A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
Wall, we went to the British Museum.
To give any idee of what we see in that museum would take more time, and foolscap paper, and eyesight, or wind and ears than I spoze I will ever be able to command.
It is seven acres of land full of everything rich and rare and beautiful from our time back to the year one, and further, for all I know. The marbles, engravin’s, picters, coins, manuscripts, curosities—if I had the wealth of ’em in money—if I could have the worth of jest one article out of the innumerable multitude of ’em, I could jest buy out the hull town of Lyme, and live on the interest of my money.
The museum holds everything and more too. And the library, why, it is most too much to believe what we see there. Now, I’ve always had a Bible and a New Testament, and have never gin much thought whether there wuz any other different ones; but I see with my own eyes seventeen hundred different kinds of Bibles.
And good land! everything else accordin’—everything else a-swingin’ out jest as regardless of cost and space. The Egyptian Gallery wuz a sight to see, and statutes and slabs older than the hills. Who writ them words on ’em? Did the heads ache, and hearts, jest as they do now? I spoze so.
Roman, Grecian, Assyrian galleries, galleries of all sorts, birds and beasts and fishes enough to stock the world, it seemed to me.
But most of all the relicks; some on ’em filled my tired-out brain with or and wonder and admiration.
Milton’s contract with his publishers for “Paradise Lost” (he got five pounds down, and wuz goin’ to git five dollars more when the first edition wuz sold, and so on).
They took the advantage on him; you know he wuz blind, and couldn’t skirmish round and look into things; so Paradise or not, they got the better of him.
And then his widder; why didn’t they try to do as they ort to by Miss Milton? She sold out root and branch for eight dollars—the idee! Why, how many copies have been sold of that book? Enough to build up a mountain as high as the Catskills.
8 pounds for ’em—what a shame!
The publishers are dead, I spoze; yes, I spoze Samuel Symon passed away years ago, but he left quite a big family, and they all seem to foller the old gentleman’s plans, and are doin’ first-rate and layin’ up money real fast.
And I see Hogarth’s receipts for some of his picters. And there wuz the very prayer-book used by Lady Jane Grey on the scaffold.
“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place for all generations,” and “though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death” I will be with thee. I wonder if she heard the words when the shadders lay so dark on her pretty head?
Then there wuz letters writ in their own hands from Martin Luther, Oliver Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, Peter the Great, Dudley, Leicester, Francis Bacon. And there wuzn’t a word in Francises letter, so fur as I see, as to whether he wuz Shakespeare or not, or whether Shakespeare wuz him.
I wish I knew how it wuz!
And there wuz papers and letters from all the kings and emperors, and George Washington right amongst ’em—it kinder tickled my pride to see George there, but he deserved it.
Then there wuz the old bull that gin Henry the VIII. the name of Defender of the Faith. What kind of faith did he act out—the faith that he could marry more wimmen and chop their heads off than any other old creeter this side of Blue Beard.
I should have been ashamed if I wuz him. If he had been a woman a-marryin’ and a-killin’ and a-marryin’, and etc., etc., etc., they wouldn’t have stood it half so long—they would have broke it up; it wouldn’t have been any worse in a female for anything I know.
And then there wuz the message from Julius Cæsar a-sayin’ that he had “Veni, vidi, vici.”
I spoze Thomas Jefferson would know jest what that meant. Josiah thought it wuz sunthin’ about some wimmen—Nancy somebody, but I d’no—I wouldn’t ask.
And then there wuz letters from good riz up creeters, sech as John Knox, Sir Isaac Newton, Cardinal Wolsey, Cranmer, Erasmus, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., and so forth.
Josiah wuz perfectly beat out when we got home that night, and so wuz I.
But we found letters from home, and they seemed to refresh us and take our minds offen our four legs and our two dizzy and tired-out heads.
Babe, sweet little creeter, she writ that she prayed for me every night, and for her grandpapa, too. I wonder if that is one reason why our legs didn’t give out completely that day, as they threatened to time and agin?
Thomas J. and Tirzah Ann writ affectionate letters—Thomas J. a-tellin’ us to be careful and not overdo, and Tirzah Ann sent a heart full of love, and a request to git a yard and a half of lace with deep pints on’t to trim a summer waist.
