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diff --git a/29363.txt b/29363.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..963c063 --- /dev/null +++ b/29363.txt @@ -0,0 +1,31867 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The +Four Georges by William Makepeace Thackeray + + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no +restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under +the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or +online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license + + + +Title: Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: July 10, 2009 [Ebook #29363] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY ESMOND; THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS; THE FOUR GEORGES*** + + + + + + Henry Esmond + + The English Humourists + + The Four Georges + + By + + William Makepeace Thackeray + + Edited, with an Introduction, by + + George Saintsbury + + With 15 Illustrations + + Humphrey Milford + + Oxford University Press + + London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Copenhagen, + + New York, Toronto, Melbourne, Cape Town, + + Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Shanghai + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +Introduction. +The History Of Henry Esmond, Esq. + Dedication. + Preface. The Esmonds Of Virginia + Book I. The Early Youth Of Henry Esmond, Up To The Time Of His Leaving + Trinity College, In Cambridge + Chapter I. An Account Of The Family Of Esmond Of Castlewood Hall + Chapter II. Relates How Francis, Fourth Viscount, Arrives At + Castlewood + Chapter III. Whither In The Time Of Thomas, Third Viscount, I Had + Preceded Him As Page To Isabella + Chapter IV. I Am Placed Under A Popish Priest And Bred To That + Religion.--Viscountess Castlewood + Chapter V. My Superiors Are Engaged In Plots For The Restoration Of + King James II + Chapter VI. The Issue Of The Plots.--The Death Of Thomas, Third + Viscount Of Castlewood; And The Imprisonment Of His Viscountess + Chapter VII. I Am Left At Castlewood An Orphan, And Find Most Kind + Protectors There + Chapter VIII. After Good Fortune Comes Evil + Chapter IX. I Have The Small-Pox, And Prepare To Leave Castlewood + Chapter X. I Go To Cambridge, And Do But Little Good There + Chapter XI. I Come Home For A Holiday To Castlewood, And Find A + Skeleton In The House + Chapter XII. My Lord Mohun Comes Among Us For No Good + Chapter XIII. My Lord Leaves Us And His Evil Behind Him + Chapter XIV. We Ride After Him To London + Book II. Contains Mr. Esmond's Military Life, And Other Matters + Appertaining To The Esmond Family + Chapter I. I Am In Prison, And Visited, But Not Consoled There + Chapter II. I Come To The End Of My Captivity, But Not Of My Trouble + Chapter III. I Take The Queen's Pay In Quin's Regiment + Chapter IV. Recapitulations + Chapter V. I Go On The Vigo Bay Expedition, Taste Salt Water And + Smell Powder + Chapter VI. The 29th December + Chapter VII. I Am Made Welcome At Walcote + Chapter VIII. Family Talk + Chapter IX. I Make The Campaign Of 1704 + Chapter X. An Old Story About A Fool And A Woman + Chapter XI. The Famous Mr. Joseph Addison + Chapter XII. I Get A Company In The Campaign Of 1706 + Chapter XIII. I Meet An Old Acquaintance In Flanders, And Find My + Mother's Grave And My Own Cradle There + Chapter XIV. The Campaign Of 1707, 1708 + Chapter XV. General Webb Wins The Battle Of Wynendael + Book III. Containing The End Of Mr. Esmond's Adventures In England + Chapter I. I Come To An End Of My Battles And Bruises + Chapter II. I Go Home, And Harp On The Old String + Chapter III. A Paper Out Of The "Spectator" + Chapter IV. Beatrix's New Suitor + Chapter V. Mohun Appears For The Last Time In This History + Chapter VI. Poor Beatrix + Chapter VII. I Visit Castlewood Once More + Chapter VIII. I Travel To France And Bring Home A Portrait Of Rigaud + Chapter IX. The Original Of The Portrait Comes To England + Chapter X. We Entertain A Very Distinguished Guest At Kensington + Chapter XI. Our Guest Quits Us As Not Being Hospitable Enough + Chapter XII. A Great Scheme, And Who Balked It + Chapter XIII. August 1st, 1714 + Appendix +The English Humourists Of The Eighteenth Century + Lecture The First. Swift + Lecture The Second. Congreve And Addison + Lecture The Third. Steele + Lecture The Fourth. Prior, Gay, And Pope + Lecture The Fifth. Hogarth, Smollett, And Fielding + Lecture The Sixth. Sterne And Goldsmith +The Georges + The Poems + Sketches Of Manners, Morals, Court And Town Life + George The First + George The Second + George The Third + George The Fourth +Footnotes + + + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + + [Illustration] + + Thackeray In His Study At Onslow Square. From a painting by E. M. Ward + + +We know exceedingly little of the genesis and progress of _Esmond_. "It +did not seem to be a part of our lives as _Pendennis_ was," says Lady +Ritchie, though she wrote part of it to dictation. She "only heard +_Esmond_ spoken of very rarely". Perhaps its state was not the less +gracious. The Milton girls found _Paradise Lost_ a very considerable part +of their lives--and were not the happier. + +But its parallels are respectable. The greatest things have a way of +coming "all so still" into the world. We wrangle--that is, those of us who +are not content simply not to know--about the composition of Homer, the +purpose of the _Divina Commedia_, the probable plan of the _Canterbury +Tales_, the _Ur-Hamlet_. Nobody put preliminary advertisements in the +papers, you see, about these things: there was a discreditable neglect of +the first requirements of the public. So it is with _Esmond_. There is, I +thought, a reference to it in the Brookfield letters; but in several +searches I cannot find it. To his mother he speaks of the book as "grand +and melancholy", and to Lady Stanley as of "cut-throat melancholy". It is +said to have been sold for a thousand pounds--the same sum that Master +Shallow lent Falstaff on probably inferior security. Those who knew +thought well of it--which is not wholly surprising. + +It is still, perhaps, in possession of a success rather of esteem than of +affection. A company of young men and maidens to whom it was not long ago +submitted pronounced it (with one or two exceptions) inferior as a work of +humour. The hitting of little Harry in the eye with a potato was, they +admitted, humorous, but hardly anything else. As representing another +generation and another point of view, the faithful Dr. John Brown did not +wholly like it--Esmond's marriage with Rachel, after his love for Beatrix, +being apparently "the fly in the ointment" to him. Even the author could +only plead "there's a deal of pains in it that goes for nothing", as he +says in one of his rare published references to the subject: but he was +wrong. Undoubtedly the mere taking of pains will not do; but that is when +they are taken in not the right manner, by not the right person, on not +the right subject. Here everything was right, and accordingly it "went +for" everything. A greater novel than _Esmond_ I do not know; and I do not +know many greater books. It may be "melancholy", and none the worse for +that: it is "grand". + +For though there may not be much humour of the potato-throwing sort in +_Esmond_, it will, perhaps, be found that in no book of Thackeray's, or of +any one else's, is that deeper and higher humour which takes all life for +its province--which is the humour of humanity--more absolutely pervading. +And it may be found likewise, at least by some, that in no book is there +to be found such a constant intertwist of the passion which, in all +humanity's higher representatives, goes with humour hand in hand--a loving +yet a mutually critical pair. Of the extraordinarily difficult form of +autobiography I do not know such another masterly presentment; nor is it +very difficult to recognize the means by which this mastery is attained, +though Heaven knows it is not easy to understand the skill with which they +are applied. The success is, in fact, the result of that curious +"doubleness"--amounting, in fact, here to something like _triplicity_--which +distinguishes Thackeray's attitude and handling. Thus Henry Esmond, who is +on the whole, I should say, the most like him of all his characters +(though of course "romanced" a little), is himself and "the other fellow", +and also, as it were, human criticism of both. At times we have a +tolerably unsophisticated account of his actions, or it may be even his +thoughts; at another his thoughts and actions as they present themselves, +or might present themselves, to another mind: and yet at other times a +reasoned view of them, as it were that of an impartial historian. The +mixed form of narrative and mono-drama lends itself to this as nothing +else could: and so does the author's well-known, much discussed, and +sometimes heartily abused habit of _parabasis_ or soliloquy to the +audience. Of this nothing has yet been directly said, and anything that is +said would have to be repeated as to every novel: so that we may as well +keep it for the last or a late example, _The Virginians_ or _Philip_. But +its efficacy in this peculiar kind of double or treble handling is almost +indisputable, even by those who may dispute its legitimacy as a constantly +applied method. + +One result, however, it has, as regards the hero-spokesman, which is +curious. I believe thoroughly in Henry Esmond--he is to me one of the most +real of illustrious Henrys as well of Thackeray's characters--but his +reality is of a rather different kind from that of most of his fellows. It +is somewhat more abstract, more typical, more generalized than the reality +of English heroes usually is. He is not in the least shadowy or allegoric: +but still he is somehow "Esmondity" as well as Esmond--_the_ melancholy +rather than _a_ melancholy, clearsighted, aloofminded man. His heart and +his head act to each other as their governing powers, passion and humour, +have been sketched as acting above. He is a man never likely to be very +successful, famous, or fortunate in the world; not what is generally +called a happy man; yet enjoying constant glows and glimmers of a cloudy +happiness which he would hardly exchange for any other light. The late +Professor Masson--himself no posture-monger or man of megrims, but one of +genial temper and steady sense--described Thackeray as "a man apart"; and +so is the Marquis of Esmond. Yet Thackeray was a very real man; and so is +the Marquis too. + + [Illustration] + + No. 36 Onslow Square, Brompton, Where Thackeray Lived From 1853 to 1862. + + +The element of abstraction disappears, or rather retires into the +background, when we pass to Beatrix. She also has the _Ewigweibliche_ in +her--as much of it as any, or almost any, of Shakespeare's women, and +therefore more than anybody else's. But she is very much more than a +type--she is Beatrix Esmond in flesh and blood, and damask and diamond, +born "for the destruction of mankind" and fortunately for the delight of +them, or some of them, as well. Beatrix is beyond eulogy. "Cease! cease to +sing her praise!" is really the only motto, though perhaps something more +may be said when we come to the terrible pendant which only Thackeray has +had the courage and the skill to draw, with truth and without a disgusting +result. If she had died when _Esmond_ closes I doubt whether, in the Wood +of Fair Ladies, even Cleopatra would have dared to summon her to her side, +lest the comparison should not be favourable enough to herself, and the +throne have to be shared. + +But, as usual with Thackeray, you must not look to the hero and heroine +too exclusively, even when there is such a heroine as this. For is there +not here another heroine--cause of the dubieties of the _Doctor Fidelis_ as +above cited? As to that it may perhaps be pointed out to the extreme +sentimentalists that, after all, Harry had been in love with the mother, +as well as with the daughter, all along. If they consider this an +aggravation, it cannot be helped: but, except from the extreme point of +view of Miss Marianne Dashwood in her earlier stage, it ought rather to be +considered a palliative. And if they say further that the thing is made +worse still by the fact that Harry was himself Rachel's _second_ love, and +that she did not exactly wait to be a widow before she fell in love with +him--why, there is, again, nothing for it but to confess that it is very +shocking--and excessively human. Indeed, the fact is that Rachel is as +human as Beatrix, though in a different way. You may not only _love_ her +less, but--in a different sense of contrast from that of the Roman +poet--_like_ her a little less. But you cannot, if you have any knowledge +of human nature, call her unnatural. And really I do not know that the +third lady of the family, Isabel Marchioness of Esmond, though there is +less written about her, is not as real and almost as wonderful as the +other two. She is not so fairly treated, however, poor thing! for we have +her Bernstein period without her Beatrix one. + +As for my Lords Castlewood--Thomas, and Francis _pere et fils_--their +creator has not taken so much trouble with them; but they are never "out". +The least of a piece, I think, is Rachel's too fortunate or too +unfortunate husband. The people who regard Ibsen's great triumph in the +_Doll's House_ as consisting in the conduct of the husband as to the +incriminating documents, ought to admire Thackeray's management of the +temporary loss of Rachel's beauty. They are certainly both touches of the +baser side of human nature ingeniously worked in. But the question is, +What, in this wonderful book, is _not_ ingeniously worked in--character or +incident, description or speech? + +If the champions of "Unity" were wise, they would take _Esmond_ as a +battle-horse, for it is certain that, great as are its parts, the whole is +greater than almost any one of them--which is certainly not the case with +_Pendennis_. And it is further certain that, of these parts, the +personages of the hero and the heroine stand out commandingly, which is +certainly not the case with _Pendennis_, again. The unity, however, is of +a peculiar kind: and differs from the ordinary non-classical "Unity of +Interest" which Thackeray almost invariably exhibits. It is rather a Unity +of _Temper_, which is also present (as the all-pervading motto _Vanitas +Vanitatum_ almost necessitates) in all the books, but here reaches a +transcendence not elsewhere attained. The brooding spirit of +_Ecclesiastes_ here covers, as it were, with the shadow of one of its +wings the joys and sorrows, the failures and successes of a private family +and their friends, with the other the fates of England and Europe; the +fortunes of Marlborough and of Swift on their way from dictatorship, in +each case, to dotage and death; the big wars and the notable literary +triumphs as well as the hopeless passions or acquiescent losses. It is +thus an instance--and the greatest--of that revival of the historical novel +which was taking place, and in which the novel of Scott(1)--simpler, though +not so very simple as is sometimes thought--is being dashed with a far +heavier dose of the novel-element as opposed to the romance, yet without +abandonment of the romance-quality proper. Of these novel-romance scenes, +as they may be called, the famous mock-duel at the end is of course the +greatest. But that where the Duke of Hamilton has to acknowledge the +Marquis of Esmond, and where Beatrix gives the kiss of Beatrix, is almost +as great: and there are many others. It is possible that this very +transcendence accounts to some extent for the somewhat lukewarm admiration +which it has received. The usual devotee of the novel of analysis dislikes +the historic, and has taught himself to consider it childish; the common +lover of romance (not the better kind) feels himself hampered by the +character-study, as Emile de Girardin's subscribers felt themselves +hampered by Gautier's style. All the happier those who can make the best +of both dispensations! + +Nothing, however, has yet been said of one of the most salient +characteristics of _Esmond_--one, perhaps, which has had as much to do with +the love of its lovers and the qualified esteem of those who do not quite +love it, as anything else. This is, of course, the attempt, certainly a +very audacious one, at once to give the very form and pressure of the time +of the story--sometimes in actual diction--and yet to suffuse it with a +modern thought and colour which most certainly were _not_ of the time. The +boldness and the peril of this attempt are both quite indisputable; and +the peril itself is, in a way, double. There is the malcontent who will +say "This may be all very fine: but I don't like it. It bothers and teases +me. I do not want to be talked to in the language of Addison and Steele". +And there will be the possibly less ingenuous but more obtrusive +malcontent who will say that it ought never to have been done, or that it +is not, as it is, done well. With the first, who probably exists "in +squadrons and gross bands", argument is, of course, impossible. He may be +taught better if he is caught young, but that is all: and certainly the +last thing that any honest lover of literature would wish would be to make +him say that he likes a thing when he does not. That may be left to those +who preach and follow the fashions of the moment. Nor, perhaps, is there +very much to do with those who say that the double attempt is not +successful--except to disable their judgement. But as for the doctrine that +this attempt _deserves_ to fail, and must fail--that it is wrong in +itself--there one may take up the cudgels with some confidence. + +So far from there being anything illegitimate in this attempt to bring one +period before the eyes of another in its habit as it lived, and speaking +as it spoke, but to allow those eyes themselves to move as they move and +see as they see--it is merely the triumph and the justification of the +whole method of prose fiction in general, and of the historical novel in +particular. For that historical novel is itself the result of the growth +of the historic sense acting upon the demand for fiction. So long as +people made no attempt to understand things and thoughts different from +those around and within them; so long as, like the men of the Middle Ages, +they blandly threw everything into their own image, or, like those of the +Renaissance to some extent and the Augustan period still more, regarded +other ages at worst with contempt, and at best with indulgence as +childish--the historical novel could not come into being, and did not. It +only became possible when history began to be seriously studied as +something more than a chronicle of external events. When it had thus been +made possible, it was a perfectly legitimate experiment to carry the +process still further; not merely to discuss or moralize, but to represent +the period as it was, without forfeiting the privilege of regarding it +from a point of view which it had not itself reached. The process of +Thackeray is really only an unfolding, and carrying further into +application, of the method of Shakespeare. Partly his date, partly his +genius, partly his dramatic necessities, obliged Shakespeare to combine +his treatment--to make his godlike Romans at once Roman and Elizabethan, +and men of all time, and men of no time at all. Thackeray, with the +conveniences of the novel and the demands of his audience, _dichotomizes_ +the presentation while observing a certain unity in the fictitious person, +now of Henry Esmond, now of William Makepeace Thackeray himself. If +anybody does not like the result, there is nothing to be said. But there +are those who regard it as one of the furthest explorations that we yet +possess of human genius--one of the most extraordinary achievements of that +higher imagination which Coleridge liked to call _esenoplastic_.(2) That a +man should have the faculty of reproducing contemporary or general life is +wonderful; that he should have the faculty of reproducing past life is +wonderful still more. But that he should thus revive the past and preserve +the present--command and provide at once theatre and company, audience and +performance--this is the highest wizardry of all. And this, as it seems to +me, is what Thackeray had attempted, and more, what he has done, in the +_History of Henry Esmond_.(3) + +He could not have done it without the "pains" to which he refers in the +saying quoted above; but these pains, as usual, bore fruit more than once. +It has been thought desirable to include in the present volume the two +main after-crops,(4) _The English Humourists_ and _The Four Georges_. +Exactly _how_ early Thackeray's attention was drawn to the eighteenth +century it would, in the necessarily incomplete state of our biographical +information about him, be very difficult to say. We have pointed out that +the connexion was pretty well established as early as _Catherine_. But it +was evidently founded upon that peculiar congeniality, freshened and +enlivened with a proper dose of difference, which is the most certain +source and the purest maintainer of love in life and literature. + +At the same time, the two sets of lectures are differentiated from the +novel not so much by their form--for Thackeray as a lecturer had very +little that smacked of the platform, and as a novelist he had a great deal +that smacked of the satiric conversation-scene--as by their purport. +_Esmond_, though partly critical, is mainly and in far the greater part +creative. The Lectures, though partly creative--_resurrective_, at any +rate--are professedly and substantially critical. Now, a good deal has been +said already of Thackeray's qualities and defects as a critic: and it has +been pointed out that, in consequence of his peculiar impulsiveness, his +strong likes and dislikes, his satiric-romantic temperament, and perhaps +certain deficiencies in all-round literary and historical learning, his +critical light was apt to be rather uncertain, and his critical deductions +by no means things from which there should be no appeal. But _The English +Humourists_ is by far the most important "place" for this criticism in the +literary department; and _The Four Georges_ (with _The Book of Snobs_ to +some extent supplementing it) is the chief place for his criticism of +society, personality, and the like. Moreover, both have been, and are, +violently attacked by those who do not like him. So that, for more reasons +than one or two, both works deserve faithful critical handling themselves. + +It is always best to disperse Maleger and his myrmidons before exploring +the beauties of the House of Alma: so we may take the objections to the +_Humourists_ first. They are chiefly concerned with the handling of Swift +and (in a less degree) of Sterne. Now, it is quite certain that we have +here, in the first case at any rate, to confess, though by no means to +avoid. It is an instance of that excessive "taking sides" with or against +his characters which has been noticed, and will be noticed, again and +again. Nor is the reason of this in the least difficult to perceive. It is +very doubtful whether Thackeray's own estimate of average humanity was +much higher than Swift's: nor is it quite certain that the affection which +Swift professed and (from more than one instance) seems to have really +felt for Dick, Tom, and Harry, in particular, as opposed to mankind at +large, was very much less sincere than Thackeray's own for individuals. +But the temperament of the one deepened and aggravated his general +understanding of mankind into a furious misanthropy; while the temperament +of the other softened _his_ into a general pardon. In the same way, +Swift's very love and friendship were dangerous and harsh-faced, while +Thackeray's were sunny and caressing. But there can be very little doubt +that Thackeray himself, when the "Shadow of Vanity" was heaviest on him, +felt the danger of actual misanthropy, and thus revolted from its victim +with a kind of terror; while his nature could not help feeling a similar +revulsion from Swift's harsh ways. That to all this revulsion he gives +undue force of expression need not be denied: but then, it must be +remembered that he does not allow it to affect his _literary_ judgement. I +do not believe that any one now living has a greater admiration for Swift +than I have: and all that I can say is that I know no estimate of his +genius anywhere more adequate than Thackeray's. As for Sterne, I do not +intend to say much. If you will thrust your personality into your +literature, as Sterne constantly does, you must take the chances of your +personality as well as of your literature. You practically expose both to +the judgement of the public. And if anybody chooses to take up the cudgels +for Sterne's personality I shall hand them over to him and take no part on +one side or another in that bout. To his _genius_, once more, I do not +think Thackeray at all unjust. + +The fact is, however, that as is usual with persons of genius, but even +more than as usual, the defects and the qualities are so intimately +connected that you cannot have one without the other--you must pay the +price of the other for the one. All I can say is that such another _live_ +piece of English criticism of English literature as this I do not know +anywhere. What is alive is very seldom perfect: to get perfection you must +go to epitaphs. But, once more, though I could pick plenty of small holes +in the details of the actual critical dicta, I know no picture of the +division of literature here concerned from which a fairly intelligent +person will derive a better impression of the facts than from this. +Addison may be a little depressed, and Steele a little exalted: but it is +necessary to remember that by Macaulay, whose estimate then practically +held the field, Steele had been most unduly depressed and Addison rather +unduly exalted. You may go about among our critics on the brightest day +with the largest lantern and find nothing more brilliant itself than the +"Congreve" article, where the spice of injustice will, again, deceive +nobody but a fool. The vividness of the "Addison and Steele" presentation +is miraculous. He redresses Johnson on Prior as he had redressed Macaulay +on Steele; and he is not unjust, as we might have feared that he would be, +to Pope. "Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding" is another miracle of +appreciation: and I should like to ask the objectors to "sentimentality" +by what other means than an intense _sympathy_ (from which it is +impossible to exclude something that may be called sentimental) such a +study as that of Goldsmith could have been produced? Now Goldsmith is one +of the most difficult persons in the whole range of literature to treat, +from the motley of his merits and his weaknesses. Yet Thackeray has +achieved the adventure here. In short, throughout the book, he is +invaluable as a critic, if not impeccable in criticism. His faults, and +the causes of them, are obvious, separable, negligible: his merits (the +chief of them, as usual, the constant shower of happy and illuminative +phrase) as rare in quality as they are abundant in quantity. + +The lectures on _The English Humourists_ must have been composed very much +_pari passu_ with _Esmond_; they were being delivered while it was being +finished, and it was published just as the author was setting off to +re-deliver them in America. _The Four Georges_ were not regularly taken in +hand till some years later, when _The Newcomes_ was finished or finishing, +and when fresh material was wanted for the second American trip. But there +exists a very remarkable _scenario_ of them--as it may be almost called--a +full decade older, in the shape of a _satura_ of verse and prose +contributed to _Punch_ on October 11, 1845; which has accordingly been +kept back from its original associates to be inserted here. All things +considered, it gives the lines which are followed in the later lectures +with remarkable precision: and it is not at all improbable that Thackeray +actually, though not of necessity consciously, took it for head-notes. + +No book of his has been so violently attacked both at the time of its +appearance and since. Nor--for, as the reader must have seen long ago, the +present writer, though proud to be called a Thackerayan stalwart, is not a +Thackerayan "know-nothing", a "Thackeray-right-or-wrong" man--is there any +that exposes itself more to attack. From the strictly literary side, +indeed, it has the advantage of _The Book of Snobs_: for it is nowhere +unequal, and exhibits its author's unmatched power of historical-artistic +imagination or reconstruction in almost the highest degree possible. But +in other respects it certainly does show the omission "to erect a sconce +on Drumsnab". There was (it has already been hinted at in connexion with +the Eastern Journey) a curious innocence about Thackeray. It may be that, +like the Hind, + + + He feared no danger for he knew no sin; + + +but the absence of fear with him implied an apparent ignoring of danger, +which is a danger in itself. Nobody who has even passed Responsions in the +study of his literary and moral character will suspect him for one moment +of having pandered to American prejudice by prating to it, as a tit-bit +and _primeur_, scandal about this or that King George. But it was quite +evident from the first, and ought to have been evident to the author long +beforehand, that the enemy _might_ think, and _would_ say so. In fact, +putting considerations of mere expediency aside, I think myself that he +had much better not have done it. As for the justice of the general +verdict, it is no doubt affected throughout by Thackeray's political +incapacity, whatever side he might have taken, and by that quaint +theoretical republicanism, with a good deal of pure Toryism mixed, which +he attributes to some of his characters, and no doubt, in a kind of rather +confused speculative way, held himself. He certainly puts George III's +ability too low, and as certainly he indulges in the case of George IV in +one of these curious outbursts--a _Hetze_ of unreasoning, frantic, +"stop-thief!" and "mad-dog!" persecution--to which he was liable. "Gorgius" +may not have been a hero or a proper moral man: he was certainly "a most +expensive _Herr_", and by no means a pattern husband. But recent and by no +means Pharisaical expositions have exhibited his wife as almost infinitely +_not_ better than she should be; the allegations of treachery to private +friends are, on the whole, Not Proven: if he deserted the Whigs, it was no +more than some of these very Whigs very shortly afterwards did to their +country: he played the difficult part of Regent and the not very easy one +of King by no means ill; he was, by common and even reluctant consent, an +extremely pleasant host and companion; and he liked Jane Austen's novels. +There have been a good many princes--and a good many demagogues too--of whom +as much good could not be said. + +Admitting excess in these details, and "inconvenience" in the +circumstances of the original representation, there remains, as it seems +to me, a more than sufficient balance to credit. That social-historic +sense, accompanied with literary power of bodying forth its results, which +we noticed as early as the opening of _Catherine_ has, in the seventeen +years' interval, fully and marvellously matured itself. The picture is not +a mere mob of details: it is an orderly pageant of artistically composed +material. It is possible; it is life-like; the only question (and that is +rather a minor one) is, "Is it true?" + +Minor, I say, because the artistic value would remain if the historical +were impaired. But I do not think it is. I shall bow to the authority of +persons better acquainted with the eighteenth century than I am: but if +some decades of familiarity with essayists and novelists and diarists and +letter-writers may give one a scanty _locus standi_, I shall certainly +give my testimony in favour of "Thackeray's Extract". The true essence of +the life that exhibits itself in fiction from _Pamela_ and _Joseph +Andrews_ down to _Pompey the Little_ and the _Spiritual Quixote_; in essay +from the _Tatler_ to the _Mirror_; in Lord Chesterfield and Lady Mary and +Horace Walpole; in Pope and Young and Green and Churchill and Cowper, in +Boswell and Wraxall, in Mrs. Delany and Madame d'Arblay, seems to me to +deserve warrant of excise and guarantee of analysis as it lies in these +four little flaskets. + +And, as has been done before, let me finish with an almost silent +indication of the wonderful variety of this volume also. In one sense the +subject of its constituents is the same. Yet in another it is treated with +the widest and most infinite difference. Any one of the three treatments +would be a masterpiece of single achievement; while the first of the three +is, as it seems to me, _the_ masterpiece of its entire class.