Text: N. P. Willis (?), Review of Mary Howitt, My Uncle the Clockmaker and Miss Bunbury, How the English Live, Evening Mirror (New York), November 7, 1844, vol. 1, no. 28, p. 2, col. 4

[page 2, column 4, continued:]

MY UNCLE THE CLOCKMAKER. — This is the title of a new Tale by Mary Howitt. The uncle clockmaker is the second son of an old family, which, possessed of a clear but small estate, has managed for generations to maintain its rank in its native neighborhood, though the master of the estate for the time being cultivated his on land, and put his own hand to the plough. The elder son succeeded to the inheritance unimpaired, and the younger ones were contented with such stations about the property as the elder pleased to appoint them. The clockmaker, Nicholas, when a youth, is dissatisfied with the prospect before him; he apprentices himself to a clockmaker in a neighboring town, notwithstanding the opposition of his father and brother, who conceive their house disgraced by a member of it being in trade. Mr. Nicholas prospers; he invents new movements, sets up a large manufactory, and supplied some London houses. He visits at the hall, and takes a great fancy to his little nephew, Master Henry. The clockmaker's wealth is further increased by a legacy of £10,000 left him by a relative who admires his spirit and industry. This £10,000 he places in the hands of a banker, to be made the most of at his discretion, directing that, if nothing was heard of him by the time he should have reached his 80th year, the whole sum should go to his nearest heirs.

The clockmaker, yet a young man, then departs to visit other countries, and nothing is heard of him for some forty years. In the meantime, young Henry grows up, marries, and succeeds to the estate. He is a gentleman and a scholar, yet possessed of good practical sense. During the high prices of the war he adds to his estate greatly, and supports his family in a handsome style. The fortune of the Flamsteads seems to have reached its zenith, when suddenly peace is proclaimed — prices tumble down — great agricultural distress ensues, and mortgages on a portion of the Flamstead property are called in. Henry is declared a bankrupt, a villanous [[villainous]] pettifogging attorney gets the whole concerns of the estate in his own hands, and proceeds to sell it by lot, partitioning even the old hall, built at so remote a date that no one can tell its age. At this time, a stranger makes his appearance in the village; he knows every one, but no one knows him; he tells the old people of the place the frolics of their youth; he even recollects Nicholas Flamstead the clockmaker; he had accompanied him in his visits to the old hall; he remembered Henry as a lad, and the pretty gold watch his uncle had given him; he is driven half mad by seeing the antique mansion plastered over with bills. He speaks his mind of the rascally solicitor. Finally he has a meeting with him in the offices of the great solicitor of the county; he buys the whole property, and then has the scoundrelly lawyer's bill taxed, so that he is forced to disgorge his plunder. He takes possession of the hall; he invites all the Flamsteads to a Christmas dinner; he is boisterously merry in the midst of their sadness; he has the first clock which ever bore the name, “Flamstead, clockmaker,” promoted to an honorable place in the dining-room. Desert succeeds dinner, and Mr. Henry, surrounded by his family, modestly proposes what had long been a standing toast — “The safe return of uncle Nicholas.” The safe return! Why, here he is! Here, with a brimming wine-glass, which he knows not whether to toss down his throat or over his head. Here he is trying to laugh, but crying all the while. Here he is kissing the girls and hugging the boys. Here, at the head of his own table, resigning his seat with a low brow of the old school to Mrs. Flamstead, and heartily embracing her as he forces her into the place she has occupied so many years. Here he is, come back to make his kindred happy, and to fulfil the desire which all conditions of our being has the force of a passion — to lay his bones among his own people.

The treatment of this little story is admirable. The characters are nicely discriminated, and the descriptions of rural scenery, manners, and feelings as bright and fresh as the air on a fine May morning. We sympathise with the Flamstead family in all their distresses; we think the better of them even for their weaknesses; and we delight to red of such natural goodness of heart as is displayed by the villagers breaking forth through the disguise of their rough manners like sunbeams through a cloud. The conclusion is quite poetical. It is as good as Marco Polo stripping open his rags and showering down jewels on the floor. To young people the story will be a rare treat, and will, like a sunshine ramble in a fine country, mingle the healthiest influences with the purest natural enjoyment.