Ury and Philury wanted to know when we wuz a-comin’ home, and whether, with deep respects, they should take up the parlor carpet, that seemed threatened with carpet bugs, and whether it wuz best to break up the 8-acre lot.
Oh, sweet and tender missives, how near they seemed to bring the old home to us—drag it right along over the glassy bridge of the Atlantic and land it at our feet!
Wall, Martin sed he wouldn’t fail to see Madame Tussaud’s wax figgers. He sed undoubtedly he would be asked if he’d seen ’em. And Adrian wuz anxious to go, thinkin’ it wuz sunthin’ like a circus.
But we found it wuz a sight, a sight to see how nateral they wuz. Why, some of the figgers almost breathed, and you can see ’em—some machinery rigged up inside, I spoze. And then we see kings, and queens, and princes, and warriors, and everybody else—we got fairly light-headed a-seein’ ’em all, and I spoze Josiah got kinder excited and wrought up, or he wouldn’t have done as he did.
There wuz a old man a-holdin’ a programme in his hand, and every little while he would lift up his head and look round. He favored Deacon Henzy quite a good deal, and Josiah sez to me—
“I believe that is Deacon Henzy’s cousin; you know he sed he had one here in London. Don’t you see he has got the real Henzy nose? I believe I’ll be neighborly and scrape acquaintance with him.”
“Wall,” sez I, “he duz favor the Henzys, but,” sez I, “don’t be too forred; the Henzys are big feelin’.”
“Big feelin’!” sez Josiah; “don’t you spoze he will be glad to see a neighbor of his own blood relation?” Sez he, “He will be glad to neighbor with me.”
I felt dubersome, but he advanced onwards, and sez he in his most polite axents—
“Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”
“BE YOU ANY KIN OF BILDAD HENZY, OF JONESVILLE?”
The old man never moved, but read away, and occasionally lifted his head and looked round, and Josiah spoke agin a little louder—
“Be you any relative of Bildad Henzy?”
He never noticed my pardner any more’n as if he wuz dirt under his feet, and my pardner got his dander up, and he fairly yelled in the old man’s ears—
“Be you a Henzy?” And bein’ mad, he added, “Dum you! I believe you can hear if you want to.” And he put his hand on the old man’s shoulder to draw his attention to him. And for all the world! if that man wuzn’t wax! Josiah looked meachin’ for as much as four minutes, and I sez—
“I told you to look ahead.”
“You didn’t, nuther,” he snapped out.
“Wall,” sez I, “it wuz words to that effect, and I wouldn’t try to be neighborly agin to-day.”
Sez he, “If I see a man afire I wouldn’t tell him on’t.”
“Wall,” sez I, “he would probble find it out himself; but now,” sez I, “you’d better keep right by me.”
Wall, as I said, we see every noted woman from Queen Victoria back to Eve, I guess; and from the Prince of Wales and his wife and children back to little Cain and Abel—or I presoom Adam’s little boys wuz there, though I don’t remember of seein’ ’em. But there wuz Knights, Barons, Crusaders, Kings, and Emperors, all dressed up in royal robes; the Black Prince, as good a lookin’ young man as I want to see, and Kings Edward and Richard and Henry, and Queens Mary and Elizabeth, and Mary, Queen of Scots, all ready to have her head cut off; and her rosary, on which she had told her prayers those dretful days, slipped through her fingers as much as to say, I am goin’ into a country where I sha’n’t want you any more. And there wuz Marie Antonette—poor creeter! and Anne Boleyn, poor thing! she’d better not married a widdower. And Joan of Arc, noble creeter! I felt real riz up a-lookin’ at her—I always liked her.
And I wuz dretful interested in the Napoleon rooms, full of the relicks of the great kingmaker.
There he lay, jest as nateral as life, on a bed, with his cloak wropped round him—the very cloak he wore at the battle of Marengo, and which he wropped round his body some like a pall when that heart had stopped its ambitious throbbin’s; and the world breathed freer.
Then there wuz his coronation robe—and if you’ll believe it, the coronation robe of poor Empress Josephine right by.
I’d a-gin ten cents cheerfully if I could have got a little piece of both on ’em for my crazy quilt. But I didn’t spoze they’d be willin’ to have me cut ’em off, so I didn’t tackle the guide about it.