(5) + +THE MS. OF "ESMOND" + +The MS. is contained in two volumes and was presented to Trinity College, +Cambridge, by the author's daughter; it is now deposited in the College +Library. Sir Leslie Stephen, in writing to the Librarian about it on June +11, 1889, says:-- + +"There are three separate handwritings. Thackeray's own small upright +handwriting; that of his daughter, now Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, a rather +large round handwriting; and that of an amanuensis whose name I do not +know. The interest is mainly this, that it shows that Thackeray dictated a +considerable part of the book; and, as Mrs. Ritchie tells me, he dictated +it without having previously written anything. The copy was sent straight +to press as it stands, with, as you will see, remarkably little +alteration. As _Esmond_ is generally considered to be his most perfect +work in point of style, I think that this is a remarkable fact and adds +considerably to the interest of the MS." + +The four facsimiles which follow, and which appear here by the very kind +permission of Lady Ritchie and of the authorities of the College, have +been slightly reduced to fit the pages. + + [Illustration: Facsimile 1] + + [Illustration: Facsimile 2] + + [Illustration: Facsimile 3] + + [Illustration: Facsimile 4] + + + + + +THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, ESQ. + + + THE HISTORY OF + + HENRY ESMOND, ESQ. + + A COLONEL IN THE SERVICE OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ANNE + + WRITTEN BY HIMSELF + + Servetur ad imum + Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet + + [First edition in three volumes, 1852. Revised edition, 1858] + + + + +Dedication. + + +TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE + +WILLIAM BINGHAM, LORD ASHBURTON + +MY DEAR LORD, + +The writer of a book which copies the manners and language of Queen Anne's +time, must not omit the Dedication to the Patron; and I ask leave to +inscribe this volume to your lordship, for the sake of the great kindness +and friendship which I owe to you and yours. + +My volume will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a country +where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I shall +gratefully regard you; and shall not be the less welcomed in America +because I am + +Your obliged friend and servant, + +W. M. THACKERAY. + +LONDON, October 18, 1852. + + + + +Preface. The Esmonds Of Virginia + + +The estate of Castlewood, in Virginia, which was given to our ancestors by +King Charles the First, as some return for the sacrifices made in his +Majesty's cause by the Esmond family, lies in Westmoreland county, between +the rivers Potomac and Rappahannoc, and was once as great as an English +Principality, though in the early times its revenues were but small. +Indeed, for near eighty years after our forefathers possessed them, our +plantations were in the hands of factors, who enriched themselves one +after another, though a few scores of hogsheads of tobacco were all the +produce that, for long after the Restoration, our family received from +their Virginian estates. + +My dear and honoured father, Colonel Henry Esmond, whose history, written +by himself, is contained in the accompanying volume, came to Virginia in +the year 1718, built his house of Castlewood, and here permanently +settled. After a long stormy life in England, he passed the remainder of +his many years in peace and honour in this country; how beloved and +respected by all his fellow citizens, how inexpressibly dear to his +family, I need not say. His whole life was a benefit to all who were +connected with him. He gave the best example, the best advice, the most +bounteous hospitality to his friends; the tenderest care to his +dependants; and bestowed on those of his immediate family such a blessing +of fatherly love and protection, as can never be thought of, by us at +least, without veneration and thankfulness; and my son's children, whether +established here in our Republick, or at home in the always beloved mother +country, from which our late quarrel hath separated us, may surely be +proud to be descended from one who in all ways was so truly noble. + +My dear mother died in 1736, soon after our return from England, whither +my parents took me for my education; and where I made the acquaintance of +Mr. Warrington, whom my children never saw. When it pleased Heaven, in the +bloom of his youth, and after but a few months of a most happy union, to +remove him from me, I owed my recovery from the grief which that calamity +caused me, mainly to my dearest father's tenderness, and then to the +blessing vouchsafed to me in the birth of my two beloved boys. I know the +fatal differences which separated them in politics never disunited their +hearts; and as I can love them both, whether wearing the king's colours or +the Republick's, I am sure that they love me, and one another, and him +above all, my father and theirs, the dearest friend of their childhood, +the noble gentleman who bred them from their infancy in the practice and +knowledge of Truth, and Love, and Honour. + +My children will never forget the appearance and figure of their revered +grandfather; and I wish I possessed the art of drawing (which my papa had +in perfection), so that I could leave to our descendants a portrait of one +who was so good and so respected. My father was of a dark complexion, with +a very great forehead and dark hazel eyes, overhung by eyebrows which +remained black long after his hair was white. His nose was aquiline, his +smile extraordinary sweet. How well I remember it, and how little any +description I can write can recall his image! He was of rather low +stature, not being above five feet seven inches in height; he used to +laugh at my sons, whom he called his crutches, and say they were grown too +tall for him to lean upon. But small as he was he had a perfect grace and +majesty of deportment, such as I have never seen in this country, except +perhaps in our friend Mr. Washington, and commanded respect wherever he +appeared. + +In all bodily exercises he excelled, and showed an extraordinary quickness +and agility. Of fencing he was especially fond, and made my two boys +proficient in that art; so much so, that when the French came to this +country with Monsieur Rochambeau, not one of his officers was superior to +my Henry, and he was not the equal of my poor George, who had taken the +king's side in our lamentable but glorious War of Independence. + +Neither my father nor my mother ever wore powder in their hair; both their +heads were as white as silver, as I can remember them. My dear mother +possessed to the last an extraordinary brightness and freshness of +complexion; nor would people believe that she did not wear rouge. At sixty +years of age she still looked young, and was quite agile. It was not until +after that dreadful siege of our house by the Indians, which left me a +widow ere I was a mother, that my dear mother's health broke. She never +recovered her terror and anxiety of those days, which ended so fatally for +me, then a bride scarce six months married, and died in my father's arms +ere my own year of widowhood was over. + +From that day, until the last of his dear and honoured life, it was my +delight and consolation to remain with him as his comforter and companion; +and from those little notes which my mother hath made here and there in +the volume in which my father describes his adventures in Europe, I can +well understand the extreme devotion with which she regarded him--a +devotion so passionate and exclusive as to prevent her, I think, from +loving any other person except with an inferior regard; her whole thoughts +being centred on this one object of affection and worship. I know that, +before her, my dear father did not show the love which he had for his +daughter; and in her last and most sacred moments, this dear and tender +parent owned to me her repentance that she had not loved me enough: her +jealousy even that my father should give his affection to any but herself; +and in the most fond and beautiful words of affection and admonition, she +bade me never to leave him, and to supply the place which she was +quitting. With a clear conscience, and a heart inexpressibly thankful, I +think I can say that I fulfilled those dying commands, and that until his +last hour my dearest father never had to complain that his daughter's love +and fidelity failed him. + +And it is since I knew him entirely, for during my mother's life he never +quite opened himself to me--since I knew the value and splendour of that +affection which he bestowed upon me, that I have come to understand and +pardon what, I own, used to anger me in my mother's lifetime, her jealousy +respecting her husband's love. 'Twas a gift so precious, that no wonder +she who had it was for keeping it all, and could part with none of it, +even to her daughter. + +Though I never heard my father use a rough word, 'twas extraordinary with +how much awe his people regarded him; and the servants on our plantation, +both those assigned from England and the purchased negroes, obeyed him +with an eagerness such as the most severe taskmasters round about us could +never get from their people. He was never familiar, though perfectly +simple and natural; he was the same with the meanest man as with the +greatest, and as courteous to a black slave-girl as to the governor's +wife. No one ever thought of taking a liberty with him (except once a +tipsy gentleman from York, and I am bound to own that my papa never +forgave him): he set the humblest people at once on their ease with him, +and brought down the most arrogant by a grave satiric way, which made +persons exceedingly afraid of him. His courtesy was not put on like a +Sunday suit, and laid by when the company went away; it was always the +same; as he was always dressed the same whether for a dinner by ourselves +or for a great entertainment. They say he liked to be the first in his +company; but what company was there in which he would not be first? When I +went to Europe for my education, and we passed a winter at London with my +half-brother, my Lord Castlewood and his second lady, I saw at her +Majesty's Court some of the most famous gentlemen of those days; and I +thought to myself, "None of these are better than my papa"; and the famous +Lord Bolingbroke, who came to us from Dawley, said as much, and that the +men of that time were not like those of his youth:--"Were your father, +madam," he said, "to go into the woods, the Indians would elect him +Sachem;" and his lordship was pleased to call me Pocahontas. + +I did not see our other relative, Bishop Tusher's lady, of whom so much is +said in my papa's memoirs--although my mamma went to visit her in the +country. I have no pride (as I showed by complying with my mother's +request, and marrying a gentleman who was but the younger son of a Suffolk +baronet), yet I own to a _decent respect_ for my name, and wonder how one, +who ever bore it, should change it for that of Mrs. _Thomas Tusher_. I +pass over as odious and unworthy of credit those reports (which I heard in +Europe, and was then too young to understand), how this person, having +_left her family_ and fled to Paris, out of jealousy of the Pretender, +betrayed his secrets to my Lord Stair, King George's ambassador, and +nearly caused the prince's death there; how she came to England and +married this Mr. Tusher, and became a great favourite of King George the +Second, by whom Mr. Tusher was made a dean, and then a bishop. I did not +see the lady, who chose to remain _at her palace_ all the time we were in +London; but after visiting her, my poor mamma said she had lost all her +good looks, and warned me not to set too much store by any such gifts +which nature had bestowed upon me. She grew exceedingly stout; and I +remember my brother's wife, Lady Castlewood, saying--"No wonder she became +a favourite, for the king likes them old and ugly, as his father did +before him." On which papa said--"All women were alike; that there was +never one so beautiful as that one; and that we could forgive her +everything but her beauty." And hereupon my mamma looked vexed, and my +Lord Castlewood began to laugh; and I, of course, being a young creature, +could not understand what was the subject of their conversation. + +After the circumstances narrated in the third book of these memoirs, my +father and mother both went abroad, being advised by their friends to +leave the country in consequence of the transactions which are recounted +at the close of the volume of the memoirs. But my brother, hearing how the +_future bishop's lady_ had quitted Castlewood and joined the Pretender at +Paris, pursued him, and would have killed him, prince as he was, had not +the prince managed to make his escape. On his expedition to Scotland +directly after, Castlewood was so enraged against him that he asked leave +to serve as a volunteer, and join the Duke of Argyle's army in Scotland, +which the Pretender never had the courage to face; and thenceforth my lord +was quite reconciled to the present reigning family, from whom he hath +even received promotion. + +Mrs. Tusher was by this time as angry against the Pretender as any of her +relations could be, and used to boast, as I have heard, that she not only +brought back my lord to the Church of England, but procured the English +peerage for him, which the _junior branch_ of our family at present +enjoys. She was a great friend of Sir Robert Walpole, and would not rest +until her husband slept at Lambeth, my papa used laughing to say. However, +the bishop died of apoplexy suddenly, and his wife erected a great +monument over him; and the pair sleep under that stone, with a canopy of +marble clouds and angels above them--the first Mrs. Tusher lying sixty +miles off at Castlewood. + +But my papa's genius and education are both greater than any a woman can +be expected to have, and his adventures in Europe far more exciting than +his life in this country, which was past in the tranquil offices of love +and duty; and I shall say no more by way of introduction to his memoirs, +nor keep my children from the perusal of a story which is much more +interesting than that of their affectionate old mother, + +Rachel Esmond Warrington. + +CASTLEWOOD, VIRGINIA, +November 3, 1778. + + + + +Book I. The Early Youth Of Henry Esmond, Up To The Time Of His Leaving +Trinity College, In Cambridge + + +The actors in the old tragedies, as we read, piped their iambics to a +tune, speaking from under a mask, and wearing stilts and a great +head-dress. 'Twas thought the dignity of the Tragic Muse required these +appurtenances, and that she was not to move except to a measure and +cadence. So Queen Medea slew her children to a slow music: and King +Agamemnon perished in a dying fall (to use Mr. Dryden's words): the Chorus +standing by in a set attitude, and rhythmically and decorously bewailing +the fates of those great crowned persons. The Muse of History hath +encumbered herself with ceremony as well as her Sister of the Theatre. She +too wears the mask and the cothurnus, and speaks to measure. She too, in +our age, busies herself with the affairs only of kings; waiting on them +obsequiously and stately, as if she were but a mistress of Court +ceremonies, and had nothing to do with the registering of the affairs of +the common people. I have seen in his very old age and decrepitude the old +French King Lewis the Fourteenth, the type and model of kinghood--who never +moved but to measure, who lived and died according to the laws of his +Court-marshal, persisting in enacting through life the part of Hero; and, +divested of poetry, this was but a little wrinkled old man, pock-marked, +and with a great periwig and red heels to make him look tall--a hero for a +book if you like, or for a brass statue or a painted ceiling, a god in a +Roman shape, but what more than a man for Madame Maintenon, or the barber +who shaved him, or Monsieur Fagon, his surgeon? I wonder shall History +ever pull off her periwig and cease to be court-ridden? Shall we see +something of France and England besides Versailles and Windsor? I saw +Queen Anne at the latter place tearing down the Park slopes after her +staghounds, and driving her one-horse chaise--a hot, red-faced woman, not +in the least resembling that statue of her which turns its stone back upon +St. Paul's, and faces the coaches struggling up Ludgate Hill. She was +neither better bred nor wiser than you and me, though we knelt to hand her +a letter or a washhand-basin. Why shall History go on kneeling to the end +of time? I am for having her rise up off her knees, and take a natural +posture: not to be for ever performing cringes and congees like a +Court-chamberlain, and shuffling backwards out of doors in the presence of +the sovereign. In a word, I would have History familiar rather than +heroic: and think that Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding will give our children +a much better idea of the manners of the present age in England, than the +_Court Gazette_ and the newspapers which we get thence. + +There was a German officer of Webb's, with whom we used to joke, and of +whom a story (whereof I myself was the author) was got to be believed in +the army, that he was eldest son of the Hereditary Grand Bootjack of the +Empire, and heir to that honour of which his ancestors had been very +proud, having been kicked for twenty generations by one imperial foot, as +they drew the boot from the other. I have heard that the old Lord +Castlewood, of part of whose family these present volumes are a chronicle, +though he came of quite as good blood as the Stuarts whom he served (and +who as regards mere lineage are no better than a dozen English and +Scottish houses I could name), was prouder of his post about the Court +than of his ancestral honours and valued his dignity (as Lord of the +Butteries and Groom of the King's Posset) so highly, that he cheerfully +ruined himself for the thankless and thriftless race who bestowed it. He +pawned his plate for King Charles the First, mortgaged his property for +the same cause, and lost the greater part of it by fines and +sequestration: stood a siege of his castle by Ireton, where his brother +Thomas capitulated (afterwards making terms with the Commonwealth, for +which the elder brother never forgave him), and where his second brother +Edward, who had embraced the ecclesiastical profession, was slain on +Castlewood tower, being engaged there both as preacher and artilleryman. +This resolute old loyalist, who was with the king whilst his house was +thus being battered down, escaped abroad with his only son, then a boy, to +return and take a part in Worcester fight. On that fatal field Eustace +Esmond was killed, and Castlewood fled from it once more into exile, and +henceforward, and after the Restoration, never was away from the Court of +the monarch (for whose return we offer thanks in the Prayer-book) who sold +his country and who took bribes of the French king. + +What spectacle is more august than that of a great king in exile? Who is +more worthy of respect than a brave man in misfortune? Mr. Addison has +painted such a figure in his noble piece of _Cato_. But suppose fugitive +Cato fuddling himself at a tavern with a wench on each knee, a dozen +faithful and tipsy companions of defeat, and a landlord calling out for +his bill; and the dignity of misfortune is straightway lost. The +Historical Muse turns away shamefaced from the vulgar scene, and closes +the door--on which the exile's unpaid drink is scored up--upon him and his +pots and his pipes, and the tavern-chorus which he and his friends are +singing. Such a man as Charles should have had an Ostade or Mieris to +paint him. Your Knellers and Le Bruns only deal in clumsy and impossible +allegories: and it hath always seemed to me blasphemy to claim Olympus for +such a wine-drabbled divinity as that. + +About the king's follower the Viscount Castlewood--orphan of his son, +ruined by his fidelity, bearing many wounds and marks of bravery, old and +in exile, his kinsmen I suppose should be silent; nor if this patriarch +fell down in his cups, call fie upon him, and fetch passers-by to laugh at +his red face and white hairs. What! does a stream rush out of a mountain +free and pure, to roll through fair pastures, to feed and throw out bright +tributaries, and to end in a village gutter? Lives that have noble +commencements have often no better endings; it is not without a kind of +awe and reverence that an observer should speculate upon such careers as +he traces the course of them. I have seen too much of success in life to +take off my hat and huzza to it as it passes in its gilt coach: and would +do my little part with my neighbours on foot, that they should not gape +with too much wonder, nor applaud too loudly. Is it the Lord Mayor going +in state to mince-pies and the Mansion House? Is it poor Jack of Newgate's +procession, with the sheriff and javelin-men, conducting him on his last +journey to Tyburn? I look into my heart and think that I am as good as my +Lord Mayor, and know I am as bad as Tyburn Jack. Give me a chain and red +gown and a pudding before me, and I could play the part of alderman very +well, and sentence Jack after dinner. Starve me, keep me from books and +honest people, educate me to love dice, gin, and pleasure, and put me on +Hounslow Heath, with a purse before me and I will take it. "And I shall be +deservedly hanged," say you, wishing to put an end to this prosing. I +don't say no. I can't but accept the world as I find it, including a +rope's end, as long as it is in fashion. + + + +Chapter I. An Account Of The Family Of Esmond Of Castlewood Hall + + +When Francis, fourth Viscount Castlewood, came to his title, and presently +after to take possession of his house of Castlewood, county Hants, in the +year 1691, almost the only tenant of the place besides the domestics was a +lad of twelve years of age, of whom no one seemed to take any note until +my lady viscountess lighted upon him, going over the house, with the +housekeeper on the day of her arrival. The boy was in the room known as +the book-room, or yellow gallery, where the portraits of the family used +to hang, that fine piece among others of Sir Antonio Van Dyck of George, +second viscount, and that by Mr. Dobson of my lord the third viscount, +just deceased, which it seems his lady and widow did not think fit to +carry away, when she sent for and carried off to her house at Chelsey, +near to London, the picture of herself by Sir Peter Lely, in which her +ladyship was represented as a huntress of Diana's court. + +The new and fair lady of Castlewood found the sad lonely little occupant +of this gallery busy over his great book, which he laid down when he was +aware that a stranger was at hand. And, knowing who that person must be, +the lad stood up and bowed before her, performing a shy obeisance to the +mistress of his house. + +She stretched out her hand--indeed when was it that that hand would not +stretch out to do an act of kindness, or to protect grief and ill-fortune? +"And this is our kinsman,'" she said; "and what is your name, kinsman?" + +"My name is Henry Esmond," said the lad, looking up at her in a sort of +delight and wonder, for she had come upon him as a _Dea certe_, and +appeared the most charming object he had ever looked on. Her golden hair +was shining in the gold of the sun; her complexion was of a dazzling +bloom; her lips smiling, and her eyes beaming with a kindness which made +Harry Esmond's heart to beat with surprise. + +"His name is Henry Esmond, sure enough, my lady," says Mrs. Worksop the +housekeeper (an old tyrant whom Henry Esmond plagued more than he hated), +and the old gentlewoman looked significantly towards the late lord's +picture, as it now is in the family, noble and severe-looking, with his +hand on his sword, and his order on his cloak, which he had from the +emperor during the war on the Danube against the Turk. + +Seeing the great and undeniable likeness between this portrait and the +lad, the new viscountess, who had still hold of the boy's hand as she +looked at the picture, blushed and dropped the hand quickly, and walked +down the gallery, followed by Mrs. Worksop. + +When the lady came back, Harry Esmond stood exactly in the same spot, and +with his hand as it had fallen when he dropped it on his black coat. + +Her heart melted I suppose (indeed she hath since owned as much) at the +notion that she should do anything unkind to any mortal, great or small; +for, when she returned, she had sent away the housekeeper upon an errand +by the door at the farther end of the gallery; and, coming back to the +lad, with a look of infinite pity and tenderness in her eyes, she took his +hand again, placing her other fair hand on his head, and saying some words +to him, which were so kind and said in a voice so sweet, that the boy, who +had never looked upon so much beauty before, felt as if the touch of a +superior being or angel smote him down to the ground, and kissed the fair +protecting hand as he knelt on one knee. To the very last hour of his +life, Esmond remembered the lady as she then spoke and looked, the rings +on her fair hands, the very scent of her robe, the beam of her eyes +lighting up with surprise and kindness, her lips blooming in a smile, the +sun making a golden halo round her hair. + +As the boy was yet in this attitude of humility, enters behind him a +portly gentleman, with a little girl of four years old in his hand. The +gentleman burst into a great laugh at the lady and her adorer, with his +little queer figure, his sallow face, and long black hair. The lady +blushed, and seemed to deprecate his ridicule by a look of appeal to her +husband, for it was my lord viscount who now arrived, and whom the lad +knew, having once before seen him in the late lord's lifetime. + +"So this is the little priest!" says my lord, looking down at the lad; +"welcome, kinsman." + +"He is saying his prayers to mamma," says the little girl, who came up to +her papa's knee; and my lord burst out into another great laugh at this, +and kinsman Henry looked very silly. He invented a half-dozen of speeches +in reply, but 'twas months afterwards when he thought of this adventure: +as it was, he had never a word in answer. + +"_Le pauvre enfant, il n'a que nous_," says the lady, looking to her lord; +and the boy, who understood her, though doubtless she thought otherwise, +thanked her with all his heart for her kind speech. + +"And he shan't want for friends here," says my lord, in a kind voice, +"shall he, little Trix?" + +The little girl, whose name was Beatrix, and whom her papa called by this +diminutive, looked at Henry Esmond solemnly, with a pair of large eyes, +and then a smile shone over her face, which was as beautiful as that of a +cherub, and she came up and put out a little hand to him. A keen and +delightful pang of gratitude, happiness, affection, filled the orphan +child's heart, as he received from the protectors, whom Heaven had sent to +him, these touching words, and tokens of friendliness and kindness. But an +hour since he had felt quite alone in the world: when he heard the great +peal of bells from Castlewood church ringing that morning to welcome the +arrival of the new lord and lady, it had rung only terror and anxiety to +him, for he knew not how the new owner would deal with him; and those to +whom he formerly looked for protection were forgotten or dead. Pride and +doubt too had kept him within doors: when the vicar and the people of the +village, and the servants of the house, had gone out to welcome my Lord +Castlewood--for Henry Esmond was no servant, though a dependant; no +relative, though he bore the name and inherited the blood of the house; +and in the midst of the noise and acclamations attending the arrival of +the new lord (for whom you may be sure a feast was got ready, and guns +were fired, and tenants and domestics huzzaed when his carriage approached +and rolled into the courtyard of the hall), no one ever took any notice of +young Henry Esmond, who sat unobserved and alone in the book-room, until +the afternoon of that day, when his new friends found him. + +When my lord and lady were going away thence, the little girl, still +holding her kinsman by the hand, bade him to come too. "Thou wilt always +forsake an old friend for a new one, Trix," says her father to her +good-naturedly; and went into the gallery, giving an arm to his lady. They +passed thence through the music-gallery, long since dismantled, and Queen +Elizabeth's rooms, in the clock-tower, and out into the terrace, where was +a fine prospect of sunset, and the great darkling woods with a cloud of +rooks returning; and the plain and river with Castlewood village beyond, +and purple hills beautiful to look at--and the little heir of Castlewood, a +child of two years old, was already here on the terrace in his nurse's +arms, from whom he ran across the grass instantly he perceived his mother, +and came to her. + +"If thou canst not be happy here," says my lord, looking round at the +scene, "thou art hard to please, Rachel." + +"I am happy where you are," she said, "but we were happiest of all at +Walcote Forest." Then my lord began to describe what was before them to +his wife, and what indeed little Harry knew better than he--viz., the +history of the house: how by yonder gate the page ran away with the +heiress of Castlewood, by which the estate came into the present family, +how the Roundheads attacked the clock-tower, which my lord's father was +slain in defending. "I was but two years old then," says he, "but take +forty-six from ninety, and how old shall I be, kinsman Harry?" + +"Thirty," says his wife, with a laugh. + +"A great deal too old for you, Rachel," answers my lord, looking fondly +down at her. Indeed she seemed to be a girl; and was at that time scarce +twenty years old. + +"You know, Frank, I will do anything to please you," says she, "and I +promise you I will grow older every day." + +"You mustn't call papa Frank; you must call papa my lord, now," says Miss +Beatrix, with a toss of her little head; at which the mother smiled, and +the good-natured father laughed, and the little, trotting boy laughed, not +knowing why--but because he was happy no doubt--as every one seemed to be +there. How those trivial incidents and words, the landscape and sunshine, +and the group of people smiling and talking, remain fixed on the memory! + +As the sun was setting, the little heir was sent in the arms of his nurse +to bed, whither he went howling; but little Trix was promised to sit to +supper that night--"and you will come too, kinsman, won't you?" she said. + +Harry Esmond blushed: "I--I have supper with Mrs. Worksop," says he. + +"D--n it," says my lord, "thou shalt sup with us, Harry, to-night! Shan't +refuse a lady, shall he, Trix?"