped off in Sheffield long enough to see the melancholy James Montgomery, writer of hymns and editor of a local paper, no less respected for his mild virtues as a man, than admired for his excellence as a poet." "13 He was one of those men who are popular in their day because they express with facility the respectable emotions of the average man. And it was this same feeling for propriety in literature and life which made Hannah More the most visited of all English literary women. In a quiet cottage at Barleywood on the Bristol road, she was to be found with her sister. Visitors had become so numerous by 1828 that she was obliged to admit them only three times a week, when she made up in cordiality for the seeming lack of hospitality in the restriction. Often she sent them on their way with inscribed copies of her works, and always with a "sensation of awe and pleasure." 14 Page after page of these American records is filled with accounts of these visits. Similarly Maria Edgeworth was, among novelists, second only to Scott in the homage paid to her. Her correspondence with the latter had materially added to her fame; but above all it was her elderly modesty, coupled with an entertaining vivacity, which made the visit to her family one of special pleasure.

This was the average list of English literary celebrities whom the American traveler thought worthy of visit. Carlyle does not seem to have been noticed except by Emerson and Longfellow, and the latter was not particularly impressed. The warm and immediate kinship between the Scotchman and Emerson, however, is one of the most notable examples of all literary friendships. Emerson felt that Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Carlyle were the only literary masters of any great note in England, and he found Wordsworth "not prepossessing" and Coleridge unable to "bend to a new

12 Sketches of Society in Great Britain and Ireland, 1, 235 ff. 13 Allen, Zachariah, The Practical Tourist, 1, 293.

14 Green, Jacob, Notes of a Traveller, II, 98 ff.

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