And mebby it wuz jest as well, I d’no as I could have slept much under them two robes and meditated on what they had covered up. Love, triumph, doubt, jealousy, heartaches, despair would permeate the Josephine crazy block, and wild passions, and burnin’ ambition, and cold, remorseless neglect, and desertion would most likely surround the Napoleon crazed block.
I d’no but I should have the nightmair every time I tried to sleep under it.
Then there wuz his watch, stopped the minute he died, his ring, camp knife and fork, coffee-pot, snuff-box—if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believed he used snuff, the idee is somehow so incongrous of the hero of the Nile, the conqueror of Europe a-takin’ snuff. Why, all Jonesville kinder looks down on old Miss Moody because she takes snuff—black snuff, too, scented high with bergamot.
Wall, one of the most life-like relicks wuz one of his teeth; that wuz a part of the great emperor, or wuz once, before it wuz pulled out.
I spoze it ached jest like anybody’s tooth, and I presoom he wuz hard to git along with, and talked rough, jest as any ordinary man duz, durin’ its worst twinges.
I presoom he sed “Dum it!” repeatedly before he made up his mind to have it out.
I jedge him by Josiah, and I spoze that is a good way to jedge men.
Yes, I spoze you ketch any one man and study him clost, and you have a good idee of the hull male race.
And then there wuz a lock of hair, took right from his scalp, so I spoze. Oh, what burnin’ thoughts and plans and ambitions once permeated the spot on which that grew!
My emotions wuz a perfect sight as I looked at it.
And we see clothes and relicks of every other great man, it seems to me, that ever lived—Lord Nelson, Henry of Navarre, etc., etc., etc.
And we see figgers—lookin’ jest as nateral as if they could walk up and shake hands with you, if they wuz a-mind to—of Shakespeare and Macaulay and Scott and Byron, Calvin and Knox and Luther, Lincoln’s homely, good face, and Grant, Henry Ward Beecher, etc., etc., etc.
I wouldn’t give a cent to see all the figgers of criminals and murderers, but Martin thought it advisable to walk through it, so he could say he’d been there, I spoze.
And there wuz one thing among everything else that gin me more than seventy emotions, and that wuz the very axe, the very old guillotine that cut off the heads of twenty-two thousand folks durin’ the Rain of Terror in Paris.
I looked at the piece of iron with feelin’s, as I say, beyend description.
And I wondered out loud if the iron wuz now dug out of the sile that would make jest sech a horrible instrument for America.
I groaned deep as I wondered it.
And Josiah sez, “You talk like a fool, Samantha!”
And I sez, “I hope I do, Josiah—I hope so!
“But what hammered this piece of iron out to its terrible use wuz the fiery hammers of jealousy, and fury, and hunger, and want, and the gay multitude went on in its gayety and extravagancies, and didn’t heed the sullen hammerin’s onto that iron, and laughed at ’em that called attention to it—jest as you are a-doin’ now, Josiah Allen.”
Sez he, “You can talk about my extravagancies if you want to, Samantha Allen, but I hain’t half the clothes you have, and they hain’t trimmed off anywhere nigh as high as yourn are.”
But I went on, not heedin’ his triflin’ words.
Sez I, “The same furies are loose in the streets of our American cities to-day—foolish suspicion driv by mistaken zeal, jealousy, heartburnin’, honest want, and need on one side; injestice, wrong, oppressions, extravagance, indifference, anger, contempt, etc., etc., etc., on the other side, all a-flamin’ up and a-holdin’ up a light for jest sech a axe to be ground out. How long will I hear the sullen thunderin’ of the silent hammerin’s on the forge of ignorant malice and hatred and jest anger—how long?” And I sithed deep and heavey.
And Josiah sez, “What you hear is the thud of folks a-walkin’ through the Chamber of Horrows.”
And sez he agin, “You talk like a fool! America is good to the poor. Look at So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so,” sez he, a-bringin’ my attention to some of the most shinin’ lights in the field of philanthropy and jestice.
Sez I, a-drawin’ his attention to the good philanthropic works in France—sez I, “Paris had also her So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so before the Rain of Terror.”
And agin I gin several sithes and a few groans.
But my pardner looked cross as a bear, and dog tired.
So, as allegorin’ and eppisodin’ must yield to the powers of affection, I mekanically follered him in silence through the halls, Martin and the children bein’ in another part of the buildin’ and Al Faizi somewhere a-lookin’ or a-takin’ notes in a noble way—I hain’t a doubt of it.