--and they all wondered at Harry's +performance as a trencherman, in which character the poor boy acquitted +himself very remarkably; for the truth is he had no dinner, nobody +thinking of him in the bustle which the house was in, during the +preparations antecedent to the new lord's arrival. + +"No dinner! poor dear child!" says my lady, heaping up his plate with +meat, and my lord filling a bumper for him, bade him call a health; on +which Master Harry, crying "The King", tossed off the wine. My lord was +ready to drink that, and most other toasts: indeed, only too ready. He +would not hear of Doctor Tusher (the Vicar of Castlewood, who came to +supper) going away when the sweetmeats were brought: he had not had a +chaplain long enough, he said, to be tired of him: so his reverence kept +my lord company for some hours over a pipe and a punchbowl; and went away +home with rather a reeling gait, and declaring a dozen of times, that his +lordship's affability surpassed every kindness he had ever had from his +lordship's gracious family. + +As for young Esmond, when he got to his little chamber, it was with a +heart full of surprise and gratitude towards the new friends whom this +happy day had brought him. He was up and watching long before the house +was astir, longing to see that fair lady and her children--that kind +protector and patron; and only fearful lest their welcome of the past +night should in any way be withdrawn or altered. But presently little +Beatrix came out into the garden, and her mother followed, who greeted +Harry as kindly as before. He told her at greater length the histories of +the house (which he had been taught in the old lord's time), and to which +she listened with great interest; and then he told her, with respect to +the night before, that he understood French, and thanked her for her +protection. + +"Do you?" says she, with a blush; "then, sir, you shall teach me and +Beatrix." And she asked him many more questions regarding himself, which +had best be told more fully and explicitly, than in those brief replies +which the lad made to his mistress's questions. + + + +Chapter II. Relates How Francis, Fourth Viscount, Arrives At Castlewood + + +'Tis known that the name of Esmond and the estate of Castlewood, com. +Hants, came into possession of the present family through Dorothea, +daughter and heiress of Edward, Earl and Marquis of Esmond, and Lord of +Castlewood, which lady married, 23 Eliz., Henry Poyns, gent.; the said +Henry being then a page in the household of her father. Francis, son and +heir of the above Henry and Dorothea, who took the maternal name which the +family hath borne subsequently, was made knight and baronet by King James +the First; and, being of a military disposition, remained long in Germany +with the Elector-Palatine, in whose service Sir Francis incurred both +expense and danger, lending large sums of money to that unfortunate +prince; and receiving many wounds in the battles against the Imperialists, +in which Sir Francis engaged. + +On his return home Sir Francis was rewarded for his services and many +sacrifices, by his late Majesty James the First, who graciously conferred +upon this tried servant the post of Warden of the Butteries and Groom of +the King's Posset, which high and confidential office he filled in that +king's, and his unhappy successor's, reign. + +His age, and many wounds and infirmities, obliged Sir Francis to perform +much of his duty by deputy; and his son, Sir George Esmond, knight and +banneret, first as his father's lieutenant, and afterwards as inheritor of +his father's title and dignity, performed this office during almost the +whole of the reign of King Charles the First, and his two sons who +succeeded him. + +Sir George Esmond married rather beneath the rank that a person of his +name and honour might aspire to, the daughter of Thos. Topham, of the city +of London, alderman and goldsmith, who, taking the Parliamentary side in +the troubles then commencing, disappointed Sir George of the property +which he expected at the demise of his father-in-law, who devised his +money to his second daughter, Barbara, a spinster. + +Sir George Esmond, on his part, was conspicuous for his attachment and +loyalty to the royal cause and person, and the king being at Oxford in +1642, Sir George, with the consent of his father, then very aged and +infirm, and residing at his house of Castlewood, melted the whole of the +family plate for his Majesty's service. + +For this, and other sacrifices and merits, his Majesty, by patent under +the Privy Seal, dated Oxford, Jan., 1643, was pleased to advance Sir +Francis Esmond to the dignity of Viscount Castlewood, of Shandon, in +Ireland: and the viscount's estate being much impoverished by loans to the +king, which in those troublesome times his Majesty could not repay, a +grant of land in the plantations of Virginia was given to the lord +viscount; part of which land is in possession of descendants of his family +to the present day. + +The first Viscount Castlewood died full of years, and within a few months +after he had been advanced to his honours. He was succeeded by his eldest +son, the before-named George; and left issue besides, Thomas, a colonel in +the king's army, that afterwards joined the Usurper's government; and +Francis, in holy orders, who was slain whilst defending the house of +Castlewood against the Parliament, anno 1647. + +George, Lord Castlewood (the second viscount) of King Charles the First's +time, had no male issue save his one son Eustace Esmond, who was killed, +with half of the Castlewood men beside him, at Worcester fight. The lands +about Castlewood were sold and apportioned to the Commonwealth men; +Castlewood being concerned in almost all of the plots against the +Protector, after the death of the king, and up to King Charles the +Second's restoration. My lord followed that king's Court about in its +exile, having ruined himself in its service. He had but one daughter, who +was of no great comfort to her father; for misfortune had not taught those +exiles sobriety of life; and it is said that the Duke of York and his +brother the king both quarrelled about Isabel Esmond. She was maid of +honour to the Queen Henrietta Maria; she early joined the Roman Church; +her father, a weak man, following her not long after at Breda. + +On the death of Eustace Esmond at Worcester, Thomas Esmond, nephew to my +Lord Castlewood, and then a stripling, became heir to the title. His +father had taken the Parliament side in the quarrels, and so had been +estranged from the chief of his house; and my Lord Castlewood was at first +so much enraged to think that his title (albeit little more than an empty +one now) should pass to a rascally Roundhead, that he would have married +again, and indeed proposed to do so to a vintner's daughter at Bruges, to +whom his lordship owed a score for lodging when the king was there, but +for fear of the laughter of the Court, and the anger of his daughter, of +whom he stood in awe; for she was in temper as imperious and violent as my +lord, who was much enfeebled by wounds and drinking, was weak. + +Lord Castlewood would have had a match between his daughter Isabel and her +cousin, the son of that Francis Esmond who was killed at Castlewood siege. +And the lady, it was said, took a fancy to the young man, who was her +junior by several years (which circumstance she did not consider to be a +fault in him); but having paid his court, and being admitted to the +intimacy of the house, he suddenly flung up his suit, when it seemed to be +pretty prosperous, without giving a pretext for his behaviour. His friends +rallied him at what they laughingly chose to call his infidelity. Jack +Churchill, Frank Esmond's lieutenant in the royal regiment of foot guards, +getting the company which Esmond vacated, when he left the Court and went +to Tangier in a rage at discovering that his promotion depended on the +complaisance of his elderly affianced bride. He and Churchill, who had +been _condiscipuli_ at St. Paul's School, had words about this matter; and +Frank Esmond said to him with an oath, "Jack, your sister may be +so-and-so, but by Jove, my wife shan't!" and swords were drawn, and blood +drawn, too, until friends separated them on this quarrel. Few men were so +jealous about the point of honour in those days; and gentlemen of good +birth and lineage thought a royal blot was an ornament to their family +coat. Frank Esmond retired in the sulks, first to Tangier, whence he +returned after two years' service, settling on a small property he had of +his mother, near to Winchester, and became a country gentleman, and kept a +pack of beagles, and never came to Court again in King Charles's time. But +his uncle Castlewood was never reconciled to him; nor, for some time +afterwards, his cousin whom he had refused. + +By places, pensions, bounties from France, and gifts from the king, whilst +his daughter was in favour, Lord Castlewood, who had spent in the royal +service his youth and fortune, did not retrieve the latter quite, and +never cared to visit Castlewood, or repair it, since the death of his son, +but managed to keep a good house, and figure at Court, and to save a +considerable sum of ready money. + +And now, his heir and nephew, Thomas Esmond, began to bid for his uncle's +favour. Thomas had served with the emperor, and with the Dutch, when King +Charles was compelled to lend troops to the States, and against them, when +his Majesty made an alliance with the French king. In these campaigns +Thomas Esmond was more remarked for duelling, brawling, vice, and play, +than for any conspicuous gallantry in the field, and came back to England, +like many another English gentleman who has travelled, with a character by +no means improved by his foreign experience. He had dissipated his small +paternal inheritance of a younger brother's portion, and, as truth must be +told, was no better than a hanger-on of ordinaries, and a brawler about +Alsatia and the Friars, when he bethought him of a means of mending his +fortune. + +His cousin was now of more than middle age, and had nobody's word but her +own for the beauty which she said she once possessed. She was lean, and +yellow, and long in the tooth; all the red and white in all the toy-shops +in London could not make a beauty of her--Mr. Killigrew called her the +Sibyl, the death's-head put up at the king's feast as a _memento mori_, +&c.--in fine, a woman who might be easy of conquest, but whom only a very +bold man would think of conquering. This bold man was Thomas Esmond. He +had a fancy to my Lord Castlewood's savings, the amount of which rumour +had very much exaggerated. Madam Isabel was said to have royal jewels of +great value; whereas poor Tom Esmond's last coat but one was in pawn. + +My lord had at this time a fine house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, nigh to the +Duke's Theatre and the Portugal ambassador's chapel. Tom Esmond, who had +frequented the one as long as he had money to spend among the actresses, +now came to the church as assiduously. He looked so lean and shabby, that +he passed without difficulty for a repentant sinner; and so, becoming +converted, you may be sure took his uncle's priest for a director. + +This charitable father reconciled him with the old lord his uncle, who a +short time before would not speak to him, as Tom passed under my lord's +coach window, his lordship going in state to his place at Court, while his +nephew slunk by with his battered hat and feather, and the point of his +rapier sticking out of the scabbard--to his twopenny ordinary in Bell Yard. + +Thomas Esmond, after this reconciliation with his uncle, very soon began +to grow sleek, and to show signs of the benefits of good living and clean +linen. He fasted rigorously twice a week to be sure; but he made amends on +the other days: and, to show how great his appetite was, Mr. Wycherley +said, he ended by swallowing that fly-blown rank old morsel his cousin. +There were endless jokes and lampoons about this marriage at Court: but +Tom rode thither in his uncle's coach now, called him father, and having +won could afford to laugh. This marriage took place very shortly before +King Charles died: whom the Viscount of Castlewood speedily followed. + +The issue of this marriage was one son, whom the parents watched with an +intense eagerness and care; but who, in spite of nurses and physicians, +had only a brief existence. His tainted blood did not run very long in his +poor feeble little body. Symptoms of evil broke out early on him; and, +part from flattery, part superstition, nothing would satisfy my lord and +lady, especially the latter, but having the poor little cripple touched by +his Majesty at his church. They were ready to cry out miracle at first +(the doctors and quack-salvers being constantly in attendance on the +child, and experimenting on his poor little body with every conceivable +nostrum)--but though there seemed from some reason a notable amelioration +in the infant's health after his Majesty touched him, in a few weeks +afterward the poor thing died--causing the lampooners of the Court to say, +that the king in expelling evil out of the infant of Tom Esmond and +Isabella his wife, expelled the life out of it, which was nothing but +corruption. + +The mother's natural pang at losing this poor little child must have been +increased when she thought of her rival Frank Esmond's wife, who was a +favourite of the whole Court, where my poor Lady Castlewood was neglected, +and who had one child, a daughter, flourishing and beautiful, and was +about to become a mother once more. + +The Court, as I have heard, only laughed the more because the poor lady, +who had pretty well passed the age when ladies are accustomed to have +children, nevertheless determined not to give hope up, and even when she +came to live at Castlewood, was constantly sending over to Hexton for the +doctor, and announcing to her friends the arrival of an heir. This +absurdity of hers was one amongst many others which the wags used to play +upon. Indeed, to the last days of her life, my lady viscountess had the +comfort of fancying herself beautiful, and persisted in blooming up to the +very midst of winter, painting roses on her cheeks long after their +natural season, and attiring herself like summer though her head was +covered with snow. + +Gentlemen who were about the Court of King Charles and King James, have +told the present writer a number of stories about this queer old lady, +with which it's not necessary that posterity should be entertained. She is +said to have had great powers of invective; and, if she fought with all +her rivals in King James's favour, 'tis certain she must have had a vast +number of quarrels on her hands. She was a woman of an intrepid spirit, +and it appears pursued and rather fatigued his Majesty with her rights and +her wrongs. Some say that the cause of her leaving Court was jealousy of +Frank Esmond's wife: others, that she was forced to retreat after a great +battle which took place at Whitehall, between her ladyship and Lady +Dorchester, Tom Killigrew's daughter, whom the king delighted to honour, +and in which that ill-favoured Esther got the better of our elderly +Vashti. But her ladyship for her part always averred that it was her +husband's quarrel, and not her own, which occasioned the banishment of the +two into the country; and the cruel ingratitude of the sovereign in giving +away, out of the family, that place of Warden of the Butteries and Groom +of the King's Posset, which the two last Lords Castlewood had held so +honourably, and which was now conferred upon a fellow of yesterday, and a +hanger-on of that odious Dorchester creature, my Lord Bergamot(6); "I +never," said my lady, "could have come to see his Majesty's posset carried +by any other hand than an Esmond. I should have dashed the salver out of +Lord Bergamot's hand, had I met him." And those who knew her ladyship are +aware that she was a person quite capable of performing this feat, had she +not wisely kept out of the way. + +Holding the purse-strings in her own control, to which, indeed, she liked +to bring most persons who came near her, Lady Castlewood could command her +husband's obedience, and so broke up her establishment at London; she had +removed from Lincoln's Inn Fields to Chelsey, to a pretty new house she +bought there; and brought her establishment, her maids, lap-dogs, and +gentlewomen, her priest, and his lordship, her husband, to Castlewood +Hall, that she had never seen since she quitted it as a child with her +father during the troubles of King Charles the First's reign. The walls +were still open in the old house as they had been left by the shot of the +Commonwealth men. A part of the mansion was restored and furnished up with +the plate, hangings, and furniture, brought from the house in London. My +lady meant to have a triumphal entry into Castlewood village, and expected +the people to cheer as she drove over the Green in her great coach, my +lord beside her, her gentlewomen, lap-dogs, and cockatoos on the opposite +seat, six horses to her carriage, and servants armed and mounted, +following it and preceding it. But 'twas in the height of the No-Popery +cry; the folks in the village and the neighbouring town were scared by the +sight of her ladyship's painted face and eyelids, as she bobbed her head +out of the coach window, meaning no doubt to be very gracious; and one old +woman said, "Lady Isabel! lord-a-mercy, it's Lady Jezebel!" a name by +which the enemies of the right honourable viscountess were afterwards in +the habit of designating her. The country was then in a great No-Popery +fervour, her ladyship's known conversion, and her husband's, the priest in +her train, and the service performed at the chapel of Castlewood (though +the chapel had been built for that worship before any other was heard of +in the country, and though the service was performed in the most quiet +manner), got her no favour at first in the county or village. By far the +greater part of the estate of Castlewood had been confiscated, and been +parcelled out to Commonwealth men. One or two of these old Cromwellian +soldiers were still alive in the village, and looked grimly at first upon +my lady viscountess, when she came to dwell there. + +She appeared at the Hexton Assembly, bringing her lord after her, scaring +the country folks with the splendour of her diamonds, which she always +wore in public. They said she wore them in private, too, and slept with +them round her neck; though the writer can pledge his word that this was a +calumny. "If she were to take them off," my Lady Sark said, "Tom Esmond, +her husband, would run away with them and pawn them." 'Twas another +calumny. My Lady Sark was also an exile from Court, and there had been war +between the two ladies before. + +The village people began to be reconciled presently to their lady, who was +generous and kind, though fantastic and haughty, in her ways; and whose +praises Dr. Tusher, the vicar, sounded loudly amongst his flock. As for my +lord, he gave no great trouble, being considered scarce more than an +appendage to my lady, who as daughter of the old lords of Castlewood, and +possessor of vast wealth, as the country folks said (though indeed +nine-tenths of it existed but in rumour), was looked upon as the real +queen of the Castle, and mistress of all it contained. + + + +Chapter III. Whither In The Time Of Thomas, Third Viscount, I Had Preceded +Him As Page To Isabella + + +Coming up to London again some short time after this retreat, the Lord +Castlewood dispatched a retainer of his to a little cottage in the village +of Ealing, near to London, where for some time had dwelt an old French +refugee, by name Mr. Pastoureau, one of those whom the persecution of the +Huguenots by the French king had brought over to this country. With this +old man lived a little lad, who went by the name of Henry Thomas. He +remembered to have lived in another place a short time before, near to +London, too, amongst looms and spinning-wheels, and a great deal of +psalm-singing and church-going, and a whole colony of Frenchmen. + +There he had a dear, dear friend, who died and whom he called aunt. She +used to visit him in his dreams sometimes; and her face, though it was +homely, was a thousand times dearer to him than that of Mrs. Pastoureau, +Bon Papa Pastoureau's new wife, who came to live with him after aunt went +away. And there, at Spittlefields, as it used to be called, lived Uncle +George, who was a weaver too, but used to tell Harry that he was a little +gentleman, and that his father was a captain, and his mother an angel. + +When he said so, Bon Papa used to look up from the loom, where he was +embroidering beautiful silk flowers, and say, "Angel! she belongs to the +Babylonish Scarlet Woman." Bon Papa was always talking of the Scarlet +Woman. He had a little room where he always used to preach and sing hymns +out of his great old nose. Little Harry did not like the preaching; he +liked better the fine stories which aunt used to tell him. Bon Papa's wife +never told him pretty stories; she quarrelled with Uncle George, and he +went away. + +After this Harry's Bon Papa, and his wife and two children of her own that +she brought with her, came to live at Ealing. The new wife gave her +children the best of everything, and Harry many a whipping, he knew not +why. Besides blows, he got ill names from her, which need not be set down +here, for the sake of old Mr. Pastoureau, who was still kind sometimes. +The unhappiness of those days is long forgiven, though they cast a shade +of melancholy over the child's youth, which will accompany him, no doubt, +to the end of his days: as those tender twigs are bent the trees grow +afterward; and he, at least, who has suffered as a child, and is not quite +perverted in that early school of unhappiness, learns to be gentle and +long-suffering with little children. + +Harry was very glad when a gentleman dressed in black, on horseback, with +a mounted servant behind him, came to fetch him away from Ealing. The +_noverca_, or unjust stepmother, who had neglected him for her own two +children, gave him supper enough the night before he went away, and plenty +in the morning. She did not beat him once, and told the children to keep +their hands off him. One was a girl, and Harry never could bear to strike +a girl; and the other was a boy, whom he could easily have beat, but he +always cried out, when Mrs. Pastoureau came sailing to the rescue with +arms like a flail. She only washed Harry's face the day he went away; nor +ever so much as once boxed his ears. She whimpered rather when the +gentleman in black came for the boy; and old Mr. Pastoureau, as he gave +the child his blessing, scowled over his shoulder at the strange +gentleman, and grumbled out something about Babylon and the scarlet lady. +He was grown quite old, like a child almost. Mrs. Pastoureau used to wipe +his nose as she did to the children. She was a great, big, handsome young +woman; but, though she pretended to cry, Harry thought 'twas only a sham, +and sprung quite delighted upon the horse upon which the lackey helped +him. + +He was a Frenchman; his name was Blaise. The child could talk to him in +his own language perfectly well: he knew it better than English indeed: +having lived hitherto chiefly among French people: and being called the +little Frenchman by other boys on Ealing Green. He soon learnt to speak +English perfectly, and to forget some of his French: children forget +easily. Some earlier and fainter recollections the child had, of a +different country; and a town with tall white houses; and a ship. But +these were quite indistinct in the boy's mind, as indeed the memory of +Ealing soon became, at least of much that he suffered there. + +The lackey before whom he rode was very lively and voluble, and informed +the boy that the gentleman riding before him was my lord's chaplain, +Father Holt--that he was now to be called Master Harry Esmond--that my Lord +Viscount Castlewood was his _parrain_--that he was to live at the great +house of Castlewood, in the province of ----shire, where he would see madame +the viscountess, who was a grand lady. And so, seated on a cloth before +Blaise's saddle, Harry Esmond was brought to London, and to a fine square +called Covent Garden, near to which his patron lodged. + +Mr. Holt the priest took the child by the hand, and brought him to this +nobleman, a grand languid nobleman in a great cap and flowered +morning-gown, sucking oranges. He patted Harry on the head and gave him an +orange. + +"_C'est bien ca_," he said to the priest after eyeing the child, and the +gentleman in black shrugged his shoulders. + +"Let Blaise take him out for a holiday," and out for a holiday the boy and +the valet went. Harry went jumping along; he was glad enough to go. + +He will remember to his life's end the delights of those days. He was +taken to see a play by Monsieur Blaise, in a house a thousand times +greater and finer than the booth at Ealing Fair--and on the next happy day +they took water on the river, and Harry saw London Bridge, with the houses +and booksellers' shops thereon, looking like a street, and the Tower of +London, with the armour, and the great lions and bears in the moats--all +under company of Monsieur Blaise. + +Presently, of an early morning, all the party set forth for the country, +namely, my lord viscount and the other gentleman; Monsieur Blaise, and +Harry on a pillion behind them, and two or three men with pistols leading +the baggage-horses. And all along the road the Frenchman told little Harry +stories of brigands, which made the child's hair stand on end, and +terrified him; so that at the great gloomy inn on the road where they lay, +he besought to be allowed to sleep in a room with one of the servants, and +was compassionated by Mr. Holt, the gentleman who travelled with my lord, +and who gave the child a little bed in his chamber. + +His artless talk and answers very likely inclined this gentleman in the +boy's favour, for next day Mr. Holt said Harry should ride behind him, and +not with the French lacky; and all along the journey put a thousand +questions to the child--as to his foster-brother and relations at Ealing; +what his old grandfather had taught him; what languages he knew; whether +he could read and write, and sing, and so forth. And Mr. Holt found that +Harry could read and write, and possessed the two languages of French and +English very well; and when he asked Harry about singing, the lad broke +out with a hymn to the tune of Dr. Martin Luther, which set Mr. Holt +a-laughing; and even caused his _grand parrain_ in the laced hat and +periwig to laugh too when Holt told him what the child was singing. For it +appeared that Dr. Martin Luther's hymns were not sung in the churches Mr. +Holt preached at. + +"You must never sing that song any more, do you hear, little manikin?" +says my lord viscount, holding up a finger. + +"But we will try and teach you a better, Harry." Mr. Holt said; and the +child answered, for he was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature, +"That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the +gentleman would tell him." That day he so pleased the gentlemen by his +talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged him +in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the day +before, waited upon him now. + +"'Tis well, 'tis well!" said Blaise, that night (in his own language) when +they lay again at an inn. "We are a little lord here; we are a little lord +now: we shall see what we are when we come to Castlewood where my lady +is." + +"When shall we come to Castlewood, Monsieur Blaise?" says Harry. + +"_Parbleu!