Puck — February 26, 1879 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PUCK. II James Payn 1n “ BELGRAVIA.” WAS sitting two years ago, with an Ameri- can lady and her husband, in one of the cool parlors of “Botham’s,” at Salt Hill— that fine old inn, which, though it had had its day, still up to that date maintained its dignity. I was telling them how in the “‘ King’s Room,” above stairs, the allied monarchs with old Bli- cher had dined together, and how, every year, old King George III. or jolly King William had been wont at Montem time to visit the hospita- ble place, when the air rang with boyish shouts, and the full-foliaged garden was gay with Greek and Albanian, with Turk and Spaniard, with admiral and post-captain, all in duodecimo editions. ‘I'he old-world legends of the place, and, above all, the literary air, blown across from Stoke Pogis (Gray's burial - place), not two miles away, delighted my transatlantic friends, and, indeed, we all three were having “(a good time” at Botham’s, and naturally enough, perhaps, we began talking about old English inns. “Now, the inn of all others I should like to see,” said the lady, “is the old Maypole Inn at Chigwell, drawn by Cattermole so beautifully in Dickens's ‘ Barnaby Rudge.’ I did not know where Chigwell was, but 1 gallantly said, “‘And you shall see it.” There is nothing astonishes English people (and I hope shames some of them) in their companionship with their American cousins so much as the interest which the latter take in all things literary, and especially in the English classics. I will venture to say that the average educated American—and there are few who are not, at all events, well read in our common tongue—knows better than his English cousin where our great men are buried or have been born, where they wrote their more celebrated works, and what localities they have immortal- ized. This wish to visit Dickens’s Maypole, for example, though every way pleasant and natural, was what had never occurred to my- self, though I know my Dickens as well as most men, and love him more than most. But as to Chigwell, I had forgotten that the scene of the rioters’ visit to the inn was laid there, and | only vaguely knew that it was somewhere in Epping Forest. Nay, I only knew Epping For- est as a spot rarely visited save’ by the wild East Enders on their Sunday “outings,” and, in connection with some bill in Parliament re- specting its preservation, ‘To my American friends, just fresh from the Windsor glades, it suggested vast ancestral trees and herds of deer; and though I had my doubts of anything so noble as that, I partly shared their expecta- tions. At all events, there would be the inn, more antique now than when the great novelist described it, with its huge porch and carved oak parlors, and gracious associations such as cling around the picturesque abodes of old. And there would be, methought, if not a veni- son pasty and black-jack of ale, still some good homely fare, and honest liquor in which to drink the memory of him who drew the raven and his master, and sent down Cattermole, R. A., to draw the Maypole Inn. It is astonishing how quickly have fallen to Dickens's lot that tender reverence and sympa- thy among his countrymen—and, I may add, at least as much among his transatlantic cou- sins—which ordinarily takes many years, and even generations, to grow about a dead writer. A small and “ highly cultured ” clique, indeed, there still is who contend that posterity will pronounce a different verdict; but considering that their contempt for everything about them —people, places and things—is so overwhelm- ing, and that the Present has almost no value with them when compared with the Past, it seems to me that the Future and the opinions of our descendants should in their eyes, by analogy, have no value at all. In the mean- time, it is certain that no writer has been so successful in making his works part and parcel of the language of his country, I do not say ip so short a time, but even without that restric- tion. Dickens is more quoted by other writers, even by those who affect to depreciate him, than any author. The very sayings of his characters, as well as his characters themselves, have alreatly, indeed, become “household words;” and with respect to his humor, there is an especial and very melancholy reason why we prize it and yet use it so familiarly: with Dickens all real fun has died. We have still, and partly thanks to him, writers who have command of pathos, and who exhibit genuine sympathy with the lot of the Many; but with him all our high spirits seem to have died out. His loss has really done what that of Garrick was by an hyperbole described to have done: it has “eclipsed the gayety of nations.” We have no one else who can tickle our heart- strings with a Micawber or a Sam Weller, and therefore we cling to those immortal concep- tions, and are interested by even the scenes in which the Great Master placed them to play their own parts. In this respect the localities of “Barnaby Rudge,” including the famous Maypole, have a double attraction, since an historical as well as a literary interest attaches to them. It was Dickens’s first attempt, and a most successful one, at the historical novel. It is of necessity, therefore, in some respects less like himself, and in consequence has failed to secure the suffrages of “the clique" I have spoken of, less than any of his others. ‘They are so good