But we all rejoined each other, and sot off home to dinner amid Josiah’s great rejoicin’.
Wall, Martin took us to the Zoological Garden, where we see all the dumb creeters that ever wuz made, it seemed to me; and all used so first-rate that it wuz a comfort to me to see ’em. Great big cages, where they could roam round some and enjoy themselves.
And wuzn’t it a pleasure to see all the beautiful birds, of every color and plume, from every country from Eden down, a-playin round in the trees and in the ambient air? The cages as big as a door-yard, with trees in ’em, where they can fly round in the branches. And water birds with their own ponds to float in; and sea birds with real sea-shores fixed up for ’em.
And so it wuz with every animal from a elephant down, wild or tame. And I should have took a sight of comfort here if I had had a pair of iron ear pans, or even gutty-perchy. But bein’ but flesh and blood, them pans ached with the fearful noise the animals made.
Josiah wanted the worst way to go to the Parliament of Cogers, which wuz established over two hundred years ago, and still meets in Fleet Street.
Sez Josiah, “A public man in America naterly depends on cogers and sech for his election.”
“Yes,” sez I; “Heaven knows that is so. Saloon-keepers and whiskey and beer and cider manafacturers, and whiskey drinkers, and the raw foreign element, and other cogers, elect more politicians to office, specially in our big towns, than any other element; and pure men and Christian wimmen have to stand back and be ruled by ’em.”
“Yes,” sez he, blandly; “and so it stands anybody in hand who has political aspirations and wants to be popular with the masses to ingrashiate himself with all the cogers he can. I would love to see what means these men take to endear themselves to the cogers, besides buyin’ ’em, and makin’ ’em drunk, and sech other ways as I’m familar with.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll go alone for all of me; I see cogers enough in my own country without huntin’ ’em up here, and I’d advise you to keep away from ’em.” Sez I, “Your head hain’t strong enough, Josiah, to hold only jest so much, and I’d advise you to fill it up with the noble and grand objects we see here on every side, and let cogers alone.”
“But,” sez he, “my futer depends on ’em; I must keep up with other statesmen if I’m ever to amount to anything.”
But I wouldn’t listen to any more of his arguments, and waved off the subject almost hautily.
But I found out afterwards that the Parliament wuzn’t cogers as Josiah looked on ’em, and they wuz particular to be called cogers, with the emphasis on the co. I found they wuz a sort of mock debates—patronized by lawyers, political men, newspaper men, clerks, etc., where they debate on every subject, and drink beer and smoke pipes and talk, talk, talk.
Daniel O’Connell and Curran and John Wilkes and many others eminent in debate wuz members of this club.
I had always pictered the Tower of London as a tall tower a-shootin’ up, some like a steeple, only more of a size all the way up; more, mebby, like a very tall pillow. But, anyway, I’d always depictered it in my mind as steeple or pillow shaped.
But, to my surprise, I found that what is called the Tower of London is a hull lot of buildin’s that cover nigh upon fourteen acres of ground, though there are, of course, a number of towers throwed in—thirteen of ’em in all—Bloody Tower, Bell Tower, Jewel Tower, etc., etc. They date back to the time of Cæsar.
There wuz a Roman fortress on this spot when the Romans held London. One tower is called Cæsar’s Tower now. William the Conqueror founded the Tower of London as we see it. When he wuz alive it wuz a great palace, with thick walls for safety or defence; it wuz used as a prison for prisoners of state mostly, and now it is used as an arsenal. Piles of rifles and cannons are kep’ here in some of the buildin’s.
The principal entrance is the Lion’s Gate, but there are three other gates. The Traitor’s Gate wuz the one through which prisoners wuz took into the Tower. I don’t spoze they recognized the way they wuz took out. Then there is the Water Gate and the Iron Gate.
One of the most interestin’ sights there wuz the guards who had charge of the place. They had on velvet hats, with a kind of a wreath on ’em, some like Tirzah Ann’s last winter’s hat, and a deep ruffle round their necks, and a blue sort of a polenay or overskirt, with a belt all embroidered with roses and thistles and shamrocks and crowns, and, etc., and short pantoloons, with stockin’s comin’ up to the knee, and rosettes on their knees and rosettes on their shues.