HOW THE ENGLISH LIVE. — A Miss Bunbury, an English lady, has written a book called “Rides in the Pyrenees.[[”]] From Amiens to Pau her only companion was an old gentleman, lamed by rheu. matism, whom she met by chance; and all the rides in the Pyrenees were performed on mountain ponies, with no other attendant than a good-natured guide, searching those picturesque watering-places which lie hidden in the mountain barrier between France and Spain, one after another, in quest of a party of friends who engaged to meet her at Pau, but who, it subsequently turned out, had never left England. Her cheerfulness was unconquerable under every disappointment, and, to say truth, we believe she was so pleased with her gipsy-like and solitary wanderings, a carpet-bag containing all her luggage, that she was not half so vexed as she ought to have been at her friends’ nonappearance. She journeyed through the most sublime and beautiful scenery in nature in a perfectly independent manner, and seems never to have met with insult or unkindness, nor with any casualty, beyond an occasional drenching by a mountain shower, or an embrace in the arms of a Pyreneean cloud, or, worse still, a failure in the important matter of dinner or supper. The peasants’ huts gave her ready shelter, and a blazing fire and a mattress near it made amends for the chilling coldness or mist of the mountain atmosphere. Thus, roughing it, she had the opportunity of seeing more of the Pyrenees than falls to the lot of travellers in general; and as her pen possesses the mirror-like faculty of setting her impressions upon paper, and she is as intelligent as she is lively, it may be imagined that her account of her wanderings is both novel and engaging. In one of the houses where she lodged, a company assembled who were vastly edified by the description given by a voluble and vulgar Frenchwoman “of the way the English live:” —

Unless I had that woman's volubility and rapid utterance, her gesticulation, and the liberty of repeating her words in French, I never could do her description justice.

“Eh! the English do live well!” she began; “the commandant at Toulouse was a prisoner in England, and he has told me, he saw them, and he says he got to like it. First, for breakfast they take a great round of toast (and madame took the flat of her hand to represent the toast, drawing the other a little way above it to represent also the thickness,) and they spread it over with a quantity of butter; then they put on that slices of ham, and sausages, and — what do you call that other thing the English are so fond of, madame?”

“Ale,” said I, at a guess.

“Yes, oil; they put oil on that, and then they take another round of toast, covered with butter, and lay it on the top, and they eat that, and they drink tea, au lait, at the same time; they eat and they drink, and they drink and they eat, and that is an English breakfast — eh! they live well, these English!”

A little note of admiration went round, and, encouraged by the effect of her powers of description, madame went on to enlighten us further respecting English eating: —

“Then for dinner they take great cotelettes of beef (and here the hands were distended about three quarters of a yard apart, to designate the size of each piece of beef which formed the cotelette,) and they only just warm them at the fire; and eat them with great potatoes, boiled just as they are dug out of the earth, all entire; and they never have but one plate, and they eat the great whole potatoes and the cotelette of beef, tout sanglant, both together.”

Another little murmur of wonder, and a suffocated laugh, encouraged the dame to show her further knowledge of English life and eating: —

“Then,” turning to me, “you have what you call plomb puddin; and do you know how they make that? Ah, I know all that — Tenez! They take a great cauldron, and put it over the fire the first thing in the morning; and into that they pour a great quantity of milk and eau-de vie; and then take a vast deal of the fat of the beef, the pure fat, and put it in also; and they thicken it with flour — and — and — what else do you put in your plomb puddin, madame?”

“Eggs,” I replied, with much verity.

“Ah! yes, an enormous number of eggs they put to that; and then — what else, madame, do you put in your plomb puddin?”

“Fruit.”

“Ah! certainly; yes, fruits of all kinds; they chop them together, all kinds’ and put them into the cauldron, and they stir all up well together, and boil it from morning to evening, and then turn it out into a great basin; and they eat that at dinner with their great raw cotelettes (scribe) of beef and their whole potatoes, and they never have but one plate, eh! They live well, these English! The commandant learned all their customs when he was prisoner in England, and he told me himself he would be glad to have had their plomb puddin every morning for his breakfast. They live so well, these English!”