_ my lord does not press himself." Blaise says, with a grin; +and, indeed, it seemed as if his lordship was not in a great hurry, for he +spent three days on that journey, which Harry Esmond hath often since +ridden in a dozen hours. For the last two of the days, Harry rode with the +priest, who was so kind to him, that the child had grown to be quite fond +and familiar with him by the journey's end, and had scarce a thought in +his little heart which by that time he had not confided to his new friend. + +At length on the third day, at evening, they came to a village standing on +a green with elms round it, very pretty to look at; and the people there +all took off their hats, and made curtsies to my lord viscount, who bowed +to them all languidly; and there was one portly person that wore a cassock +and a broad-leafed hat, who bowed lower than any one--and with this one +both my lord and Mr. Holt had a few words. "This, Harry, is Castlewood +church," says Mr. Holt, "and this is the pillar thereof, learned Doctor +Tusher. Take off your hat, sirrah, and salute Doctor Tusher." + +"Come up to supper, doctor," says my lord; at which the doctor made +another low bow, and the party moved on towards a grand house that was +before them, with many grey towers, and vanes on them, and windows flaming +in the sunshine; and a great army of rooks, wheeling over their heads, +made for the woods behind the house, as Harry saw; and Mr. Holt told him +that they lived at Castlewood too. + +They came to the house, and passed under an arch into a courtyard, with a +fountain in the centre, where many men came and held my lord's stirrup as +he descended, and paid great respect to Mr. Holt likewise. And the child +thought that the servants looked at him curiously, and smiled to one +another--and he recalled what Blaise had said to him when they were in +London, and Harry had spoken about his godpapa, when the Frenchman said, +"_Parbleu!_ one sees well that my lord is your godfather"; words whereof +the poor lad did not know the meaning then, though he apprehended the +truth in a very short time afterwards, and learned it and thought of it +with no small feeling of shame. + +Taking Harry by the hand as soon as they were both descended from their +horses, Mr. Holt led him across the court, and under a low door to rooms +on a level with the ground; one of which Father Holt said was to be the +boy's chamber, the other on the other side of the passage being the +father's own; and as soon as the little man's face was washed, and the +father's own dress arranged, Harry's guide took him once more to the door +by which my lord had entered the hall, and up a stair, and through an +ante-room to my lady's drawing-room--an apartment than which Harry thought +he had never seen anything more grand--no, not in the Tower of London which +he had just visited. Indeed the chamber was richly ornamented in the +manner of Queen Elizabeth's time, with great stained windows at either +end, and hangings of tapestry, which the sun shining through the coloured +glass painted of a thousand hues; and here in state, by the fire, sat a +lady to whom the priest took up Harry, who was indeed amazed by her +appearance. + +My lady viscountess's face was daubed with white and red up to the eyes, +to which the paint gave an unearthly glare: she had a tower of lace on her +head, under which was a bush of black curls--borrowed curls--so that no +wonder little Harry Esmond was scared when he was first presented to +her--the kind priest acting as master of the ceremonies at that solemn +introduction--and he stared at her with eyes almost as great as her own, as +he had stared at the player-woman who acted the wicked tragedy-queen, when +the players came down to Ealing Fair. She sat in a great chair by the +fire-corner; in her lap was a spaniel-dog that barked furiously; on a +little table by her was her ladyship's snuff-box and her sugar-plum box. +She wore a dress of black velvet, and a petticoat of flame-coloured +brocade. She had as many rings on her fingers as the old woman of Banbury +Cross; and pretty small feet which she was fond of showing, with great +gold clocks to her stockings, and white pantofles with red heels; and an +odour of musk was shook out of her garments whenever she moved or quitted +the room, leaning on her tortoiseshell stick, little Fury barking at her +heels. + +Mrs. Tusher, the parson's wife, was with my lady. She had been +waiting-woman to her ladyship in the late lord's time, and, having her +soul in that business, took naturally to it when the Viscountess of +Castlewood returned to inhabit her father's house. + +"I present to your ladyship your kinsman and little page of honour, Master +Henry Esmond," Mr. Holt said, bowing lowly, with a sort of comical +humility. "Make a pretty bow to my lady, monsieur; and then another little +bow, not so low, to Madam Tusher--the fair priestess of Castlewood." + +"Where I have lived and hope to die, sir," says Madam Tusher, giving a +hard glance at the brat, and then at my lady. + +Upon her the boy's whole attention was for a time directed. He could not +keep his great eyes off from her. Since the Empress of Ealing he had seen +nothing so awful. + +"Does my appearance please you, little page?" asked the lady. + +"He would be very hard to please if it didn't," cried Madam Tusher. + +"Have done, you silly Maria," said Lady Castlewood. + +"Where I'm attached, I'm attached, madam--and I'd die rather than not say +so." + +"_Je meurs ou je m'attache_," Mr. Holt said, with a polite grin. "The ivy +says so in the picture, and clings to the oak like a fond parasite as it +is." + +"Parricide, sir!" cries Mrs. Tusher. + +"Hush, Tusher--you are always bickering with Father Holt," cried my lady. +"Come and kiss my hand, child," and the oak held out a _branch_ to little +Harry Esmond, who took and dutifully kissed the lean old hand, upon the +gnarled knuckles of which there glittered a hundred rings. + +"To kiss that hand would make many a pretty fellow happy!" cried Mrs. +Tusher: on which my lady crying out, "Go, you foolish Tusher," and tapping +her with her great fan, Tusher ran forward to seize her hand and kiss it. +Fury arose and barked furiously at Tusher; and Father Holt looked on at +this queer scene, with arch grave glances. + +The awe exhibited by the little boy perhaps pleased the lady to whom this +artless flattery was bestowed; for having gone down on his knee (as Father +Holt had directed him, and the mode then was) and performed his obeisance, +she said, "Page Esmond, my groom of the chamber will inform you what your +duties are, when you wait upon my lord and me; and good Father Holt will +instruct you as becomes a gentleman of our name. You will pay him +obedience in everything, and I pray you may grow to be as learned and as +good as your tutor." + +The lady seemed to have the greatest reverence for Mr. Holt, and to be +more afraid of him than of anything else in the world. If she was ever so +angry, a word or look from Father Holt made her calm: indeed he had a vast +power of subjecting those who came near him; and, among the rest, his new +pupil gave himself up with an entire confidence and attachment to the good +father, and became his willing slave almost from the first moment he saw +him. + +He put his small hand into the father's as he walked away from his first +presentation to his mistress, and asked many questions in his artless +childish way. "Who is that other woman?" he asked. "She is fat and round; +she is more pretty than my Lady Castlewood." + +"She is Madam Tusher, the parson's wife of Castlewood. She has a son of +your age, but bigger than you." + +"Why does she like so to kiss my lady's hand? It is not good to kiss." + +"Tastes are different, little man. Madam Tusher is attached to my lady, +having been her waiting-woman, before she was married, in the old lord's +time. She married Doctor Tusher the chaplain. The English household +divines often marry the waiting-women." + +"You will not marry the French woman, will you? I saw her laughing with +Blaise in the buttery." + +"I belong to a church that is older and better than the English Church," +Mr. Holt said (making a sign whereof Esmond did not then understand the +meaning, across his breast and forehead); "in our Church the clergy do not +marry. You will understand these things better soon." + +"Was not St. Peter the head of your Church?--Dr. Rabbits of Ealing told us +so." + +The father said, "Yes, he was." + +"But St. Peter was married, for we heard only last Sunday that his wife's +mother lay sick of a fever." On which the father again laughed, and said +he would understand this too better soon, and talked of other things, and +took away Harry Esmond, and showed him the great old house which he had +come to inhabit. + +It stood on a rising green hill, with woods behind it, in which were +rooks' nests, where the birds at morning and returning home at evening +made a great cawing. At the foot of the hill was a river with a steep +ancient bridge crossing it; and beyond that a large pleasant green flat, +where the village of Castlewood stood and stands, with the church in the +midst, the parsonage hard by it, the inn with the blacksmith's forge +beside it, and the sign of the "Three Castles" on the elm. The London road +stretched away towards the rising sun, and to the west were swelling hills +and peaks, behind which many a time Harry Esmond saw the same sun setting, +that he now looks on thousands of miles away across the great ocean--in a +new Castlewood by another stream, that bears, like the new country of +wandering Aeneas, the fond names of the land of his youth. + +The Hall of Castlewood was built with two courts, whereof one only, the +fountain court, was now inhabited, the other having been battered down in +the Cromwellian wars. In the fountain court, still in good repair, was the +great hall, near to the kitchen and butteries. A dozen of living-rooms +looking to the north, and communicating with the little chapel that faced +eastwards and the buildings stretching from that to the main gate, and +with the hall (which looked to the west) into the court now dismantled. +This court had been the most magnificent of the two, until the protector's +cannon tore down one side of it before the place was taken and stormed. +The besiegers entered at the terrace under the clock-tower, slaying every +man of the garrison, and at their head my lord's brother, Francis Esmond. + +The Restoration did not bring enough money to the Lord Castlewood to +restore this ruined part of his house; where were the morning parlours, +above them the long music-gallery, and before which stretched the +garden-terrace, where, however, the flowers grew again, which the boots of +the Roundheads had trodden in their assault, and which was restored +without much cost, and only a little care, by both ladies who succeeded +the second viscount in the government of this mansion. Round the +terrace-garden was a low wall with a wicket leading to the wooded height +beyond, that is called Cromwell's battery to this day. + +Young Harry Esmond learned the domestic part of his duty, which was easy +enough, from the groom of her ladyship's chamber: serving the countess, as +the custom commonly was in his boyhood, as page, waiting at her chair, +bringing her scented water and the silver basin after dinner--sitting on +her carriage step on state occasions, or on public days introducing her +company to her. This was chiefly of the Catholic gentry, of whom there +were a pretty many in the country and neighbouring city; and who rode not +seldom to Castlewood to partake of the hospitalities there. In the second +year of their residence the company seemed especially to increase. My lord +and my lady were seldom without visitors, in whose society it was curious +to contrast the difference of behaviour between Father Holt, the director +of the family, and Doctor Tusher, the rector of the parish--Mr. Holt moving +amongst the very highest as quite their equal, and as commanding them all; +while poor Doctor Tusher, whose position was indeed a difficult one, +having been chaplain once to the Hall, and still to the Protestant +servants there, seemed more like an usher than an equal, and always rose +to go away after the first course. + +Also there came in these times to Father Holt many private visitors, whom +after a little, Henry Esmond had little difficulty in recognizing as +ecclesiastics of the father's persuasion; whatever their dresses (and they +adopted all) might be. These were closeted with the father constantly, and +often came and rode away without paying their devoirs to my lord and +lady--to the lady and lord rather--his lordship being little more than a +cipher in the house, and entirely under his domineering partner. A little +fowling, a little hunting, a great deal of sleep, and a long time at cards +and table, carried through one day after another with his lordship. When +meetings took place in this second year, which often would happen with +closed doors, the page found my lord's sheet of paper scribbled over with +dogs and horses, and 'twas said he had much ado to keep himself awake at +these councils: the countess ruling over them, and he acting as little +more than her secretary. + +Father Holt began speedily to be so much occupied with these meetings as +rather to neglect the education of the little lad who so gladly put +himself under the kind priest's orders. At first they read much and +regularly, both in Latin and French; the father not neglecting in anything +to impress his faith upon his pupil, but not forcing him violently, and +treating him with a delicacy and kindness which surprised and attached the +child; always more easily won by these methods than by any severe exercise +of authority. And his delight in our walks was to tell Harry of the +glories of his order, of its martyrs and heroes, of its brethren +converting the heathen by myriads, traversing the desert, facing the +stake, ruling the courts and councils, or braving the tortures of kings; +so that Harry Esmond thought that to belong to the Jesuits was the +greatest prize of life and bravest end of ambition; the greatest career +here, and in heaven the surest reward; and began to long for the day, not +only when he should enter into the one Church and receive his first +communion, but when he might join that wonderful brotherhood, which was +present throughout all the world, and which numbered the wisest, the +bravest, the highest born, the most eloquent of men among its members. +Father Holt bade him keep his views secret, and to hide them as a great +treasure which would escape him if it was revealed; and proud of this +confidence and secret vested in him, the lad became fondly attached to the +master who initiated him into a mystery so wonderful and awful. And when +little Tom Tusher, his neighbour, came from school for his holiday, and +said how he, too, was to be bred up for an English priest, and would get +what he called an exhibition from his school, and then a college +scholarship and fellowship, and then a good living--it tasked young Harry +Esmond's powers of reticence not to say to his young companion, "Church! +priesthood! fat living! My dear Tommy, do you call yours a Church and a +priesthood? What is a fat living compared to converting a hundred thousand +heathens by a single sermon? What is a scholarship at Trinity by the side +of a crown of martyrdom, with angels awaiting you as your head is taken +off? Could your master at school sail over the Thames on his gown? Have +you statues in your church that can bleed, speak, walk, and cry? My good +Tommy, in dear Father Holt's Church these things take place every day. You +know St. Philip of the Willows appeared to Lord Castlewood and caused him +to turn to the one true Church. No saints ever come to you." And Harry +Esmond, because of his promise to Father Holt, hiding away these treasures +of faith from T. Tusher, delivered himself of them nevertheless simply to +Father Holt, who stroked his head, smiled at him with his inscrutable +look, and told him that he did well to meditate on these great things, and +not to talk of them except under direction. + + + +Chapter IV. I Am Placed Under A Popish Priest And Bred To That +Religion.--Viscountess Castlewood + + +Had time enough been given, and his childish inclinations been properly +nurtured, Harry Esmond had been a Jesuit priest ere he was a dozen years +older, and might have finished his days a martyr in China or a victim on +Tower Hill: for, in the few months they spent together at Castlewood, Mr. +Holt obtained an entire mastery over the boy's intellect and affections; +and had brought him to think, as indeed Father Holt thought with all his +heart too, that no life was so noble, no death so desirable, as that which +many brethren of his famous order were ready to undergo. By love, by a +brightness of wit and good humour that charmed all, by an authority which +he knew how to assume, by a mystery and silence about him which increased +the child's reverence for him, he won Harry's absolute fealty, and would +have kept it, doubtless, if schemes greater and more important than a poor +little boy's admission into orders had not called him away. + +After being at home for a few months in tranquillity (if theirs might be +called tranquillity, which was, in truth, a constant bickering), my lord +and lady left the country for London, taking their director with them: and +his little pupil scarce ever shed more bitter tears in his life than he +did for nights after the first parting with his dear friend, as he lay in +the lonely chamber next to that which the father used to occupy. He and a +few domestics were left as the only tenants of the great house: and, +though Harry sedulously did all the tasks which the father set him, he had +many hours unoccupied, and read in the library, and bewildered his little +brains with the great books he found there. + +After a while the little lad grew accustomed to the loneliness of the +place; and in after days remembered this part of his life as a period not +unhappy. When the family was at London the whole of the establishment +travelled thither with the exception of the porter, who was, moreover, +brewer, gardener, and woodman, and his wife and children. These had their +lodging in the gate-house hard by, with a door into the court; and a +window looking out on the green was the chaplain's room; and next to this +a small chamber where Father Holt had his books, and Harry Esmond his +sleeping-closet. The side of the house facing the east had escaped the +guns of the Cromwellians, whose battery was on the height facing the +western court; so that this eastern end bore few marks of demolition, save +in the chapel, where the painted windows surviving Edward the Sixth had +been broke by the Commonwealth men. In Father Holt's time little Harry +Esmond acted as his familiar, and faithful little servitor; beating his +clothes, folding his vestments, fetching his water from the well long +before daylight, ready to run anywhere for the service of his beloved +priest. When the father was away he locked his private chamber; but the +room where the books were was left to little Harry, who, but for the +society of this gentleman, was little less solitary when Lord Castlewood +was at home. + +The French wit saith that a hero is none to his valet de chambre, and it +required less quick eyes than my lady's little page was naturally endowed +with, to see that she had many qualities by no means heroic, however much +Mrs. Tusher might flatter and coax her. When Father Holt was not by, who +exercised an entire authority over the pair, my lord and my lady +quarrelled and abused each other so as to make the servants laugh, and to +frighten the little page on duty. The poor boy trembled before his +mistress, who called him by a hundred ugly names, who made nothing of +boxing his ears--and tilting the silver basin in his face which it was his +business to present to her after dinner. She hath repaired, by subsequent +kindness to him, these severities, which it must be owned made his +childhood very unhappy. She was but unhappy herself at this time, poor +soul, and I suppose made her dependants lead her own sad life. I think my +lord was as much afraid of her as her page was, and the only person of the +household who mastered her was Mr. Holt. Harry was only too glad when the +father dined at table, and to slink away and prattle with him afterwards, +or read with him, or walk with him. Luckily my lady viscountess did not +rise till noon. Heaven help the poor waiting-woman who had charge of her +toilet! I have often seen the poor wretch come out with red eyes from the +closet, where those long and mysterious rites of her ladyship's dress were +performed, and the backgammon-box locked up with a rap on Mrs. Tusher's +fingers when she played ill or the game was going the wrong way. + +Blessed be the king who introduced cards, and the kind inventors of piquet +and cribbage, for they employed six hours at least of her ladyship's day, +during which her family was pretty easy. Without this occupation my lady +frequently declared she should die. Her dependants one after another +relieved guard--'twas rather a dangerous post to play with her ladyship--and +took the cards turn about. Mr. Holt would sit with her at piquet during +hours together, at which time she behaved herself properly; and, as for +Dr. Tusher, I believe he would have left a parishioner's dying bed, if +summoned to play a rubber with his patroness at Castlewood. Sometimes, +when they were pretty comfortable together, my lord took a hand. Besides +these my lady had her faithful poor Tusher, and one, two, three +gentlewomen whom Harry Esmond could recollect in his time. They could not +bear that genteel service very long; one after another tried and failed at +it. These and the housekeeper, and little Harry Esmond, had a table of +their own. Poor ladies! their life was far harder than the page's. He was +found asleep tucked up in his little bed, whilst they were sitting by her +ladyship reading her to sleep, with the _News Letter_ or the _Grand +Cyrus_. My lady used to have boxes of new plays from London, and Harry was +forbidden, under the pain of a whipping, to look into them. I am afraid he +deserved the penalty pretty often, and got it sometimes. Father Holt +applied it twice or thrice, when he caught the young scapegrace with a +delightful wicked comedy of Mr. Shadwell's or Mr. Wycherley's under his +pillow. + +These, when he took any, were my lord's favourite reading. But he was +averse to much study, and, as his little page fancied, to much occupation +of any sort. + +It always seemed to young Harry Esmond that my lord treated him with more +kindness when his lady was not present, and Lord Castlewood would take the +lad sometimes on his little journeys a-hunting or a-birding; he loved to +play at cards and tric-trac with him, which games the boy learned to +pleasure his lord: and was growing to like him better daily, showing a +special pleasure if Father Holt gave a good report of him, patting him on +the head, and promising that he would provide for the boy. However, in my +lady's presence, my lord showed no such marks of kindness, and affected to +treat the lad roughly, and rebuked him sharply for little faults--for which +he in a manner asked pardon of young Esmond when they were private, saying +if he did not speak roughly, she would, and his tongue was not such a bad +one as his lady's--a point whereof the boy, young as he was, was very well +assured. + +Great public events were happening all this while, of which the simple +young page took little count. But one day, riding into the neighbouring +town on the step of my lady's coach, his lordship and she and Father Holt +being inside, a great mob of people came hooting and jeering round the +coach, bawling out, "The bishops for ever!" "Down with the Pope!" "No +Popery! no Popery! Jezebel, Jezebel!" so that my lord began to laugh, my +lady's eyes to roll with anger, for she was as bold as a lioness, and +feared nobody; whilst Mr. Holt, as Esmond saw from his place on the step, +sank back with rather an alarmed face, crying out to her ladyship, "For +God's sake, madam, do not speak or look out of window, sit still." But she +did not obey this prudent injunction of the father; she thrust her head +out of the coach window, and screamed out to the coachman, "Flog your way +through them, the brutes, James, and use your whip!" + +The mob answered with a roaring jeer of laughter, and fresh cries of, +"Jezebel! Jezebel!" My lord only laughed the more: he was a languid +gentleman: nothing seemed to excite him commonly, though I have seen him +cheer and halloo the hounds very briskly, and his face (which was +generally very yellow and calm) grow quite red and cheerful during a burst +over the Downs after a hare, and laugh, and swear, and huzza at a +cockfight, of which sport he was very fond. And now, when the mob began to +hoot his lady, he laughed with something of a mischievous look, as though +he expected sport, and thought that she and they were a match. + +James the coachman was more afraid of his mistress than the mob, probably, +for he whipped on his horses as he was bidden, and the postboy that rode +with the first pair (my lady always went with her coach-and-six) gave a +cut of his thong over the shoulders of one fellow who put his hand out +towards the leading horse's rein. + +It was a market day and the country people were all assembled with their +baskets of poultry, eggs, and such things; the postilion had no sooner +lashed the man who would have taken hold of his horse, but a great cabbage +came whirling like a bombshell into the carriage, at which my lord laughed +more, for it knocked my lady's fan out of her hand, and plumped into +Father Holt's stomach. Then came a shower of carrots and potatoes. + +"For heaven's sake be still!" says Mr. Holt; "we are not ten paces from +the 'Bell' archway, where they can shut the gates on us, and keep out this +_canaille_." + +The little page was outside the coach on the step, and a fellow in the +crowd aimed a potato at him, and hit him in the eye, at which the poor +little wretch set up a shout; the man laughed, a great big saddler's +apprentice of the town. "Ah! you d---- little yelling Popish bastard," he +said, and stooped to pick up another; the crowd had gathered quite between +the horses and in the inn door by this time, and the coach was brought to +a dead standstill. My lord jumped as briskly as a boy out of the door on +his side of the coach, squeezing little Harry behind it; had hold of the +potato-thrower's collar in an instant, and the next moment the brute's +heels were in the air, and he fell on the stones with a thump. + +"You hulking coward!" says he; "you pack of screaming blackguards! how +dare you attack children, and insult women? Fling another shot at that +carriage, you sneaking pigskin cobbler, and by the Lord I'll send my +rapier through you!" + +Some of the mob cried, "Huzza, my lord!" for they knew him, and the +saddler's man was a known bruiser, near twice as big as my lord viscount. + +"Make way, there," says he (he spoke in a high shrill voice, but with a +great air of authority). "Make way, and let her ladyship's carriage pass." +The men that were between the coach and the gate of the "Bell" actually +did make way, and the horses went in, my lord walking after them with his +hat on his head. + +As he was going in at the gate, through which the coach had just rolled, +another cry begins of "No Popery--no Papists!" My lord turns round and +faces them once more. + +"God save the king!" says he at the highest pitch of his voice. "Who dares +abuse the king's religion? You, you d----d psalm-singing cobbler, as sure as +I'm a magistrate of this county I'll commit you!" The fellow shrunk back, +and my lord retreated with all the honours of the day. But when the little +flurry caused by the scene was over, and the flush passed off his face, he +relapsed into his usual languor, trifled with his little dog, and yawned +when my lady spoke to him. + +This mob was one of many thousands that were going about the country at +that time, huzzaing for the acquittal of the seven bishops who had been +tried just then, and about whom little Harry Esmond at that time knew +scarce anything. It was assizes at Hexton, and there was a great meeting +of the gentry at the "Bell"; and my lord's people had their new liveries +on, and Harry a little suit of blue and silver, which he wore upon +occasions of state; and the gentlefolks came round and talked to my lord; +and a judge in a red gown, who seemed a very great personage, especially +complimented him and my lady, who was mighty grand. Harry remembers her +train borne up by her gentlewoman. There was an assembly and ball at the +great room at the "Bell", and other young gentlemen of the county families +looked on as he did. One of them jeered him for his black eye, which was +swelled by the potato, and another called him a bastard, on which he and +Harry fell to fisticuffs. My lord's cousin, Colonel Esmond of Walcote, was +there, and separated the two lads, a great tall gentleman with a handsome, +good-natured face. The boy did not know how nearly in after-life he should +be allied to Colonel Esmond, and how much kindness he should have to owe +him. + +There was little love between the two families. My lady used not to spare +Colonel Esmond in talking of him, for reasons which have been hinted +already; but about which, at his tender age, Henry Esmond could be +expected to know nothing. + +Very soon afterwards my lord and lady went to London with Mr. Holt, +leaving, however, the page behind them. The little man had the great house +of Castlewood to himself; or between him and the housekeeper, Mrs. +Worksop, an old lady who was a kinswoman of the family in some distant +way, and a Protestant, but a stanch Tory and king's-man, as all the +Esmonds were. He used to go to school to Dr. Tusher when he was at home, +though the doctor was much occupied too. There was a great stir and +commotion everywhere, even in the little quiet village of Castlewood, +whither a party of people came from the town, who would have broken +Castlewood Chapel windows, but the village people turned out, and even old +Sievewright, the republican blacksmith, along with them: for my lady, +though she was a Papist, and had many odd ways, was kind to the tenantry, +and there was always a plenty of beef, and blankets, and medicine for the +poor at Castlewood Hall. + +A kingdom was changing hands whilst my lord and lady were away. King James +was flying, the Dutchmen were coming; awful stories about them and the +Prince of Orange used old Mrs. Worksop to tell to the idle little page. + +He liked the solitude of the great house very well; he had all the +play-books to read, and no Father Holt to whip him, and a hundred childish +pursuits and pastimes, without doors and within, which made this time very +pleasant. + + + +Chapter V. My Superiors Are Engaged In Plots For The Restoration Of King +James II + + +Not having been able to sleep, for thinking of some lines for eels which +he had placed the night before, the lad was lying in his little bed, +waiting for the hour when the gate would be open, and he and his comrade, +Job Lockwood, the porter's son, might go to the pond and see what fortune +had brought them. At daybreak Job was to awaken him, but his own eagerness +for the sport had served as a reveille long since--so long, that it seemed +to him as if the day never would come. + +It might have been four o'clock when he heard the door of the opposite +chamber, the chaplain's room, open, and the voice of a man coughing in the +passage. Harry jumped up, thinking for certain it was a robber, or hoping +perhaps for a ghost, and, flinging open his own door, saw before him the +chaplain's door open, and a light inside, and a figure standing in the +doorway, in the midst of a great smoke which issued from the room. + +"Who's there?" cried out the boy, who was of a good spirit. + +"_Silentium!_" whispered the other; "'tis I, my boy!" and, holding his +hand out, Harry had no difficulty in recognizing his master and friend, +Father Holt. A curtain was over the window of the chaplain's room that +looked to the court, and Harry saw that the smoke came from a great flame +of papers which were burning in a brazier when he entered the chaplain's +room. After giving a hasty greeting and blessing to the lad, who was +charmed to see his tutor, the father continued the burning of his papers, +drawing them from a cupboard over the mantelpiece wall, which Harry had +never seen before. + +Father Holt laughed, seeing the lad's attention fixed at once on this +hole. "That is right, Harry," he said; "faithful little famuli see all and +say nothing. You are faithful, I know." + +"I know I would go to the stake for you," said Harry. + +"I don't want your head," said the father, patting it kindly; "all you +have to do is to hold your tongue. Let us burn these papers, and say +nothing to anybody. Should you like to read them?" + +Harry Esmond blushed, and held down his head; he _had_ looked as the fact +was, and without thinking, at the paper before him; and though he had seen +it, could not understand a word of it, the letters being quite clear +enough, but quite without meaning. They burned the papers, beating down +the ashes in a brazier, so that scarce any traces of them remained. + +Harry had been accustomed to see Father Holt in more dresses than one; it +not being safe, or worth the danger, for Popish ecclesiastics to wear +their proper dress; and he was, in consequence, in no wise astonished that +the priest should now appear before him in a riding dress, with large buff +leather boots, and a feather to his hat, plain, but such as gentlemen +wore. + +"You know the secret of the cupboard," said he, laughing, "and must be +prepared for other mysteries;" and he opened--but not a secret cupboard +this time--only a wardrobe, which he usually kept locked, and from which he +now took out two or three dresses and perukes of different colours, and a +couple of swords of a pretty make (Father Holt was an expert practitioner +with the small sword, and every day, whilst he was at home, he and his +pupil practised this exercise, in which the lad became a very great +proficient), a military coat and cloak, and a farmer's smock, and placed +them in the large hole over the mantelpiece from which the papers had been +taken. + +"If they miss the cupboard," he said, "they will not find these; if they +find them, they'll tell no tales, except that Father Holt wore more suits +of clothes than one. All Jesuits do. You know what deceivers we are, +Harry." + +Harry was alarmed at the notion that his friend was about to leave him; +but "No", the priest said; "I may very likely come back with my lord in a +few days. We are to be tolerated; we are not to be persecuted. But they +may take a fancy to pay a visit at Castlewood ere our return; and, as +gentlemen of my cloth are suspected, they might choose to examine my +papers, which concern nobody--at least, not them." And to this day, whether +the papers in cipher related to politics, or to the affairs of that +mysterious society whereof Father Holt was a member, his pupil, Harry +Esmond, remains in entire ignorance. + +The rest of his goods, his small wardrobe, &c., Holt left untouched on his +shelves and in his cupboard, taking down--with a laugh, however--and +flinging into the brazier, where he only half burned them, some +theological treatises which he had been writing against the English +divines. "And now," said he, "Henry, my son, you may testify, with a safe +conscience, that you saw me burning Latin sermons the last time I was here +before I went away to London; and it will be daybreak directly, and I must +be away before Lockwood is stirring." + +"Will not Lockwood let you out, sir?" Esmond asked. Holt laughed; he was +never more gay or good-humoured than when in the midst of action or +danger. + +"Lockwood knows nothing of my being here, mind you," he said; "nor would +you, you little wretch, had you slept better. You must forget that I have +been here; and now farewell. Close the door, and go to your own room, and +don't come out till--stay, why should you not know one secret more? I know +you will never betray me." + +In the chaplain's room were two windows; the one looking into the court +facing westwards to the fountain; the other, a small casement strongly +barred, and looking on to the green in front of the Hall. This window was +too high to reach from the ground; but, mounting on a buffet which stood +beneath it, Father Holt showed me how, by pressing on the base of the +window, the whole framework of lead, glass, and iron stanchions, descended +into a cavity worked below, from which it could be drawn and restored to +its usual place from without; a broken pane being purposely open to admit +the hand which was to work upon the spring of the machine. + +"When I am gone," Father Holt said, "you may push away the buffet, so that +no one may fancy that an exit has been made that way; lock the door; place +the key--where shall we put the key?--under _Chrysostom_ on the book-shelf; +and if any ask for it, say I keep it there, and told you where to find it, +if you had need to go to my room. The descent is easy down the wall into +the ditch; and so, once more farewell, until I see thee again, my dear +son." And with this the intrepid father mounted the buffet with great +agility and briskness, stepped across the window, lifting up the bars and +framework again from the other side, and only leaving room for Harry +Esmond to stand on tiptoe and kiss his hand before the casement closed, +the bars fixing as firm as ever seemingly in the stone arch overhead. When +Father Holt next arrived at Castlewood, it was by the public gate on +horseback; and he never so much as alluded to the existence of the private +issue to Harry, except when he had need of a private messenger from +within, for which end, no doubt, he had instructed his young pupil in the +means of quitting the Hall. + +Esmond, young as he was, would have died sooner than betray his friend and +master, as Mr. Holt well knew; for he had tried the boy more than once, +putting temptations in his way, to see whether he would yield to them and +confess afterwards, or whether he would resist them, as he did sometimes, +or whether he would lie, which he never did. Holt instructing the boy on +this point, however, that if to keep silence is not to lie, as it +certainly is not, yet silence is, after all, equivalent to a negation--and +therefore a downright No, in the interest of justice or your friend, and +in reply to a question that may be prejudicial to either, is not criminal, +but, on the contrary, praiseworthy; and as lawful a way as the other of +eluding a wrongful demand. For instance (says he), suppose a good citizen, +who had seen his Majesty take refuge there, had been asked, "Is King +Charles up that oak-tree?" His duty would have been not to say, Yes--so +that the Cromwellians should seize the king and murder him like his +father--but No; his Majesty being private in the tree, and therefore not to +be seen there by loyal eyes: all which instruction, in religion and +morals, as well as in the rudiments of the tongues and sciences, the boy +took eagerly and with gratitude from his tutor. When, then, Holt was gone, +and told Harry not to see him, it was as if he had never been. And he had +this answer pat when he came to be questioned a few days after. + +The Prince of Orange was then at Salisbury, as young Esmond learned from +seeing Doctor Tusher in his best cassock (though the roads were muddy, and +he never was known to wear his silk, only his stuff one, a-horseback), +with a great orange cockade in his broad-leafed hat, and Nahum, his clerk, +ornamented with a like decoration. The doctor was walking up and down, in +front of his parsonage, when little Esmond saw him, and heard him say he +was going to pay his duty to his highness the prince, as he mounted his +pad and rode away with Nahum behind. The village people had orange +cockades too, and his friend the blacksmith's laughing daughter pinned one +into Harry's old hat, which he tore out indignantly when they bid him to +cry, "God save the Prince of Orange and the Protestant religion!" but the +people only laughed, for they liked the boy in the village, where his +solitary condition moved the general pity, and where he found friendly +welcomes and faces in many houses. Father Holt had many friends there too, +for he not only would fight the blacksmith at theology, never losing his +temper, but laughing the whole time in his pleasant way, but he cured him +of an ague with quinquina, and was always ready with a kind word for any +man that asked it, so that they said in the village 'twas a pity the two +were Papists. + +The director and the Vicar of Castlewood agreed very well; indeed, the +former was a perfectly bred gentleman, and it was the latter's business to +agree with everybody. Doctor Tusher and the lady's maid, his spouse, had a +boy who was about the age of little Esmond; and there was such a +friendship between the lads, as propinquity and tolerable kindness and +good humour on either side would be pretty sure to occasion. Tom Tusher +was sent off early however to a school in London, whither his father took +him and a volume of sermons in the first year of the reign of King James; +and Tom returned but once, a year afterwards, to Castlewood for many years +of his scholastic and collegiate life. Thus there was less danger to Tom +of a perversion of his faith by the director, who scarce ever saw him, +than there was to Harry, who constantly was in the vicar's company; but as +long as Harry's religion was his Majesty's, and my lord's, and my lady's, +the doctor said gravely, it should not be for him to disturb or disquiet +him: it was far from him to say that his Majesty's Church was not a branch +of the Catholic Church; upon which Father Holt used, according to his +custom, to laugh and say, that the Holy Church throughout all the world, +and the noble army of martyrs, were very much obliged to the doctor. + +It was while Dr. Tusher was away at Salisbury that there came a troop of +dragoons with orange scarfs, and quartered in Castlewood, and some of them +came up to the Hall, where they took possession, robbing nothing however +beyond the hen-house and the beer-cellar; and only insisting upon going +through the house and looking for papers. The first room they asked to +look at was Father Holt's room, of which Harry Esmond brought the key, and +they opened the drawers and the cupboards, and tossed over the papers and +clothes--but found nothing except his books and clothes, and the vestments +in a box by themselves, with which the dragoons made merry, to Harry +Esmond's horror. And to the questions which the gentleman put to Harry, he +replied, that Father Holt was a very kind man to him, and a very learned +man, and Harry supposed would tell him none of his secrets if he had any. +He was about eleven years old at this time, and looked as innocent as boys +of his age. + +The family were away more than six months, and when they returned they +were in the deepest state of dejection, for King James had been banished, +the Prince of Orange was on the throne, and the direst persecutions of +those of the Catholic faith were apprehended by my lady, who said she did +not believe that there was a word of truth in the promises of toleration +that Dutch monster made, or in a single word the perjured wretch said. My +lord and lady were in a manner prisoners in their own house; so her +ladyship gave the little page to know, who was by this time growing of an +age to understand what was passing about him, and something of the +characters of the people he lived with. + +"We are prisoners," says she; "in everything but chains, we are prisoners. +Let them come, let them consign me to dungeons, or strike off my head from +this poor little throat" (and she clasped it in her long fingers). "The +blood of the Esmonds will always flow freely for their kings. We are not +like the Churchills--the Judases, who kiss their master and betray him. We +know how to suffer, how even to forgive in the royal cause" (no doubt it +was to that fatal business of losing the place of Groom of the Posset to +which her ladyship alluded, as she did half a dozen times in the day). +"Let the tyrant of Orange bring his rack and his odious Dutch tortures--the +beast! the wretch! I spit upon him and defy him. Cheerfully will I lay +this head upon the block; cheerfully will I accompany my lord to the +scaffold: we will cry, 'God save King James!' with our dying breath, and +smile in the face of the executioner." And she told her page a hundred +times at least of the particulars of the last interview which she had with +his Majesty. + +"I flung myself before my liege's feet," she said, "at Salisbury. I +devoted myself--my husband--my house, to his cause. Perhaps he remembered +old times, when Isabella Esmond was young and fair; perhaps he recalled +the day when 'twas not _I_ that knelt--at least he spoke to me with a voice +that reminded _me_ of days gone by. 'Egad!' said his Majesty, 'you should +go to the Prince of Orange, if you want anything.' 'No, sire,' I replied, +'I would not kneel to a usurper; the Esmond that would have served your +Majesty will never be groom to a traitor's posset.' The royal exile +smiled, even in the midst of his misfortune; he deigned to raise me with +words of consolation. The viscount, my husband, himself, could not be +angry at the august salute with which he honoured me!" + +The public misfortune had the effect of making my lord and his lady better +friends than they ever had been since their courtship. My lord viscount +had shown both loyalty and spirit, when these were rare qualities in the +dispirited party about the king; and the praise he got elevated him not a +little in his wife's good opinion, and perhaps in his own. He wakened up +from the listless and supine life which he had been leading; was always +riding to and fro in consultation with this friend or that of the king's; +the page of course knowing little of his doings, but remarking only his +greater cheerfulness and altered demeanour. + +Father Holt came to the Hall constantly, but officiated no longer openly +as chaplain; he was always fetching and carrying: strangers, military and +ecclesiastic (Harry knew the latter though they came in all sorts of +disguises), were continually arriving and departing. My lord made long +absences and sudden reappearances, using sometimes the means of exit which +Father Holt had employed, though how often the little window in the +chaplain's room let in or let out my lord and his friends, Harry could not +tell. He stoutly kept his promise to the father of not prying, and if at +midnight from his little room he heard noises of persons stirring in the +next chamber, he turned round to the wall and hid his curiosity under his +pillow until it fell asleep. Of course he could not help remarking that +the priest's journeys were constant, and understanding by a hundred signs +that some active though secret business employed him: what this was may +pretty well be guessed by what soon happened to my lord. + +No garrison or watch was put into Castlewood when my lord came back, but a +guard was in the village; and one or other of them was always on the Green +keeping a look-out on our great gate, and those who went out and in. +Lockwood said that at night especially every person who came in or went +out was watched by the outlying sentries. 'Twas lucky that we had a gate +which their worships knew nothing about. My lord and Father Holt must have +made constant journeys at night: once or twice little Harry acted as their +messenger and discreet little aide de camp. He remembers he was bidden to +go into the village with his fishing-rod, enter certain houses, ask for a +drink of water, and tell the good man, "There would be a horse-market at +Newbury next Thursday," and so carry the same message on to the next house +on his list. + +He did not know what the message meant at the time, nor what was +happening: which may as well, however, for clearness' sake, be explained +here. The Prince of Orange being gone to Ireland, where the king was ready +to meet him with a great army, it was determined that a great rising of +his Majesty's party should take place in this country: and my lord was to +head the force in our county. Of late he had taken a greater lead in +affairs than before, having the indefatigable Mr. Holt at his elbow, and +my lady viscountess strongly urging him on; and my Lord Sark being in the +Tower a prisoner, and Sir Wilmot Crawley, of Queen's Crawley, having gone +over to the Prince of Orange's side--my lord became the most considerable +person in our part of the county for the affairs of the king. + +It was arranged that the regiment of Scots Greys and Dragoons, then +quartered at Newbury, should declare for the king on a certain day, when +likewise the gentry affected to his Majesty's cause were to come in with +their tenants and adherents to Newbury, march upon the Dutch troops at +Reading under Ginckel; and, these overthrown, and their indomitable little +master away in Ireland, 'twas thought that our side might move on London +itself, and a confident victory was predicted for the king. + +As these great matters were in agitation, my lord lost his listless manner +and seemed to gain health; my lady did not scold him, Mr. Holt came to and +fro, busy always; and little Harry longed to have been a few inches +taller, that he might draw a sword in this good cause. + +One day, it must have been about the month of July, 1690, my lord, in a +great horseman's coat, under which Harry could see the shining of a steel +breastplate he had on, called little Harry to him, put the hair off the +child's forehead, and kissed him, and bade God bless him in such an +affectionate way as he never had used before. Father Holt blessed him too, +and then they took leave of my lady viscountess, who came from her +apartment with a pocket-handkerchief to her eyes, and her gentlewoman and +Mrs. Tusher supporting her. + +"You are going to--to ride," says she. "Oh, that I might come too!--but in +my situation I am forbidden horse exercise." + +"We kiss my lady marchioness's hand," says Mr. Holt. + +"My lord, God speed you!" she said, stepping up and embracing my lord in a +grand manner. "Mr. Holt, I ask your blessing:" and she knelt down for +that, whilst Mrs. Tusher tossed her head up. + +Mr. Holt gave the same benediction to the little page, who went down and +held my lord's stirrups for him to mount; there were two servants waiting +there too--and they rode out of Castlewood gate. + +As they crossed the bridge Harry could see an officer in scarlet ride up +touching his hat, and address my lord. + +The party stopped, and came to some parley or discussion, which presently +ended, my lord putting his horse into a canter after taking off his hat +and making a bow to the officer who rode alongside him step for step: the +trooper accompanying him, falling back, and riding with my lord's two men. +They cantered over the Green, and behind the elms (my lord waving his +hand, Harry thought), and so they disappeared. + +That evening we had a great panic, the cow-boy coming at milking-time +riding one of our horses, which he had found grazing at the outer park +wall. + +All night my lady viscountess was in a very quiet and subdued mood. She +scarce found fault with anybody; she played at cards for six hours; little +page Esmond went to sleep. He prayed for my lord and the good cause before +closing his eyes. + +It was quite in the grey of the morning when the porter's bell rang, and +old Lockwood waking up, let in one of my lord's servants, who had gone +with him in the morning, and who returned with a melancholy story. + +The officer who rode up to my lord had, it appeared, said to him, that it +was his duty to inform his lordship that he was not under arrest, but +under surveillance, and to request him not to ride abroad that day. + +My lord replied that riding was good for his health, that if the captain +chose to accompany him he was welcome, and it was then that he made a bow, +and they cantered away together. + +When he came on to Wansey Down, my lord all of a sudden pulled up, and the +party came to a halt at the crossway. + +"Sir" says he to the officer, "we are four to two; will you be so kind as +to take that road, and leave me to go mine?" + +"Your road is mine, my lord," says the officer. + +"Then," says my lord, but he had no time to say more, for the officer, +drawing a pistol, snapped it at his lordship; as at the same moment Father +Holt, drawing a pistol, shot the officer through the head. + +It was done, and the man dead in an instant of time. The orderly, gazing +at the officer, looked scared for a moment, and galloped away for his +life. + +"Fire! fire!" cries out Father Holt, sending another shot after the +trooper, but the two servants were too much surprised to use their pieces, +and my lord calling to them to hold their hands, the fellow got away. + +"Mr. Holt, _qui pensoit a tout_," says Blaise, "gets off his horse, +examines the pockets of the dead officer for papers, gives his money to us +two, and says, 'The wine is drawn, monsieur le marquis,'--why did he say +marquis to monsieur le vicomte?--'we must drink it.' + +"The poor gentleman's horse was a better one than that I rode," Blaise +continues; "Mr. Holt bids me get on him, and so I gave a cut to Whitefoot, +and she trotted home. We rode on towards Newbury; we heard firing towards +midday: at two o'clock a horseman comes up to us as we were giving our +cattle water at an inn--and says, All is done. The Ecossois declared an +hour too soon--General Ginckel was down upon them. The whole thing was at +an end. + +" 'And we've shot an officer on duty, and let his orderly escape,' says my +lord. + +" 'Blaise,' says Mr. Holt, writing two lines on his table-book, one for my +lady, and one for you, Master Harry; 'you must go back to Castlewood, and +deliver these,' and behold me." + +And he gave Harry the two papers. He read that to himself, which only +said, "Burn the papers in the cupboard, burn this. You know nothing about +anything." Harry read this, ran upstairs to his mistress's apartment, +where her gentlewoman slept near to the door, made her bring a light and +wake my lady, into whose hands he gave the paper. She was a wonderful +object to look at in her night attire, nor had Harry ever seen the like. + +As soon as she had the paper in her hand, Harry stepped back to the +chaplain's room, opened the secret cupboard over the fireplace, burned all +the papers in it, and, as he had seen the priest do before, took down one +of his reverence's manuscript sermons, and half burnt that in the brazier. +By the time the papers were quite destroyed it was daylight. Harry ran +back to his mistress again. Her gentlewoman ushered him again into her +ladyship's chamber; she told him (from behind her nuptial curtains) to bid +the coach be got ready, and that she would ride away anon. + +But the mysteries of her ladyship's toilet were as awfully long on this +day as on any other, and, long after the coach was ready, my lady was +still attiring herself. And just as the viscountess stepped forth from her +room, ready for departure, young Job Lockwood comes running up from the +village with news that a lawyer, three officers, and twenty or +four-and-twenty soldiers, were marching thence upon the house. Job had but +two minutes the start of them, and, ere he had well told his story, the +troop rode into our courtyard. + + + +Chapter VI. The Issue Of The Plots.