as to state that it is the first book in which Dickens exhibited any power of draw- ing a gentleman—in the person, I suppose, of Mr. Harewood, though it may possibly be that Sir John Chester hasbeen identified by them with that type of character. It was for far better reasons, you may be sure, however, that my American friends ad- mired ‘“* Barnaby Rudge,” and were anxious to visit the famous inn—itself so picturesque a fragment of old times—where old John Willett was tied and bound by the mad -London mob, and where his noble son abode, whom she who has given her name of late to so many a fash- ionable garb clave to so faithfully, and about which still hang the echoes of that dread alarm-bell which, though it gave but a single knell, still speaks of murder done. Naturally, all the arrangements for visiting the Maypole—an excursion which was, of course, to include the deer forest of Epping— devolved on me, the Britisher; and, to begin with, I am ashamed to say I had to consult “ Bradshaw's Railway Guide” as to how we were to get there. The East End of London is literally a serra incognita to us West Enders, and even our starting-point was much too distant to’ be reached by cab or carriage, An extension of the Metropolitan Railway, however, seemed to promise to take us to the required station, and by it, on the day appointed, we started accord- ingly. “It landed us somewhere in the City, and from it we were directed by an official to Liverpool Street Station—only just across the way—where tickets could be procured to Ep- ping. And here it was that our difficulties in search of the desired shrine began, The booking clerk at Liverpool Street Sta- tion, when I said, “Three for Epping,” replied, “For Epping?” doubtfully, and then consulted a little ledger. ‘Well, you see, you can go to Epping by this line of rail, but it isn’t usual.” I did not wish, of course, to induce my American friends to do anything more unusual than what they had in hand (for nobody that I could discover among all my circle of acquaint- ances, which is large, had ever tried the expe- dition on which we were bound), and accord- ingly I went back to the Metropolitan line to be directed on our way afresh, But, like the little damsel in the poem of ‘ We are Seven,” the officials stuck to their text—the Liverpool Street Station was the station for Epping, and, to their knowledge, a thousand people had gone that way ‘‘a-foresting"’ only that very morning. This latter piece of intelligence was not pleasing to me (though I did not breathe it to my friends), for a thousand foresters were likely to exercise a disturbing influence ona comparatively limited locality, and if any of them, by unhappy chance, should have a lite- rary taste, they might have already seized and occupied the best— that is, the most picturesque apartments that the Maypole had to offer. Upon our second application, the clerk gave us tickets to Epping, though, as it were, under protest, and giving us notice that we should have to change-at Bethnal Green—the dismal- est, ugliest, and most abject portion of Lon- don, and wholly unconnected with literature, except by a specimen of early ballad poetry, singular to say, comparatively unknown in the United States. If a thousand “ foresters” had preceded us ‘on our road, a good many, it seemed, were still left to accompany us, whose lips even at that comparatively early hour had made acquaint- ance with the flagon; but they were not, I con- cluded from their style of conversation, per- sons who affected literature, nor, on that ac- count at least, likely to visit the Maypole. At Bethnal Green, and for many stations af- terwards, our view was bounded by walls and roofs; but as we emerged from the great wilder- ness of brick and mortar, the pleasant fields of Essex began to appear as heralds of the fairer scenes beyond. We were the only people, it seemed to me, who patronized the first-class at all, which per- haps accounted for the guard in his turn (doubt- less with the idea of a “tip” in his head) pa- tronizing us. “For the Forest, I suppose, gentlemen?” said he, putting his head into our open window as we drew near our destination, “Yes,” said I; “for Epping.” “Oh, but Epping ain’t the Forest, sir; very true it's called Epping, and you can get to it from Epping.” “How very extraordinary!” observed my American lady; “that is the very same thing the booking clerk said!” I had no explanation to offer of this eccen- tric behavior of my countrymen, so I confined myself to asking which station would be more convenient for us to alight at, since Epping was not the place for Epping. “ Well, you had better try Loughton, sir.” I didn’t like the idea of “ trying Loughton,” as though the notion of finding the forest at all (let alone our way in it) was doubtful; but of course I assented. However, before the ex- periment could be made, the guard’s elbow ap- peared at the window again, with, “ What part of the Forest, now, may you be in search of, ma'am?” He had observed by this time that the lady was our guiding star, as indeed she was (and deserved to be), and henceforth ad- dressed himself exélusively to her. “Well, we wish to go.to the Maypole,” said she sweetly, “The Maypole? Ah, the Maypole Inn, that would be,” answered he, as though we might possibly have come to dance about the pole itself. ‘Ah, then Loughton wouldn't be the place; you had best get out at Woodford,” (To be concluded.) comicbooks.com