Our Hundred Days in Europe | Page 3

peas.
To Vauxhall Gardens. All Americans went there in those days, as they
go to Madame Tussaud's in these times. There were fireworks and an
exhibition of polar scenery. "Mr. Collins, the English PAGANINI,"
treated us to music on his violin. A comic singer gave us a song, of
which I remember the line,
"You'll find it all in the agony bill."
This referred to a bill proposed by Sir Andrew Agnew, a noted Scotch
Sabbatarian agitator.

To the opera to hear Grisi. The king, William the Fourth, was in his
box; also the Princess Victoria, with the Duchess of Kent. The king
tapped with his white-gloved hand on the ledge of the box when he was
pleased with the singing.--To a morning concert and heard the real
Paganini. To one of the lesser theatres and heard a monologue by the
elder Mathews, who died a year or two after this time. To another
theatre, where I saw Listen in Paul Pry. Is it not a relief that I am
abstaining from description of what everybody has heard described?
To Windsor. Machinery to the left of the road. Recognized it instantly,
by recollection of the plate in "Rees's Cyclopedia," as Herschel's great
telescope.--Oxford. Saw only its outside. I knew no one there, and no
one knew me.--Blenheim,--the Titians best remembered of its objects
on exhibition. The great Derby day of the Epsom races. Went to the
race with a coach-load of friends and acquaintances. Plenipotentiary,
the winner, "rode by P. Connelly." So says Herring's picture of him,
now before me. Chestnut, a great "bullock" of a horse, who easily beat
the twenty-two that started. Every New England deacon ought to see
one Derby day to learn what sort of a world this is he lives in. Man is a
sporting as well as a praying animal.
Stratford-on-Avon. Emotions, but no scribbling of name on
walls.--Warwick. The castle. A village festival, "The Opening of the
Meadows," a true exhibition of the semi-barbarism which had come
down from Saxon times.--Yorkshire. "The Hangman's Stone." Story
told in my book called the "Autocrat," etc. York
Cathedral.--Northumberland. Alnwick Castle. The figures on the walls
which so frightened my man John when he ran away from Scotland in
his boyhood. Berwick-on-Tweed. A regatta going on; a very pretty
show. Scotland. Most to be remembered, the incomparable loveliness
of Edinburgh.--Sterling. The view of the Links of Forth from the castle.
The whole country full of the romance of history and poetry. Made one
acquaintance in Scotland, Dr. Robert Knox, who asked my companion
and myself to breakfast. I was treated to five entertainments in Great
Britain: the breakfast just mentioned; lunch with Mrs. Macadam,--the
good old lady gave me bread, and not a stone; dinner with Mr.
Vaughan; one with Mr. Stanley, the surgeon; tea with Mr. Clift,--for all

which attentions I was then and am still grateful, for they were more
than I had any claim to expect. Fascinated with Edinburgh. Strolls by
Salisbury Crag; climb to the top of Arthur's Seat; delight of looking up
at the grand old castle, of looking down on Holyrood Palace, of
watching the groups on Calton Hill, wandering in the quaint old streets
and sauntering on the sidewalks of the noble avenues, even at that time
adding beauty to the new city. The weeks I spent in Edinburgh are
among the most memorable of my European experiences. To the
Highlands, to the Lakes, in short excursions; to Glasgow, seen to
disadvantage under gray skies and with slippery pavements. Through
England rapidly to Dover and to Calais, where I found the name of M.
Dessein still belonging to the hotel I sought, and where I read Sterne's
"Preface Written in a Désobligeante," sitting in the vehicle most like
one that I could find in the stable. From Calais back to Paris, where I
began working again.
All my travelling experiences, including a visit to Switzerland and Italy
in the summer and autumn of 1835, were merely interludes of my
student life in Paris. On my return to America, after a few years of
hospital and private practice, I became a Professor in Harvard
University, teaching Anatomy and Physiology, afterwards Anatomy
alone, for the period of thirty-five years, during part of which time I
paid some attention to literature, and became somewhat known as the
author of several works in prose and verse which have been well
received. My prospective visit will not be a professional one, as I
resigned my office in 1882, and am no longer known chiefly as a
teacher or a practitioner.
BOSTON, April, 1886.

OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE
* * * * *
I.

I begin this record with the columnar, self-reliant capital letter to
signify that there is no disguise in its egoisms. If it were