--The Death Of Thomas, Third Viscount Of +Castlewood; And The Imprisonment Of His Viscountess + + +At first my lady was for dying like Mary, Queen of Scots (to whom she +fancied she bore a resemblance in beauty), and, stroking her scraggy neck, +said, "They will find Isabel of Castlewood is equal to her fate." Her +gentlewoman, Victoire, persuaded her that her prudent course was, as she +could not fly, to receive the troops as though she suspected nothing, and +that her chamber was the best place wherein to await them. So her black +japan casket which Harry was to carry to the coach was taken back to her +ladyship's chamber, whither the maid and mistress retired. Victoire came +out presently, bidding the page to say her ladyship was ill, confined to +her bed with the rheumatism. + +By this time the soldiers had reached Castlewood. Harry Esmond saw them +from the window of the tapestry parlour; a couple of sentinels were posted +at the gate--a half-dozen more walked towards the stable; and some others, +preceded by their commander, and a man in black, a lawyer probably, were +conducted by one of the servants to the stair leading up to the part of +the house which my lord and lady inhabited. + +So the captain, a handsome kind man, and the lawyer, came through the +ante-room to the tapestry parlour, and where now was nobody but young +Harry Esmond, the page. + +"Tell your mistress, little man," says the captain kindly, "that we must +speak to her." + +"My mistress is ill abed," said the page. + +"What complaint has she?" asked the captain. + +The boy said, "the rheumatism!" + +"Rheumatism! that's a sad complaint," continues the good-natured captain; +"and the coach is in the yard to fetch the doctor, I suppose?" + +"I don't know," says the boy. + +"And how long has her ladyship been ill?" + +"I don't know," says the boy. + +"When did my lord go away?" + +"Yesterday night." + +"With Father Holt?" + +"With Mr. Holt." + +"And which way did they travel?" asks the lawyer. + +"They travelled without me," says the page. + +"We must see Lady Castlewood." + +"I have orders that nobody goes in to her ladyship--she is sick," says the +page; but at this moment Victoire came out. "Hush!" says she; and, as if +not knowing that any one was near, "What's this noise?" says she. "Is this +gentleman the doctor?" + +"Stuff! we must see Lady Castlewood," says the lawyer, pushing by. + +The curtains of her ladyship's room were down, and the chamber dark, and +she was in bed with a nightcap on her head, and propped up by her pillows, +looking none the less ghastly because of the red which was still on her +cheeks, and which she could not afford to forgo. + +"Is that the doctor?" she said. + +"There is no use with this deception, madam," Captain Westbury said (for +so he was named). "My duty is to arrest the person of Thomas, Viscount +Castlewood, a nonjuring peer--of Robert Tusher, Vicar of Castlewood--and +Henry Holt, known under various other names and designations, a Jesuit +priest, who officiated as chaplain here in the late king's time, and is +now at the head of the conspiracy which was about to break out in this +country against the authority of their Majesties King William and Queen +Mary--and my orders are to search the house for such papers or traces of +the conspiracy as may be found here. Your ladyship will please to give me +your keys, and it will be as well for yourself that you should help us, in +every way, in our search." + +"You see, sir, that I have the rheumatism, and cannot move," said the +lady, looking uncommonly ghastly as she sat up in her bed, where however +she had had her cheeks painted, and a new cap put on, so that she might at +least look her best when the officers came. + +"I shall take leave to place a sentinel in the chamber, so that your +ladyship, in case you should wish to rise, may have an arm to lean on," +Captain Westbury said. "Your woman will show me where I am to look;" and +Madame Victoire, chattering in her half-French and half-English jargon, +opened while the captain examined one drawer after another; but, as Harry +Esmond thought, rather carelessly, with a smile on his face, as if he was +only conducting the examination for form's sake. + +Before one of the cupboards Victoire flung herself down, stretching out +her arms, and, with a piercing shriek, cried, "_Non, jamais, monsieur +l'officier! Jamais!_ I will rather die than let you see this wardrobe." + +But Captain Westbury would open it, still with a smile on his face, which, +when the box was opened, turned into a fair burst of laughter. It +contained--not papers regarding the conspiracy--but my lady's wigs, washes, +and rouge-pots, and Victoire said men were monsters, as the captain went +on with his perquisition. He tapped the back to see whether or no it was +hollow, and as he thrust his hands into the cupboard, my lady from her bed +called out with a voice that did not sound like that of a very sick woman, +"Is it your commission to insult ladies as well as to arrest gentlemen, +captain?" + +"These articles are only dangerous when worn by your ladyship," the +captain said with a low bow, and a mock grin of politeness. "I have found +nothing which concerns the Government as yet--only the weapons with which +beauty is authorized to kill," says he, pointing to a wig with his +sword-tip. "We must now proceed to search the rest of the house." + +"You are not going to leave that wretch in the room with me," cried my +lady, pointing to the soldier. + +"What can I do, madam? Somebody you must have to smooth your pillow and +bring your medicine--permit me----" + +"Sir!" screamed out my lady-- + +"Madam, if you are too ill to leave the bed," the captain then said, +rather sternly, "I must have in four of my men to lift you off in the +sheet: I must examine this bed, in a word; papers may be hidden in a bed +as elsewhere; we know that very well and----" + +Here it was her ladyship's turn to shriek, for the captain, with his fist +shaking the pillows and bolsters, at last came to "burn", as they say in +the play of forfeits, and wrenching away one of the pillows, said, "Look, +did not I tell you so? Here is a pillow stuffed with paper." + +"Some villain has betrayed us," cried out my lady, sitting up in the bed, +showing herself full dressed under her night-rail. + +"And now your ladyship can move, I am sure; permit me to give you my hand +to rise. You will have to travel for some distance, as far as Hexton +Castle to-night. Will you have your coach? Your woman shall attend you if +you like--and the japan-box?" + +"Sir! you don't strike a _man_ when he is down," said my lady, with some +dignity: "can you not spare a woman?" + +"Your ladyship must please to rise and let me search the bed," said the +captain; "there is no more time to lose in bandying talk." + +And, without more ado, the gaunt old woman got up. Harry Esmond +recollected to the end of his life that figure, with the brocade dress and +the white night-rail, and the gold-clocked red stockings, and white +red-heeled shoes sitting up in the bed, and stepping down from it. The +trunks were ready packed for departure in her ante-room, and the horses +ready harnessed in the stable: about all which the captain seemed to know, +by information got from some quarter or other; and, whence, Esmond could +make a pretty shrewd guess in after-times, when Dr. Tusher complained that +King William's Government had basely treated him for services done in that +cause. + +And here he may relate, though he was then too young to know all that was +happening, what the papers contained, of which Captain Westbury had made a +seizure, and which papers had been transferred from the japan-box to the +bed when the officers arrived. + +There was a list, of gentlemen of the county in Father Holt's +handwriting--Mr. Freeman's (King James's) friends--a similar paper being +found among those of Sir John Fenwick and Mr. Coplestone, who suffered +death for this conspiracy. + +There was a patent conferring the title of Marquis of Esmond on my Lord +Castlewood, and the heirs male of his body; his appointment as lord +lieutenant of the county, and major-general.(7) + +There were various letters from the nobility and gentry, some ardent and +some doubtful, in the king's service; and (very luckily for him) two +letters concerning Colonel Francis Esmond; one from Father Holt, which +said, "I have been to see this colonel at his house at Walcote near to +Wells, where he resides since the king's departure, and pressed him very +eagerly in Mr. Freeman's cause, showing him the great advantage he would +have by trading with that merchant, offering him large premiums there as +agreed between us. But he says no: he considers Mr. Freeman the head of +the firm, will never trade against him or embark with any other trading +company, but considers his duty was done when Mr. Freeman left England. +This colonel seems to care more for his wife and his beagles than for +affairs. He asked me much about young H. E., 'that bastard,' as he called +him: doubting my lord's intentions respecting him. I reassured him on this +head, stating what I knew of the lad, and our intentions respecting him, +but with regard to Freeman he was inflexible." + +And another letter was from Colonel Esmond to his kinsman, to say that one +Captain Holton had been with him offering him large bribes to join, _you +know who_, and saying that the head of the house of Castlewood was deeply +engaged in that quarter. But for his part he had broke his sword when the +K. left the country, and would never again fight in that quarrel. The P. +of O. was a man, at least, of a noble courage, and his duty and, as he +thought, every Englishman's, was to keep the country quiet, and the French +out of it: and, in fine, that he would have nothing to do with the scheme. + +Of the existence of these two letters and the contents of the pillow, +Colonel Frank Esmond, who became Viscount Castlewood, told Henry Esmond +afterwards, when the letters were shown to his lordship, who congratulated +himself, as he had good reason, that he had not joined in the scheme which +proved so fatal to many concerned in it. But, naturally, the lad knew +little about these circumstances when they happened under his eyes: only +being aware that his patron and his mistress were in some trouble, which +had caused the flight of the one, and the apprehension of the other by the +officers of King William. + +The seizure of the papers effected, the gentlemen did not pursue their +further search through Castlewood house very rigorously. They examined Mr. +Holt's room, being led thither by his pupil, who showed, as the father had +bidden him, the place where the key of his chamber lay, opened the door +for the gentlemen, and conducted them into the room. + +When the gentlemen came to the half-burned papers in the brazier, they +examined them eagerly enough, and their young guide was a little amused at +their perplexity. + +"What are these?" says one. + +"They're written in a foreign language," says the lawyer. "What are you +laughing at, little whelp?" adds he, turning round as he saw the boy +smile. + +"Mr. Holt said they were sermons," Harry said, "and bade me to burn them;" +which indeed was true of those papers. + +"Sermons, indeed--it's treason, I would lay a wager," cries the lawyer. + +"Egad! it's Greek to me," says Captain Westbury. "Can you read it, little +boy?" + +"Yes, sir, a little," Harry said. + +"Then read, and read in English, sir, on your peril," said the lawyer. And +Harry began to translate:-- + +"Hath not one of your own writers said, 'The children of Adam are now +labouring as much as he himself ever did, about the tree of the knowledge +of good and evil, shaking the boughs thereof, and seeking the fruit, being +for the most part unmindful of the tree of life.' O blind generation! 'tis +this tree of knowledge to which the serpent has led you"--and here the boy +was obliged to stop, the rest of the page being charred by the fire: and +asked of the lawyer--"Shall I go on, sir?" + +The lawyer said--"This boy is deeper than he seems: who knows that he is +not laughing at us?" + +"Let's have in Dick the Scholar," cried Captain Westbury, laughing; and he +called to a trooper out of the window--"Ho, Dick, come in here and +construe." + +A thick-set soldier, with a square good-humoured face, came in at the +summons, saluting his officer. + +"Tell us what is this, Dick," says the lawyer. + +"My name is Steele, sir," says the soldier. "I may be Dick for my friends, +but I don't name gentlemen of your cloth amongst them." + +"Well then, Steele." + +"Mr. Steele, sir, if you please. When you address a gentleman of his +Majesty's Horse Guards, be pleased not to be so familiar." + +"I didn't know, sir," said the lawyer. + +"How should you? I take it you are not accustomed to meet with gentlemen," +says the trooper. + +"Hold thy prate, and read that bit of paper," says Westbury. + +"'Tis Latin," says Dick, glancing at it, and again saluting his officer, +"and from a sermon of Mr. Cudworth's," and he translated the words pretty +much as Henry Esmond had rendered them. + +"What a young scholar you are," says the captain to the boy. + +"Depend on't, he knows more than he tells," says the lawyer. "I think we +will pack him off in the coach with old Jezebel." + +"For construing a bit of Latin?" said the captain very good-naturedly. + +"I would as lief go there as anywhere," Harry Esmond said, simply, "for +there is nobody to care for me." + +There must have been something touching in the child's voice, or in this +description of his solitude--for the captain looked at him very +good-naturedly, and the trooper, called Steele, put his hand kindly on the +lad's head, and said some words in the Latin tongue. + +"What does he say?" says the lawyer. + +"Faith, ask Dick himself," cried Captain Westbury. + +"I said I was not ignorant of misfortune myself, and had learned to +succour the miserable, and that's not _your_ trade, Mr. Sheepskin," said +the trooper. + +"You had better leave Dick the Scholar alone, Mr. Corbet," the captain +said. And Harry Esmond, always touched by a kind face and kind word, felt +very grateful to this good-natured champion. + +The horses were by this time harnessed to the coach; and the countess and +Victoire came down and were put into the vehicle. This woman, who +quarrelled with Harry Esmond all day, was melted at parting with him, and +called him "dear angel", and "poor infant", and a hundred other names. + +The viscountess, giving him her lean hand to kiss, bade him always be +faithful to the house of Esmond. "If evil should happen to my lord," says +she, "his _successor_ I trust will be found, and give you protection. +Situated as I am, they will not dare wreak their vengeance on me _now_." +And she kissed a medal she wore with great fervour, and Henry Esmond knew +not in the least what her meaning was; but hath since learned that, old as +she was, she was for ever expecting, by the good offices of saints and +relics, to have an heir to the title of Esmond. + +Harry Esmond was too young to have been introduced into the secrets of +politics in which his patrons were implicated; for they put but few +questions to the boy (who was little of stature, and looked much younger +than his age), and such questions as they put he answered cautiously +enough, and professing even more ignorance than he had, for which his +examiners willingly enough gave him credit. He did not say a word about +the window or the cupboard over the fireplace; and these secrets quite +escaped the eyes of the searchers. + +So then my lady was consigned to her coach, and sent off to Hexton, with +her woman and the man of law to bear her company, a couple of troopers +riding on either side of the coach. And Harry was left behind at the Hall, +belonging as it were to nobody, and quite alone in the world. The captain +and a guard of men remained in possession there; and the soldiers, who +were very good-natured and kind, ate my lord's mutton and drank his wine, +and made themselves comfortable, as they well might do, in such pleasant +quarters. + +The captains had their dinner served in my lord's tapestry parlour, and +poor little Harry thought his duty was to wait upon Captain Westbury's +chair, as his custom had been to serve his lord when he sat there. + +After the departure of the countess, Dick the Scholar took Harry Esmond +under his special protection, and would examine him in his humanities, and +talk to him both of French and Latin, in which tongues the lad found, and +his new friend was willing enough to acknowledge, that he was even more +proficient than Scholar Dick. Hearing that he had learned them from a +Jesuit, in the praise of whom and whose goodness Harry was never tired of +speaking, Dick, rather to the boy's surprise, who began to have an early +shrewdness, like many children bred up alone, showed a great deal of +theological science, and knowledge of the points at issue between the two +Churches; so that he and Harry would have hours of controversy together, +in which the boy was certainly worsted by the arguments of this singular +trooper. "I am no common soldier," Dick would say, and indeed it was easy +to see by his learning, breeding, and many accomplishments, that he was +not. "I am of one of the most ancient families in the Empire; I have had +my education at a famous school, and a famous university; I learned my +first rudiments of Latin near to Smithfield, in London, where the martyrs +were roasted." + +"You hanged as many of ours," interposed Harry; "and, for the matter of +persecution, Father Holt told me that a young gentleman of Edinburgh, +eighteen years of age, student at the college there, was hanged for heresy +only last year, though he recanted, and solemnly asked pardon for his +errors." + +"Faith! there has been too much persecution on both sides: but 'twas you +taught us." + +"Nay, 'twas the pagans began it," cried the lad, and began to instance a +number of saints of the Church, from the Protomartyr downwards--"this one's +fire went out under him: that one's oil cooled in the cauldron: at a third +holy head the executioner chopped three times and it would not come off. +Show us martyrs in _your_ Church for whom such miracles have been done." + +"Nay," says the trooper gravely, "the miracles of the first three +centuries belong to my Church as well as yours, Master Papist," and then +added, with something of a smile upon his countenance, and a queer look at +Harry--"And yet, my little catechizer, I have sometimes thought about those +miracles, that there was not much good in them, since the victim's head +always finished by coming off at the third or fourth chop, and the +cauldron, if it did not boil one day, boiled the next. Howbeit, in our +times, the Church has lost that questionable advantage of respites. There +never was a shower to put out Ridley's fire, nor an angel to turn the edge +of Campion's axe. The rack tore the limbs of Southwell the Jesuit and +Sympson the Protestant alike. For faith, everywhere multitudes die +willingly enough. I have read in Monsieur Rycaut's _History of the Turks_, +of thousands of Mahomet's followers rushing upon death in battle as upon +certain Paradise; and in the Great Mogul's dominions people fling +themselves by hundreds under the cars of the idols annually, and the +widows burn themselves on their husbands' bodies, as 'tis well known. 'Tis +not the dying for a faith that's so hard, Master Harry--every man of every +nation has done that--'tis the living up to it that is difficult, as I know +to my cost," he added, with a sigh. "And ah!" he added, "my poor lad, I am +not strong enough to convince thee by my life--though to die for my +religion would give me the greatest of joys--but I had a dear friend in +Magdalen College in Oxford; I wish Joe Addison were here to convince thee, +as he quickly could--for I think he's a match for the whole College of +Jesuits; and what's more, in his life too. In that very sermon of Dr. +Cudworth's which your priest was quoting from, and which suffered +martyrdom in the brazier," Dick added, with a smile, "I had a thought of +wearing the black coat (but was ashamed of my life you see, and took to +this sorry red one)--I have often thought of Joe Addison--Doctor Cudworth +says, 'A good conscience is the best looking-glass of Heaven'--and there's +a serenity in my friend's face which always reflects it--I wish you could +see him, Harry." + +"Did he do you a great deal of good?" asked the lad, simply. + +"He might have done," said the other--"at least he taught me to see and +approve better things. 'Tis my own fault, _deteriora sequi_." + +"You seem very good," the boy said. + +"I'm not what I seem, alas!" answered the trooper--and indeed, as it turned +out, poor Dick told the truth--for that very night, at supper in the hall, +where the gentlemen of the troop took their repasts, and passed most part +of their days dicing and smoking of tobacco, and singing and cursing, over +the Castlewood ale--Harry Esmond found Dick the Scholar in a woful state of +drunkenness. He hiccuped out a sermon; and his laughing companions bade +him sing a hymn, on which Dick, swearing he would run the scoundrel +through the body who insulted his religion, made for his sword, which was +hanging on the wall, and fell down flat on the floor under it, saying to +Harry, who ran forward to help him, "Ah, little Papist, I wish Joseph +Addison was here!" + +Though the troopers of the king's Life Guards were all gentlemen, yet the +rest of the gentlemen seemed ignorant and vulgar boors to Harry Esmond, +with the exception of this good-natured Corporal Steele the Scholar, and +Captain Westbury and Lieutenant Trant, who were always kind to the lad. +They remained for some weeks or months encamped in Castlewood, and Harry +learned from them, from time to time, how the lady at Hexton Castle was +treated, and the particulars of her confinement there. 'Tis known that +King William was disposed to deal very leniently with the gentry who +remained faithful to the old king's cause; and no prince usurping a crown, +as his enemies said he did (righteously taking it as I think now), ever +caused less blood to be shed. As for women-conspirators, he kept spies on +the least dangerous, and locked up the others. Lady Castlewood had the +best rooms in Hexton Castle, and the gaoler's garden to walk in; and +though she repeatedly desired to be led out to execution, like Mary Queen +of Scots, there never was any thought of taking her painted old head off, +or any desire to do aught but keep her person in security. + +And it appeared she found that some were friends in her misfortune, whom +she had, in her prosperity, considered as her worst enemies. Colonel +Francis Esmond, my lord's cousin and her ladyship's, who had married the +Dean of Winchester's daughter, and, since King James's departure out of +England, had lived not very far away from Hexton town, hearing of his +kinswoman's strait, and being friends with Colonel Brice, commanding for +King William in Hexton, and with the Church dignitaries there, came to +visit her ladyship in prison, offering to his uncle's daughter any +friendly services which lay in his power. And he brought his lady and +little daughter to see the prisoner, to the latter of whom, a child of +great beauty, and many winning ways, the old viscountess took not a little +liking, although between her ladyship and the child's mother there was +little more love than formerly. There are some injuries which women never +forgive one another; and Madam Francis Esmond, in marrying her cousin, had +done one of those irretrievable wrongs to Lady Castlewood. But as she was +now humiliated, and in misfortune, Madam Francis could allow a truce to +her enmity, and could be kind for a while, at least, to her husband's +discarded mistress. So the little Beatrix, her daughter, was permitted +often to go and visit the imprisoned viscountess, who, in so far as the +child and its father were concerned, got to abate in her anger towards +that branch of the Castlewood family. And the letters of Colonel Esmond +coming to light, as has been said, and his conduct being known to the +king's council, the colonel was put in a better position with the existing +Government than he had ever before been; any suspicions regarding his +loyalty were entirely done away; and so he was enabled to be of more +service to his kinswoman than he could otherwise have been. + +And now there befell an event by which this lady recovered her liberty, +and the house of Castlewood got a new owner, and fatherless little Harry +Esmond a new and most kind protector and friend. Whatever that secret was +which Harry was to hear from my lord, the boy never heard it; for that +night when Father Holt arrived, and carried my lord away with him, was the +last on which Harry ever saw his patron. What happened to my lord may be +briefly told here. Having found the horses at the place where they were +lying, my lord and Father Holt rode together to Chatteris, where they had +temporary refuge with one of the father's penitents in that city; but the +pursuit being hot for them, and the reward for the apprehension of one or +the other considerable, it was deemed advisable that they should separate; +and the priest betook himself to other places of retreat known to him, +whilst my lord passed over from Bristol into Ireland, in which kingdom +King James had a Court and an army. My lord was but a small addition to +this; bringing, indeed, only his sword and the few pieces in his pocket; +but the king received him with some kindness and distinction in spite of +his poor plight, confirmed him in his new title of marquis, gave him a +regiment, and promised him further promotion. But titles or promotion were +not to benefit him now. My lord was wounded at the fatal battle of the +Boyne, flying from which field (long after his master had set him an +example), he lay for a while concealed in the marshy country near to the +town of Trim, and more from catarrh and fever caught in the bogs than from +the steel of the enemy in the battle, sank and died. May the earth lie +light upon Thomas of Castlewood! He who writes this must speak in charity, +though this lord did him and his two grievous wrongs: for one of these he +would have made amends, perhaps, had life been spared him; but the other +lay beyond his power to repair, though 'tis to be hoped that a greater +Power than a priest has absolved him of it. He got the comfort of this +absolution, too, such as it was: a priest of Trim writing a letter to my +lady to inform her of this calamity. + +But in those days letters were slow of travelling, and our priest's took +two months or more on its journey from Ireland to England: where, when it +did arrive, it did not find my lady at her own house; she was at the +king's house of Hexton Castle when the letter came to Castlewood, but it +was opened for all that by the officer in command there. + +Harry Esmond well remembered the receipt of this letter, which Lockwood +brought in as Captain Westbury and Lieutenant Trant were on the green +playing at bowls, young Esmond looking on at the sport, or reading his +book in the arbour. + +"Here's news for Frank Esmond," says Captain Westbury; "Harry, did you +ever see Colonel Esmond?" And Captain Westbury looked very hard at the boy +as he spoke. + +Harry said he had seen him but once when he was at Hexton, at the ball +there. + +"And did he say anything?" + +"He said what I don't care to repeat," Harry answered. For he was now +twelve years of age: he knew what his birth was and the disgrace of it; +and he felt no love towards the man who had most likely stained his +mother's honour and his own. + +"Did you love my Lord Castlewood?" + +"I wait until I know my mother, sir, to say," the boy answered, his eyes +filling with tears. + +"Something has happened to Lord Castlewood," Captain Westbury said, in a +vary grave tone--"something which must happen to us all. He is dead of a +wound received at the Boyne, fighting for King James." + +"I am glad my lord fought for the right cause," the boy said. + +"It was better to meet death on the field like a man, than face it on +Tower Hill, as some of them may," continued Mr. Westbury. "I hope he has +made some testament, or provided for thee somehow. This letter says, he +recommends _unicum filium suum dilectissimum_ to his lady. I hope he has +left you more than that." + +Harry did not know, he said. He was in the hands of Heaven and Fate; but +more lonely now, as it seemed to him, than he had been all the rest of his +life; and that night, as he lay in his little room which he still +occupied, the boy thought with many a pang of shame and grief of his +strange and solitary condition:--how he had a father and no father; a +nameless mother that had been brought to ruin, perhaps, by that very +father whom Harry could only acknowledge in secret and with a blush, and +whom he could neither love nor revere. And he sickened to think how Father +Holt, a stranger, and two or three soldiers, his acquaintances of the last +six weeks, were the only friends he had in the great wide world, where he +was now quite alone. The soul of the boy was full of love, and he longed +as he lay in the darkness there for some one upon whom he could bestow it. +He remembers, and must to his dying day, the thoughts and tears of that +long night, the hours tolling through it. Who was he and what? Why here +rather than elsewhere? I have a mind, he thought, to go to that priest at +Trim, and find out what my father said to him on his death-bed confession. +Is there any child in the whole world so unprotected as I am? Shall I get +up and quit this place, and run to Ireland? With these thoughts and tears +the lad passed that night away until he wept himself to sleep. + +The next day, the gentlemen of the guard who had heard what had befallen +him were more than usually kind to the child, especially his friend +Scholar Dick, who told him about his own father's death, which had +happened when Dick was a child at Dublin, not quite five years of age. +"That was the first sensation of grief," Dick said, "I ever knew. I +remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat +weeping beside it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the +coffin, and calling papa; on which my mother caught me in her arms, and +told me in a flood of tears papa could not hear me, and would play with me +no more, for they were going to put him under ground, whence he could +never come to us again. And this," said Dick kindly, "has made me pity all +children ever since; and caused me to love thee, my poor fatherless, +motherless lad. And if ever thou wantest a friend, thou shalt have one in +Richard Steele." + +Harry Esmond thanked him, and was grateful. But what could Corporal Steele +do for him? take him to ride a spare horse, and be servant to the troop? +Though there might be a bar in Harry Esmond's shield, it was a noble one. +The counsel of the two friends was, that little Harry should stay where he +was, and abide his fortune: so Esmond stayed on at