Josiah sez to me, “Never before sence I wuz born have I seen a man dressed up as he ort to be to carry out my idees. You can see for yourself, Samantha, jest how perfectly beautiful, and how dressy and stylish a man can be if he sets out; why,” sez he, “a dress like that would take twenty years offen my age, and I d’no but twenty-one, and I’m bound to have one jest exactly like it if I ever live to git home. What a sensation it will create in Jonesville!” sez he dreamily.
I gin a deep sithe, but before I could reply the company started on their rounds of observation, led by one of them gay-dressed individuals. They go the rounds every half hour.
Wall, we got some guide-books, and payed our sixpence apiece for our tickets, some as if we wuz goin’ into a menagerie, and follered the guide over the moat bridge into the different towers.
Martin and Josiah wuz dretful interested in the place where the weepons wuz kep’, bayonets and swords and rifles and pistols enough to equip all the armies of the earth, it seemed to me.
But I wuz more interested, a dretful heart-sickenin’ interest in the place where the wretched captives wuz imprisoned and wore the long hours away (jest as long hours as we have now) in vain dreams of the happy and brilliant past. A-lookin’ forred to the sure approach of a awful death, or, perhaps, in ellusive hopes of escape and flight to other shores.
But the shores they reached, poor things! wuz up a steep the livin’ has never climbed.
We see on the walls of these prisons words they carved in the hours they waited execution. Arthur Poole, who tried to help Mary up onto the English throne, left these words—
“I. H. S. A passage perillus makethe a port pleasant—1568.—A. Poole.”
I wonder jest how he felt when he writ them words—jest what a heartache and heartbreak spoke through ’em. I dare presoom to say he thought too much of Mary, but I can’t help that now; it’s three hundred years too late.
There wuz elaborate carvin’s of flowers, leaves, figgers, etc., and the names of their unhappy designers, who seemin’ly tried to light up their captivity by formin’ the shapes of the flowers they would never see a-growin’ in freedom agin—poseys without perfume, cold stun rosys, indeed.
And then in one room wuz jest that one word:
“Jane.”
That touched me more’n the more elaborate ones. That wuz spozed to mean Lady Jane Grey, and wuz carved by her pardner, Lord Dudley. It seemed as if Love wuz a-callin’ out to her—“Jane!” jest that one cry acrost the silences of death and eternity.
Then there wuz the autograph of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who had his head cut off in 1572 for wantin’ to marry Mary Queen of Scots.
What a havock that woman did make amongst the men!
Then in the White Tower we see the place where Essex wuz killed and the rooms occupied by Sir Walter Raleigh, and in the Brick Tower we see the prison where Walter spent the last days of his life. I wondered if through the long, dreary hours them real good words of hisen wuz any comfort to him:
“Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staffe of faith to walk upon;
My scrip of joye—immortal diet—
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;
—And thus I take my pilgrimage.
“Blood must be my body’s balmer,
While my soul, like peaceful palmer,
Travelleth toward the land of Heaven.
The bowle of blisse,
And drink mine everlasting fill
Upon every milken-hill;
My soul will be a-dry before;
But after that will thirst no more.”
Them lines ort to have been a comfort to him—mebby they wuz. But lines writ in a pleasant room to home, with the door shet up, don’t mebby sound jest the same on the scaffold or to the stake—dretful echoes sound all round ’em, loud voices that mebby drown out the words.
I spoze he thought sometimes durin’ them long days of his friends Shakespeare and Bacon. Mebby if there wuz any secrets between them two about the plays, he knew it. I wish I knew what it wuz—I’d give fifty cents freely if it could be made known to me.
I wonder what he thought of Elizabeth in them days. I wonder if he wuz sorry he throwed his cloak down for her to walk over. He tried to keep her from jest dampenin’ her feet a little, and she willin’ to cut his head off.
I’ll bet if he’d had his way them last ten days here, he would have let her sloshed right through the mud, and not offered to throw his cloak down for her.
Poor, capricious, jealous creeter, Lib wuz; but I believe that big collar she always wore choked her and kinder rasped her neck, and made her ugly. It would make me cross as a bear, it seems to me.
But I d’no what his feelin’s wuz, nor what hern wuz, when she knew the man who wuz once her lover, and beloved by her, wuz spendin’ the long days alone with despair and death.