Castlewood, awaiting +with no small anxiety the fate, whatever it was, which was over him. + + + +Chapter VII. I Am Left At Castlewood An Orphan, And Find Most Kind +Protectors There + + +During the stay of the soldiers in Castlewood, honest Dick the Scholar was +the constant companion of the lonely little orphan lad Harry Esmond: and +they read together, and they played bowls together, and when the other +troopers or their officers, who were free-spoken over their cups (as was +the way of that day, when neither men nor women were over-nice), talked +unbecomingly of their amours and gallantries before the child, Dick, who +very likely was setting the whole company laughing, would stop their jokes +with a _maxima debetur pueris reverentia_, and once offered to lug out +against another trooper called Hulking Tom, who wanted to ask Harry Esmond +a ribald question. + +Also, Dick seeing that the child had, as he said, a sensibility above his +years, and a great and praiseworthy discretion, confided to Harry his love +for a vintner's daughter, near to the Tollyard, Westminster, whom Dick +addressed as Saccharissa in many verses of his composition, and without +whom he said it would be impossible that he could continue to live. He +vowed this a thousand times in a day, though Harry smiled to see the +lovelorn swain had his health and appetite as well as the most heart-whole +trooper in the regiment: and he swore Harry to secrecy too, which vow the +lad religiously kept, until he found that officers and privates were all +taken into Dick's confidence, and had the benefit of his verses. And it +must be owned likewise that, while Dick was sighing after Saccharissa in +London, he had consolations in the country; for there came a wench out of +Castlewood village who had washed his linen, and who cried sadly when she +heard he was gone: and without paying her bill too, which Harry Esmond +took upon himself to discharge by giving the girl a silver pocket-piece, +which Scholar Dick had presented to him, when, with many embraces and +prayers for his prosperity, Dick parted from him, the garrison of +Castlewood being ordered away. Dick the Scholar said he would never forget +his young friend, nor indeed did he: and Harry was sorry when the kind +soldiers vacated Castlewood, looking forward with no small anxiety (for +care and solitude had made him thoughtful beyond his years) to his fate +when the new lord and lady of the house came to live there. He had lived +to be past twelve years old now; and had never had a friend, save this +wild trooper perhaps, and Father Holt; and had a fond and affectionate +heart, tender to weakness, that would fain attach itself to somebody, and +did not seem at rest until it had found a friend who would take charge of +it. + +The instinct which led Henry Esmond to admire and love the gracious +person, the fair apparition of whose beauty and kindness had so moved him +when he first beheld her, became soon a devoted affection and passion of +gratitude, which entirely filled his young heart, that as yet, except in +the case of dear Father Holt, had had very little kindness for which to be +thankful. _O Dea certe_, thought he, remembering the lines out of the +_Aeneis_ which Mr. Holt had taught him. There seemed, as the boy thought, +in every look or gesture of this fair creature, an angelical softness and +bright pity--in motion or repose she seemed gracious alike; the tone of her +voice, though she uttered words ever so trivial, gave him a pleasure that +amounted almost to anguish. It cannot be called love, that a lad of twelve +years of age, little more than a menial, felt for an exalted lady, his +mistress: but it was worship. To catch her glance, to divine her errand +and run on it before she had spoken it; to watch, to follow, adore her; +became the business of his life. Meanwhile, as is the way often, his idol +had idols of her own, and never thought of or suspected the admiration of +her little pigmy adorer. + +My lady had on her side her three idols: first and foremost, Jove and +supreme ruler, was her lord, Harry's patron, the good Viscount of +Castlewood. All wishes of his were laws with her. If he had a headache, +she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he joked, she smiled and was +charmed. If he went a-hunting, she was always at the window to see him +ride away, her little son crowing on her arm, or on the watch till his +return. She made dishes for his dinner: spiced his wine for him: made the +toast for his tankard at breakfast: hushed the house when he slept in his +chair, and watched for a look when he woke. If my lord was not a little +proud of his beauty, my lady adored it. She clung to his arm as he paced +the terrace, her two fair little hands clasped round his great one; her +eyes were never tired of looking in his face and wondering at its +perfection. Her little son was his son, and had his father's look and +curly brown hair. Her daughter Beatrix was his daughter, and had his +eyes--were there ever such beautiful eyes in the world? All the house was +arranged so as to bring him ease and give him pleasure. She liked the +small gentry round about to come and pay him court, never caring for +admiration for herself; those who wanted to be well with the lady must +admire him. Not regarding her dress, she would wear a gown to rags, +because he had once liked it: and, if he brought her a brooch or a ribbon, +would prefer it to all the most costly articles of her wardrobe. + +My lord went to London every year for six weeks, and the family being too +poor to appear at Court with any figure, he went alone. It was not until +he was out of sight that her face showed any sorrow: and what a joy when +he came back! What preparation before his return! The fond creature had +his arm-chair at the chimney-side--delighting to put the children in it, +and look at them there. Nobody took his place at the table; but his silver +tankard stood there as when my lord was present. + +A pretty sight it was to see, during my lord's absence, or on those many +mornings when sleep or headache kept him abed, this fair young lady of +Castlewood, her little daughter at her knee, and her domestics gathered +round her reading the Morning Prayer of the English Church. Esmond long +remembered how she looked and spoke kneeling reverently before the sacred +book, the sun shining upon her golden hair until it made a halo round +about her. A dozen of the servants of the house kneeled in a line opposite +their mistress; for awhile Harry Esmond kept apart from these mysteries, +but Doctor Tusher showing him that the prayers read were those of the +Church of all ages, and the boy's own inclination prompting him to be +always as near as he might to his mistress, and to think all things she +did right, from listening to the prayers in the antechamber, he came +presently to kneel down with the rest of the household in the parlour; and +before a couple of years my lady had made a thorough convert. Indeed, the +boy loved his catechizer so much that he would have subscribed to anything +she bade him, and was never tired of listening to her fond discourse and +simple comments upon the book, which she read to him in a voice of which +it was difficult to resist the sweet persuasion and tender appealing +kindness. This friendly controversy, and the intimacy which it occasioned, +bound the lad more fondly than ever to his mistress. The happiest period +of all his life was this; and the young mother, with her daughter and son, +and the orphan lad whom she protected, read and worked and played, and +were children together. If the lady looked forward--as what fond woman does +not?--towards the future, she had no plans from which Harry Esmond was left +out; and a thousand and a thousand times in his passionate and impetuous +way he vowed that no power should separate him from his mistress, and only +asked for some chance to happen by which he might show his fidelity to +her. Now, at the close of his life, as he sits and recalls in tranquillity +the happy and busy scenes of it, he can think, not ungratefully, that he +has been faithful to that early vow. Such a life is so simple that years +may be chronicled in a few lines. But few men's life-voyages are destined +to be all prosperous; and this calm of which we are speaking was soon to +come to an end. + +As Esmond grew, and observed for himself, he found of necessity much to +read and think of outside that fond circle of kinsfolk who had admitted +him to join hand with them. He read more books than they cared to study +with him; was alone in the midst of them many a time, and passed nights +over labours, futile perhaps, but in which they could not join him. His +dear mistress divined his thoughts with her usual jealous watchfulness of +affection: began to forebode a time when he would escape from his +home-nest; and, at his eager protestations to the contrary, would only +sigh and shake her head. Before those fatal decrees in life are executed, +there are always secret previsions and warning omens. When everything yet +seems calm, we are aware that the storm is coming. Ere the happy days were +over, two at least of that home-party felt that they were drawing to a +close; and were uneasy, and on the look-out for the cloud which was to +obscure their calm. + +'Twas easy for Harry to see, however much his lady persisted in obedience +and admiration for her husband, that my lord tired of his quiet life, and +grew weary, and then testy, at those gentle bonds with which his wife +would have held him. As they say the Grand Lama of Thibet is very much +fatigued by his character of divinity, and yawns on his altar as his +bonzes kneel and worship him, many a home-god grows heartily sick of the +reverence with which his family devotees pursue him, and sighs for freedom +and for his old life, and to be off the pedestal on which his dependants +would have him sit for ever, whilst they adore him, and ply him with +flowers, and hymns, and incense, and flattery;--so, after a few years of +his marriage, my honest Lord Castlewood began to tire; all the high-flown +raptures and devotional ceremonies with which his wife, his chief +priestess, treated him, first sent him to sleep, and then drove him out of +doors; for the truth must be told, that my lord was a jolly gentleman, +with very little of the august or divine in his nature, though his fond +wife persisted in revering it--and, besides, he had to pay a penalty for +this love, which persons of his disposition seldom like to defray: and, in +a word, if he had a loving wife, had a very jealous and exacting one. Then +he wearied of this jealousy: then he broke away from it; then came, no +doubt, complaints and recriminations; then, perhaps, promises of amendment +not fulfilled; then upbraidings not the more pleasant because they were +silent, and only sad looks and tearful eyes conveyed them. Then, perhaps, +the pair reached that other stage which is not uncommon in married life, +when the woman perceives that the god of the honeymoon is a god no more; +only a mortal like the rest of us--and so she looks into her heart, and lo! +_vacuae sedes et inania arcana_. And now, supposing our lady to have a +fine genius and a brilliant wit of her own, and the magic spell and +infatuation removed from her which had led her to worship as a god a very +ordinary mortal--and what follows? They live together, and they dine +together, and they say "my dear" and "my love" as heretofore; but the man +is himself, and the woman herself: that dream of love is over, as +everything else is over in life; as flowers and fury, and griefs and +pleasures, are over. + +Very likely the Lady Castlewood had ceased to adore her husband herself +long before she got off her knees, or would allow her household to +discontinue worshipping him. To do him justice, my lord never exacted this +subservience: he laughed and joked, and drank his bottle, and swore when +he was angry, much too familiarly for any one pretending to sublimity; and +did his best to destroy the ceremonial with which his wife chose to +surround him. And it required no great conceit on young Esmond's part to +see that his own brains were better than his patron's, who, indeed, never +assumed any airs of superiority over the lad, or over any dependant of +his, save when he was displeased, in which case he would express his mind, +in oaths, very freely; and who, on the contrary, perhaps, spoiled "Parson +Harry", as he called young Esmond, by constantly praising his parts, and +admiring his boyish stock of learning. + +It may seem ungracious in one who has received a hundred favours from his +patron to speak in any but a reverential manner of his elders; but the +present writer has had descendants of his own, whom he has brought up with +as little as possible of the servility at present exacted by parents from +children (under which mask of duty there often lurks indifference, +contempt, or rebellion): and as he would have his grandsons believe or +represent him to be not an inch taller than Nature has made him: so, with +regard to his past acquaintances, he would speak without anger, but with +truth, as far as he knows it, neither extenuating nor setting down aught +in malice. + +So long, then, as the world moved according to Lord Castlewood's wishes, +he was good-humoured enough; of a temper naturally sprightly and easy, +liking to joke, especially with his inferiors, and charmed to receive the +tribute of their laughter. All exercises of the body he could perform to +perfection--shooting at a mark and flying, breaking horses, riding at the +ring, pitching the quoit, playing at all games with great skill. And not +only did he do these things well, but he thought he did them to +perfection; hence he was often tricked about horses, which he pretended to +know better than any jockey; was made to play at ball and billiards by +sharpers who took his money; and came back from London wofully poorer each +time than he went, as the state of his affairs testified, when the sudden +accident came by which his career was brought to an end. + +He was fond of the parade of dress, and passed as many hours daily at his +toilette as an elderly coquette. A tenth part of his day was spent in the +brushing of his teeth and the oiling of his hair, which was curling and +brown, and which he did not like to conceal under a periwig, such as +almost everybody of that time wore (we have the liberty of our hair back +now, but powder and pomatum along with it. When, I wonder, will these +monstrous poll-taxes of our age be withdrawn, and men allowed to carry +their colours, black, red, or grey, as nature made them?) And, as he liked +her to be well dressed, his lady spared no pains in that matter to please +him; indeed, she would dress her head or cut it off if he had bidden her. + +It was a wonder to young Esmond, serving as page to my lord and lady, to +hear, day after day, to such company as came, the same boisterous stories +told by my lord, at which his lady never failed to smile or hold down her +head, and Doctor Tusher to burst out laughing at the proper point, or cry, +"Fie, my lord, remember my cloth," but with such a faint show of +resistance, that it only provoked my lord further. Lord Castlewood's +stories rose by degrees, and became stronger after the ale at dinner and +the bottle afterwards; my lady always taking flight after the very first +glass to Church and King, and leaving the gentlemen to drink the rest of +the toasts by themselves. + +And, as Harry Esmond was her page, he also was called from duty at this +time. "My lord has lived in the army and with soldiers," she would say to +the lad, "amongst whom great licence is allowed. You have had a different +nurture, and I trust these things will change as you grow older; not that +any fault attaches to my lord, who is one of the best and most religious +men in this kingdom." And very likely she believed so. 'Tis strange what a +man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel. + +And as Esmond has taken truth for his motto, it must be owned, even with +regard to that other angel, his mistress, that she had a fault of +character, which flawed her perfections. With the other sex perfectly +tolerant and kindly, of her own she was invariably jealous, and a proof +that she had this vice is, that though she would acknowledge a thousand +faults that she had not, to this which she had she could never be got to +own. But if there came a woman with even a semblance of beauty to +Castlewood, she was so sure to find out some wrong in her, that my lord, +laughing in his jolly way, would often joke with her concerning her +foible. Comely servant-maids might come for hire, but none were taken at +Castlewood. The housekeeper was old; my lady's own waiting-woman squinted, +and was marked with the small-pox; the housemaids and scullion were +ordinary country wenches, to whom Lady Castlewood was kind, as her nature +made her to everybody almost; but as soon as ever she had to do with a +pretty woman, she was cold, retiring, and haughty. The country ladies +found this fault in her; and though the men all admired her, their wives +and daughters complained of her coldness and airs, and said that +Castlewood was pleasanter in Lady Jezebel's time (as the dowager was +called) than at present. Some few were of my mistress's side. Old Lady +Blenkinsop Jointure, who had been at Court in King James the First's time, +always took her side; and so did old Mistress Crookshank, Bishop +Crookshank's daughter, of Hexton, who, with some more of their like, +pronounced my lady an angel; but the pretty women were not of this mind; +and the opinion of the country was, that my lord was tied to his wife's +apron-strings, and that she ruled over him. + +The second fight which Harry Esmond had, was at fourteen years of age, +with Bryan Hawkshaw, Sir John Hawkshaw's son, of Bramblebrook, who +advancing this opinion, that my lady was jealous, and henpecked my lord, +put Harry into such a fury, that Harry fell on him, and with such rage, +that the other boy, who was two years older, and by far bigger than he, +had by far the worst of the assault, until it was interrupted by Doctor +Tusher walking out of the dinner room. + +Bryan Hawkshaw got up, bleeding at the nose, having, indeed, been +surprised, as many a stronger man might have been, by the fury of the +assault upon him. + +"You little bastard beggar!" he said, "I'll murder you for this!" + +And indeed he was big enough. + +"Bastard or not," said the other, grinding his teeth, "I have a couple of +swords, and if you like to meet me, as a man, on the terrace to-night----" + +And here the doctor coming up, the colloquy of the young champions ended. +Very likely, big as he was, Hawkshaw did not care to continue a fight with +such a ferocious opponent as this had been. + + + +Chapter VIII. After Good Fortune Comes Evil + + +Since my Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought home the custom of inoculation +from Turkey (a perilous practice many deem it, and only a useless rushing +into the jaws of danger), I think the severity of the small-pox, that +dreadful scourge of the world, has somewhat been abated in our part of it; +and remembering in my time hundreds of the young and beautiful who have +been carried to the grave, or have only risen from their pillows +frightfully scarred and disfigured by this malady. Many a sweet face hath +left its roses on the bed, on which this dreadful and withering blight has +laid them. In my early days this pestilence would enter a village and +destroy half its inhabitants: at its approach it may well be imagined not +only the beautiful but the strongest were alarmed, and those fled who +could. One day in the year 1694 (I have good reason to remember it), +Doctor Tusher ran into Castlewood House, with a face of consternation, +saying that the malady had made its appearance at the blacksmith's house +in the village, and that one of the maids there was down in the small-pox. + +The blacksmith, beside his forge and irons for horses, had an alehouse for +men, which his wife kept, and his company sat on benches before the inn +door, looking at the smithy while they drank their beer. Now, there was a +pretty girl at this inn, the landlord's men called Nancy Sievewright, a +bouncing fresh-looking lass, whose face was as red as the hollyhocks over +the pales of the garden behind the inn. At this time Harry Esmond was a +lad of sixteen, and somehow in his walks and rambles it often happened +that he fell in with Nancy Sievewright's bonny face; if he did not want +something done at the blacksmith's he would go and drink ale at the "Three +Castles", or find some pretext for seeing this poor Nancy. Poor thing, +Harry meant or imagined no harm; and she, no doubt, as little, but the +truth is they were always meeting--in the lanes, or by the brook, or at the +garden-palings, or about Castlewood: it was, "Lord, Mr. Henry!" and "How +do you do, Nancy?" many and many a time in the week. 'Tis surprising the +magnetic attraction which draws people together from ever so far. I blush +as I think of poor Nancy now, in a red bodice and buxom purple cheeks and +a canvas petticoat; and that I devised schemes, and set traps, and made +speeches in my heart, which I seldom had courage to say when in presence +of that humble enchantress, who knew nothing beyond milking a cow, and +opened her black eyes with wonder when I made one of my fine speeches out +of Waller or Ovid. Poor Nancy! from the mist of far-off years thine honest +country face beams out; and I remember thy kind voice as if I had heard it +yesterday. + +When Doctor Tusher brought the news that the small-pox was at the "Three +Castles", whither a tramper, it was said, had brought the malady, Henry +Esmond's first thought was of alarm for poor Nancy, and then of shame and +disquiet for the Castlewood family, lest he might have brought this +infection; for the truth is that Mr. Harry had been sitting in a back room +for an hour that day, where Nancy Sievewright was with a little brother +who complained of headache, and was lying stupefied and crying, either in +a chair by the corner of the fire, or in Nancy's lap, or on mine. + +Little Lady Beatrix screamed out at Dr. Tusher's news; and my lord cried +out, "God bless me!" He was a brave man, and not afraid of death in any +shape but this. He was very proud of his pink complexion and fair hair--but +the idea of death by small-pox scared him beyond all other ends. "We will +take the children and ride away to-morrow to Walcote:" this was my lord's +small house, inherited from his mother, near to Winchester. + +"That is the best refuge in case the disease spreads," said Dr. Tusher. +"'Tis awful to think of it beginning at the alehouse. Half the people of +the village have visited that to-day, or the blacksmith's, which is the +same thing. My clerk Simons lodges with them--I can never go into my +reading-desk and have that fellow so near me. I won't have that man near +me." + +"If a parishioner dying in the small-pox sent to you, would you not go?" +asked my lady, looking up from her frame of work, with her calm blue eyes. + +"By the Lord, _I_ wouldn't," said my lord. + +"We are not in a Popish country: and a sick man doth not absolutely need +absolution and confession," said the doctor. "'Tis true they are a comfort +and a help to him when attainable, and to be administered with hope of +good. But in a case where the life of a parish priest in the midst of his +flock is highly valuable to them, he is not called upon to risk it (and +therewith the lives, future prospects, and temporal, even spiritual +welfare of his own family) for the sake of a single person, who is not +very likely in a condition even to understand the religious message +whereof the priest is the bringer--being uneducated, and likewise stupefied +or delirious by disease. If your ladyship or his lordship, my excellent +good friend and patron, were to take it----" + +"God forbid!" cried my lord. + +"Amen," continued Dr. Tusher. "Amen to that prayer, my very good lord! for +your sake I would lay my life down"--and, to judge from the alarmed look of +the doctor's purple face, you would have thought that that sacrifice was +about to be called for instantly. + +To love children, and be gentle with them, was an instinct, rather than a +merit, in Henry Esmond, so much so, that he thought almost with a sort of +shame of his liking for them, and of the softness into which it betrayed +him; and on this day the poor fellow had not only had his young friend, +the milkmaid's brother, on his knee, but had been drawing pictures, and +telling stories to the little Frank Esmond, who had occupied the same +place for an hour after dinner, and was never tired of Henry's tales, and +his pictures of soldiers and horses. As luck would have it, Beatrix had +not on that evening taken her usual place, which generally she was glad +enough to have, upon her tutor's lap. For Beatrix, from the earliest time, +was jealous of every caress which was given to her little brother Frank. +She would fling away even from the maternal arms, if she saw Frank had +been there before her; insomuch that Lady Castlewood was obliged not to +show her love for her son in the presence of the little girl, and embrace +one or the other alone. She would turn pale and red with rage if she +caught signs of intelligence or affection between Frank and his mother; +would sit apart, and not speak for a whole night, if she thought the boy +had a better fruit or a larger cake than hers; would fling away a ribbon +if he had one; and from the earliest age, sitting up in her little chair +by the great fireplace opposite to the corner where Lady Castlewood +commonly sat at her embroidery, would utter infantine sarcasms about the +favour shown to her brother. These, if spoken in the presence of Lord +Castlewood, tickled and amused his humour; he would pretend to love Frank +best, and dandle and kiss him, and roar with laughter at Beatrix's +jealousy. But the truth is, my lord did not often witness these scenes, +nor very much trouble the quiet fireside at which his lady passed many +long evenings. My lord was hunting all day when the season admitted; he +frequented all the cockfights and fairs in the country, and would ride +twenty miles to see a main fought, or two clowns break their heads at a +cudgelling match; and he liked better to sit in his parlour drinking ale +and punch with Jack and Tom, than in his wife's drawing-room: whither, if +he came, he brought only too often bloodshot eyes, a hiccuping voice, and +a reeling gait. The management of the house and the property, the care of +the few tenants and the village poor, and the accounts of the estate, were +in the hands of his lady and her young secretary, Harry Esmond. My lord +took charge of the stables, the kennel, and the cellar--and he filled this +and emptied it too. + +So it chanced that upon this very day, when poor Harry Esmond had had the +blacksmith's son, and the peer's son, alike upon his knee, little Beatrix, +who would come to her tutor willingly enough with her book and her +writing, had refused him, seeing the place occupied by her brother, and, +luckily for her, had sat at the further end of the room, away from him, +playing with a spaniel dog which she had (and for which, by fits and +starts, she would take a great affection), and talking at Harry Esmond +over her shoulder, as she pretended to caress the dog, saying, that Fido +would love her, and she would love Fido, and nothing but Fido, all her +life. + +When, then, the news was brought that the little boy at the "Three +Castles" was ill with the small-pox, poor Harry Esmond felt a shock of +alarm, not so much for himself as for his mistress's son, whom he might +have brought into peril. Beatrix, who had pouted sufficiently (and who +whenever a stranger appeared began, from infancy almost, to play off +little graces to catch his attention), her brother being now gone to bed, +was for taking her place upon Esmond's knee: for, though the doctor was +very obsequious to her, she did not like him, because he had thick boots +and dirty hands (the pert young miss said), and because she hated learning +the catechism. + +But as she advanced towards Esmond from the corner where she had been +sulking, he started back and placed the great chair on which he was +sitting between him and her--saying in the French language to Lady +Castlewood, with whom the young lad had read much, and whom he had +perfected in this tongue--"Madam, the child must not approach me; I must +tell you that I was at the blacksmith's to-day, and had his little boy +upon my lap." + +"Where you took my son afterwards," Lady Castlewood said, very angry, and +turning red. "I thank you, sir, for giving him such company. Beatrix," she +said in English, "I forbid you to touch Mr. Esmond. Come away, child--come +to your room. Come to your room--I wish your reverence good night--and you, +sir, had you not better go back to your friends at the alehouse?" Her +eyes, ordinarily so kind, darted flashes of anger as she spoke; and she +tossed up her head (which hung down commonly) with the mien of a princess. + +"Hey-day!" says my lord, who was standing by the fireplace--indeed he was +in the position to which he generally came by that hour of the +evening--"Hey-day! Rachel, what are you in a passion about? Ladies ought +never to be in a passion. Ought they, Doctor Tusher? though it does good +to see Rachel in a passion--Damme, Lady Castlewood, you look dev'lish +handsome in a passion." + +"It is, my lord, because Mr. Henry Esmond, having nothing to do with his +time here, and not having a taste for our company, has been to the +alehouse, where he has _some friends_." + +My lord burst out with a laugh and an oath--"You young sly-boots, you've +been at Nancy Sievewright. D---- the young hypocrite, who'd have thought it +in him? I say, Tusher, he's been after----" + +"Enough, my lord," said my lady, "don't insult me with this talk." + +"Upon my word," said poor Harry, ready to cry with shame and +mortification, "the honour of that young person is perfectly unstained for +me." + +"Oh, of course, of course," says my lord, more and more laughing and +tipsy. "Upon his _honour_, doctor--Nancy Sieve----" + +"Take Mistress Beatrix to bed," my lady cried at this moment to Mrs. +Tucker her woman, who came in with her ladyship's tea. "Put her into my +room--no, into yours," she added quickly. "Go, my child: go, I say: not a +word!" And Beatrix, quite surprised at so sudden a tone of authority from +one who was seldom accustomed to raise her voice, went out of the room +with a scared countenance and waited even to burst out a-crying, until she +got to the door with Mrs. Tucker. + +For once her mother took little heed of her sobbing, and continued to +speak eagerly--"My lord," she said, "this young man--your dependant--told me +just now in French--he was ashamed to speak in his own language--that he had +been at the ale-house all day, where he has had that little wretch who is +now ill of the small-pox on his knee. And he comes home reeking from that +place--yes, reeking from it--and takes my boy into his lap without shame, +and sits down by me, yes, by _me_. He may have killed Frank for what I +know--killed our child. Why was he brought in to disgrace our house? Why is +he here? Let him go--let him go, I say, to-night, and pollute the place no +more." + +She had never once uttered a syllable of unkindness to Harry Esmond; and +her cruel words smote the poor boy, so that he stood for some moments +bewildered with grief and rage at the injustice of such a stab from such a +hand. He turned quite white from red, which he had been. + +"I cannot help my birth, madam," he said, "nor my other misfortune. And as +for your boy, if--if my coming nigh to him pollutes him now, it was not so +always. Good night, my lord. Heaven bless you and yours for your goodness +to me. I have tired her ladyship's kindness out, and I will go;" and, +sinking down on his knee, Harry Esmond took the rough hand of his +benefactor and kissed it. + +"He wants to go to the ale-house--let him go," cried my lady. + +"I'm d----d if he shall," said my lord. "I didn't think you could be so d----d +ungrateful, Rachel." + +Her reply was to burst into a flood of tears, and to quit the room with a +rapid glance at Harry Esmond. As my lord, not heeding them, and still in +great good humour, raised up his young client from his kneeling posture +(for a thousand kindnesses had caused the lad to revere my lord as a +father), and put his broad hand on Harry Esmond's shoulder-- + +"She was always so," my lord said; "the very notion of a woman drives her +mad. I took to liquor on that very account, by Jove, for no other reason +than that; for she can't be jealous of a beer-barrel or a bottle of rum, +can she, doctor? D---- it, look at the maids--just look at the maids in the +house" (my lord pronounced all the words +together--just-look-at-the-maze-in-the-house: jever-see-such-maze?) "You +wouldn't take a wife out of Castlewood now, would you, doctor?" and my +lord burst out laughing. + +The doctor, who had been looking at my Lord Castlewood from under his +eyelids, said, "But joking apart, and, my lord, as a divine, I cannot +treat the subject in a jocular light, nor, as a pastor of this +congregation, look with anything but sorrow at the idea of so very young a +sheep going astray." + +"Sir," said young Esmond, bursting out indignantly, "she told me that you +yourself were a horrid old man, and had offered to kiss her in the dairy." + +"For shame, Henry," cried Doctor Tusher, turning as red as a turkey-cock, +while my lord continued to roar with laughter. "If you listen to the +falsehoods of an abandoned girl----" + +"She is as honest as any woman in England, and as pure for me," cried out +Henry, "and as kind, and as good. For shame on you to malign her!" + +"Far be it from me to do so," cried the doctor. "Heaven grant I may be +mistaken in the girl, and in you, sir, who have a truly _precocious_ +genius; but that is not the point at issue at present. It appears that the +small-pox broke out in the little boy at the 'Three Castles'; that it was +on him when you visited the ale-house, for your _own_ reasons; and that +you sat with the child for some time, and immediately afterwards with my +young lord." The doctor raised his voice as he spoke, and looked towards +my lady, who had now come back, looking very pale, with a handkerchief in +her hand. + +"This is all very true, sir," said Lady Esmond, looking at the young man. + +"'Tis to be feared that he may have brought the infection with him." + +"From the ale-house--yes," said my lady. + +"D---- it, I forgot when I collared you, boy," cried my lord, stepping back. +"Keep off, Harry, my boy; there's no good in running into the wolf's jaws, +you know." + +My lady looked at him with some surprise, and instantly advancing to Henry +Esmond, took his hand. "I beg your pardon, Henry," she said; "I spoke very +unkindly. I have no right to interfere with you--with your----" + +My lord broke out into an oath. "Can't you leave the boy alone, my lady?" +She looked a little red, and faintly pressed the lad's hand as she dropped +it. + +"There is no use, my lord," she said; "Frank was on his knee as he was +making pictures, and was running constantly from Henry to me. The evil is +done, if any." + +"Not with me, damme," cried my lord. "I've been smoking"--and he lighted +his pipe again with a coal--"and it keeps off infection; and as the disease +is in the village--plague take it--I would have you leave it. We'll go +tomorrow to Walcote, my lady." + +"I have no fear," said my lady; "I may have had it as an infant, it broke +out in our house then; and when four of my sisters had it at home, two +years before our marriage, I escaped it, and two of my dear sisters died." + +"I won't run the risk," said my lord; "I'm as bold as any man, but I'll +not bear that." + +"Take Beatrix with you and go," said my lady. "For us the mischief is +done; and Tucker can wait upon us, who has had the disease." + +"You take care to choose 'em ugly enough," said my lord, at which her +ladyship hung down her head and looked foolish: and my lord, calling away +Tusher, bade him come to the oak parlour and have a pipe. The doctor made +a low bow to her ladyship (of which salaams he was profuse), and walked +off on his creaking square-toes after his patron. + +When the lady and the young man were alone, there was a silence of some +moments, during which he stood at the fire, looking rather vacantly at the +dying embers, whilst her ladyship busied herself with her tambour-frame +and needles. + +"I am sorry," she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice,--"I _repeat_ I +am sorry that I showed myself so ungrateful for the safety of my son. It +was not at all my wish that you should leave us, I am sure, unless you +found pleasure elsewhere. But you must perceive, Mr. Esmond, that at your +age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that you can continue to stay +upon the intimate footing in which you have been in this family. You have +wished to go to the University, and I think 'tis quite as well that you +should be sent thither. I did not press this matter, thinking you a child, +as you are, indeed, in years--quite a child; and I should never have +thought of treating you otherwise until--until these _circumstances_ came +to light. And I shall beg my lord to dispatch you as quick as possible: +and will go on with Frank's learning as well as I can (I owe my father +thanks for a little grounding, and you, I'm sure, for much that you have +taught me),--and--and I wish you a good night, Mr. Esmond." + +And with this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went +away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond stood +by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to +see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and +remained for ever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper +lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining +golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, +as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading until afterwards +he remembered the appearance of the letters of the book (it was in +Montaigne's _Essays_), and the events of the day passed before him--that +is, of the last hour of the day; for as for the morning, and the poor +milkmaid yonder, he never so much as once thought. And he could not get to +sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache, and quite +unrefreshed. + +He had brought the contagion with him from the "Three Castles" sure +enough, and was presently laid up with the small-pox, which spared the +Hall no more than it did the cottage. + + + +Chapter IX. I Have The Small-Pox, And Prepare To Leave Castlewood + + +When Harry Esmond passed through the crisis of that malady, and returned +to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also suffered and +rallied after the disease, and the lady his mother was down with it, with +a couple more of the household. "It was a providence, for which we all +ought to be thankful," Doctor Tusher said, "that my lady and her son were +spared, while Death carried off the poor domestics of the house;" and +rebuked Harry for asking, in his simple way--for which we ought to be +thankful--that the servants were killed, or the gentlefolks were saved? Nor +could young Esmond agree in the doctor's vehement protestations to my +lady, when he visited her during her convalescence, that the malady had +not in the least impaired her charms, and had not been churl enough to +injure the fair features of the Viscountess of Castlewood, whereas in +spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her ladyship's beauty was +very much injured by the smallpox. When the marks of the disease cleared +away, they did not, it is true, leave furrows or scars on her face (except +one, perhaps, on her forehead over her left eyebrow); but the delicacy of +her rosy colour and complexion were gone: her eyes had lost their +brilliancy, her hair fell, and her face looked older. It was as if a +coarse hand had rubbed off the delicate tints of that sweet picture, and +brought it, as one has seen unskilful painting-cleaners do, to the dead +colour. Also, it must be owned, that for a year or two after the malady, +her ladyship's nose was swollen and redder. + +There would be no need to mention these trivialities, but that they +actually influenced many lives, as trifles will in the world, where a gnat +often plays a greater part than an elephant, and a mole-hill, as we know +in King William's case, can upset an empire. When Tusher in his courtly +way (at which Harry Esmond always chafed and spoke scornfully) vowed and +protested that my lady's face was none the worse--the lad broke out and +said, "It _is_ worse: and my mistress is not near so handsome as she was"; +on which poor Lady Esmond gave a rueful smile, and a look into a little +Venice glass she had, which showed her I suppose that what the stupid boy +said was only too true, for she turned away from the glass and her eyes +filled with tears. + +The sight of these in Esmond's heart always created a sort of rage of +pity, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the +young blunderer sank down on his knees, and besought her to pardon him, +saying that he was a fool and an idiot, that he was a brute to make such a +speech, he who had caused her malady, and Doctor Tusher told him that a +bear he was indeed, and a bear he would remain, at which speech poor young +Esmond was so dumb-stricken that he did not even growl. + +"He is _my_ bear, and I will not have him baited, doctor," my lady said, +patting her hand kindly on the boy's head, as he was still kneeling at her +feet. "How your hair has come off! And mine, too," she added with another +sigh. + +"It is not for myself that I cared," my lady said to Harry, when the +parson had taken his leave; "but _am_ I very much changed? Alas! I fear +'tis too true." + +"Madam, you have the dearest, and kindest, and sweetest face in the world, +I think," the lad said; and indeed he thought and thinks so. + +"Will my lord think so when he comes back?" the lady asked, with a sigh, +and another look at her Venice glass. "Suppose he should think as you do, +sir, that I am hideous--yes, you said hideous--he will cease to care for me. +'Tis all men care for in women, our little beauty. Why did he select me +from among my sisters? 'Twas only for that. We reign but for a day or two: +and be sure that Vashti knew Esther was coming." + +"Madam," said Mr. Esmond, "Ahasuerus was the Grand Turk, and to change was +the manner of his country, and according to his law." + +"You are all Grand Turks for that matter," said my lady, "or would be if +you could. Come, Frank, come, my child. You are well, praised be Heaven. +_Your_ locks are not thinned by this dreadful small-pox: nor your poor +face scarred--is it, my angel?" + +Frank began to shout and whimper at the idea of such a misfortune. From +the very earliest time the young lord had been taught to admire his beauty +by his mother: and esteemed it as highly as any reigning toast valued +hers. + +One day, as he himself was recovering from his fever and illness, a pang +of something like shame shot across young Esmond's breast as he remembered +that he had never once, during his illness, given a thought to the poor +girl at the smithy, whose red cheeks but a month ago he had been so eager +to see. Poor Nancy! her cheeks had shared the fate of roses, and were +withered now. She had taken the illness on the same day with Esmond--she +and her brother were both dead of the small-pox, and buried under the +Castlewood yew-trees. There was no bright face looking now from the +garden, or to cheer the old smith at his lonely fireside. Esmond would +have liked to have kissed her in her shroud (like the lass in Mr. Prior's +pretty poem), but she rested many foot below the ground, when Esmond after +his malady first trod on it. + +Doctor Tusher brought the news of this calamity, about which Harry Esmond +longed to ask, but did not like. He said almost the whole village had been +stricken with the pestilence; seventeen persons were dead of it, among +them mentioning the names of poor Nancy and her little brother. He did not +fail to say how thankful we survivors ought to be. It being this man's +business to flatter and make sermons, it must be owned he was most +industrious in it, and was doing the one or the other all day. + +And so Nancy was gone; and Harry Esmond blushed that he had not a single +tear for her, and fell to composing an elegy in Latin verses over the +rustic little beauty. He bade the dryads mourn and the river-nymphs +deplore her. As her father followed the calling of Vulcan, he said that +surely she was like a daughter of Venus, though Sievewright's wife was an +ugly shrew, as he remembered to have heard afterwards. He made a long +face, but, in truth, felt scarcely more sorrowful than a mute at a +funeral. These first passions of men and women are mostly abortive; and +are dead almost before they are born. Esmond could repeat, to his last +day, some of the doggerel lines in which his muse bewailed his pretty +lass; not without shame to remember how bad the verses were, and how good +he thought them; how false the grief, and yet how he was rather proud of +it. 'Tis an error, surely, to talk of the simplicity of youth. I think no +persons are more hypocritical, and have a more affected behaviour to one +another, than the young. They deceive themselves and each other with +artifices that do not impose upon men of the world; and so we got to +understand truth better, and grow simpler as we grow older. + +When my lady heard of the fate which had befallen poor Nancy, she said +nothing so long as Tusher was by, but when he was gone, she took Harry +Esmond's hand and said-- + +"Harry, I beg your pardon for those cruel words I used on the night you +were taken ill. I am shocked at the fate of the poor creature, and am sure +that nothing had happened of that with which, in my anger, I charged you. +And the very first day we go out, you must take me to the blacksmith, and +we must see if there is anything I can do to console the poor old man. +Poor man! to lose both his children! What should I do without mine!" + +And this was, indeed, the very first walk which my lady took, leaning on +Esmond's arm, after her illness. But her visit brought no consolation to +the old father; and he showed no softness, or desire to speak. "The Lord +gave and took away," he said; and he knew what His servant's duty was. He +wanted for nothing--less now than ever before, as there were fewer mouths +to feed. He wished her ladyship and Master Esmond good morning--he had +grown tall in his illness, and was but very little marked; and with this, +and a surly bow, he went in from the smithy to the house, leaving my lady, +somewhat silenced and shamefaced, at the door. He had a handsome stone put +up for his two children, which may be seen in Castlewood churchyard to +this very day; and before a year was out his own name was upon the stone. +In the presence of Death, that sovereign ruler, a woman's coquetry is +scared; and her jealousy will hardly pass the boundaries of that grim +kingdom. 'Tis entirely of the earth that passion, and expires in the cold +blue air, beyond our sphere. + +At length, when the danger was quite over, it was announced that my lord +and his daughter would return. Esmond well remembered the day. The lady, +his mistress, was in a flurry of fear: before my lord came, she went into +her room, and returned from it with reddened cheeks. Her fate was about to +be decided. Her beauty was gone--was her reign, too, over? A minute would +say. My lord came riding over the bridge--he could be seen from the great +window, clad in scarlet, and mounted on his grey hackney--his little +daughter ambled by him in a bright riding-dress of blue, on a shining +chestnut horse. My lady leaned against the great mantelpiece, looking on, +with one hand on her heart--she seemed only the more pale for those red +marks on either cheek. She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and withdrew +it, laughing hysterically--the cloth was quite red with the rouge when she +took it away. She ran to her room again, and came back with pale cheeks +and red eyes--her son in her hand--just as my lord entered, accompanied by +young Esmond, who had gone out to meet his protector, and to hold his +stirrup as he descended from horseback. + +"What, Harry, boy!" my lord said good-naturedly, "you look as gaunt as a +greyhound. The small-pox hasn't improved your beauty, and your side of the +house hadn't never too much of it--ho, ho!" + +And he laughed, and sprang to the ground with no small agility, looking +handsome and red, with a jolly face and brown hair, like a beef-eater; +Esmond kneeling again, as soon as his patron had descended, performed his +homage, and then went to greet the little Beatrix, and help her from her +horse. + +"Fie! how yellow you look," she said; "and there are one, two, red holes +in your face;" which, indeed, was very true; Harry Esmond's harsh +countenance bearing, as long as it continued to be a human face, the marks +of the disease. + +My lord laughed again, in high good humour. + +"D---- it!" said he, with one of his usual oaths, "the little slut sees +everything. She saw the dowager's paint t'other day, and asked her why she +wore that red stuff--didn't you, Trix? and the Tower; and St. James's; and +the play; and the Prince George, and the Princess Anne--didn't you, Trix?" + +"They are both very fat, and smelt of brandy," the child said. + +Papa roared with laughing. + +"Brandy!" he said. "And how do you know, Miss Pert?" + +"Because your lordship smells of it after supper, when I embrace you +before you go to bed," said the young lady, who, indeed, was as pert as +her father said, and looked as beautiful a little gipsy as eyes ever gazed +on. + +"And now for my lady," said my lord, going up the stairs, and passing +under the tapestry curtain that hung before the drawing-room door. Esmond +remembered that noble figure handsomely arrayed in scarlet. Within the +last few months he himself had grown from a boy to be a man, and with his +figure, his thoughts had shot up, and grown manly. + +My lady's countenance, of which Harry Esmond was accustomed to watch the +changes, and with a solicitous affection to note and interpret the signs +of gladness or care, wore a sad and depressed look for many weeks after +her lord's return: during which it seemed as if, by caresses and +entreaties, she strove to win him back from some ill humour he had, and +which he did not choose to throw off. In her eagerness to please him she +practised a hundred of those arts which had formerly charmed him, but +which seemed now to have lost their potency. Her songs did not amuse him; +and she hushed them and the children when in his presence. My lord sat +silent at his dinner, drinking greatly, his lady opposite to him, looking +furtively at his face, though also speechless. Her silence annoyed him as +much as her speech; and he would peevishly, and with an oath, ask her why +she held her tongue and looked so glum, or he would roughly check her when +speaking, and bid her not talk nonsense. It seemed as if, since his +return, nothing she could do or say could please him. + +When a master and mistress are at strife in a house, the subordinates in +the family take the one side or the other. Harry Esmond stood in so great +fear of my lord, that he would run a league barefoot to do a message for +him; but his attachment for Lady Esmond was such a passion of grateful +regard, that to spare her a grief, or to do her a service, he would have +given his life daily: and it was by the very depth and intensity of this +regard that he began to divine how unhappy his adored lady's life was, and +that a secret care (for she never spoke of her anxieties) was weighing +upon her. + +Can any one, who has passed through the world and watched the nature of +men and women there, doubt what had befallen her? I have seen, to be sure, +some people carry down with them into old age the actual bloom of their +youthful love, and I know that Mr. Thomas Parr lived to be a hundred and +sixty years old. But, for all that, threescore and ten is the age of men, +and few get beyond it; and 'tis certain that a man who marries for mere +_beaux yeux_, as my lord did, considers his part of the contract at end +when the woman ceases to fulfil hers, and his love does not survive her +beauty. I know 'tis often otherwise, I say; and can think (as most men in +their own experience may) of many a house, where, lighted in early years, +the sainted lamp of love hath never been extinguished; but so there is Mr. +Parr, and so there is the great giant at the fair that is eight feet +high--exceptions to men--and that poor lamp whereof I speak, that lights at +first the nuptial chamber, is extinguished by a hundred winds and draughts +down the chimney, or sputters out for want of feeding. And then--and then +it is Chloe, in the dark, stark awake, and Strephon snoring unheeding; or +_vice versa_, 'tis poor Strephon that has married a heartless jilt, and +awoke out of that absurd vision of conjugal felicity, which was to last +for ever, and is over like any other dream. One and other has made his +bed, and so must lie in it, until that final day when life ends, and they +sleep separate. + +About this time young Esmond, who had a knack of stringing verses, turned +some of Ovid's epistles into rhymes, and brought them to his lady for her +delectation. Those which treated of forsaken women touched her immensely, +Harry remarked; and when Oenone called after Paris, and Medea bade Jason +come back again, the lady of Castlewood sighed, and said she thought that +part of the verses was the most pleasing. Indeed, she would have chopped +up the dean, her old father, in order to bring her husband back again. But +her beautiful Jason was gone, as beautiful Jasons will go, and the poor +enchantress had never a spell to keep him. + +My lord was only sulky as long as his wife's anxious face or behaviour +seemed to upbraid him. When she had got to master these, and to show an +outwardly cheerful countenance and behaviour, her husband's good humour +returned partially, and he swore and stormed no longer at dinner, but +laughed sometimes, and yawned unrestrainedly; absenting himself often from +home, inviting more company thither, passing the greater part of his days +in the hunting-field, or over the bottle as before; but, with this +difference, that the poor wife could no longer see now, as she had done +formerly, the light of love kindled in his eyes. He was with her, but that +flame was out; and that once welcome beacon no more shone there. + +What were this lady's feelings when forced to admit the truth whereof her +foreboding glass had given her only too true warning, that with her beauty +her reign had ended, and the days of her love were over? What does a +seaman do in a storm if mast and rudder are carried away? He ships a +jurymast, and steers as he best can with an oar. What happens if your roof +falls in a tempest? After the first stun of the calamity the sufferer +starts up, gropes around to see that the children are safe, and puts them +under a shed out of the rain. If the palace burns down, you take shelter +in the barn. What man's life is not overtaken by one or more of these +tornadoes that send us out of the course, and fling us on rocks to shelter +as best we may? + +When Lady Castlewood found that her great ship had gone down, she began as +best she might, after she had rallied from the effects of the loss, to put +out small ventures of happiness; and hope for little gains and returns, as +a merchant on "Change, _indocilis pauperiem pati_," having lost his +thousands, embarks a few guineas upon the next ship. She laid out her all +upon her children, indulging them beyond all measure, as was inevitable +with one of her kindness of disposition; giving all her thoughts to their +welfare--learning, that she might teach them, and improving her own many +natural gifts and feminine accomplishments, that she might impart them to +her young ones. To be doing good for some one else, is the life of most +good women. They are exuberant of kindness, as it were, and must impart it +to some one. She made herself a good scholar of French, Italian, and +Latin, having been grounded in these by her father in her youth: hiding +these gifts from her husband out of fear, perhaps, that they should offend +him, for my lord was no bookman--pish'd and psha'd at the notion of learned +ladies, and would have been angry that his wife could construe out of a +Latin book of which he could scarce understand two words. Young Esmond was +usher, or house tutor, under her or over her, as it might happen. During +my lord's many absences, these schooldays would go on uninterruptedly: the +mother and daughter learning with surprising quickness: the latter by fits +and starts only, and as suited her wayward humour. As for the little lord, +it must be owned that he took after his father in the matter of +learning--liked marbles and play, and the great horse, and the little one +which his father brought him, and on which he took him out a-hunting--a +great deal better than Corderius and Lily; marshalled the village boys, +and had a little court of them, already flogging them, and domineering +over them with a fine imperious spirit, that made his father laugh when he +beheld it, and his mother fondly warn him. The cook had a son, the woodman +had two, the big lad at the porter's lodge took his cuffs and his orders. +Doctor Tusher said he was a young nobleman of gallant spirit; and Harry +Esmond, who was his tutor, and eight years his little lordship's senior, +had hard work sometimes to keep his own temper, and hold his authority +over his rebellious little chief and kinsman. + +In a couple of years after that calamity had befallen which had robbed +Lady Castlewood of a little--a very little--of her beauty, and her careless +husband's heart (if the truth must be told, my lady had found not only +that her reign was over, but that her successor was appointed, a princess +of a noble house in Drury Lane somewhere, who was installed and visited by +my lord at the town eight miles off--_pudet haec opprobria dicere nobis_)--a +great change had taken place in her mind, which, by struggles only known +to herself, at least never mentioned to any one, and unsuspected by the +person who caused the pain she endured--had been schooled into such a +condition as she could not very likely have imagined possible a score of +months since, before her misfortunes had begun. + +She had oldened in that time as people do who suffer silently great mental +pain; and learned much that she had never suspected before. She was taught +by that bitter teacher Misfortune. A child, the mother of other children, +but two years back her lord was a god to her; his words her law; his smile +her sunshine; his lazy commonplaces listened to eagerly, as if they were +words of wisdom--all his wishes and freaks obeyed with a servile devotion. +She had been my lord's chief slave and blind worshipper. Some women bear +farther than this, and submit not only to neglect but to unfaithfulness +too--but here this lady's allegiance had failed her. Her spirit rebelled +and disowned any more obedience. First she had to bear in secret the +passion of losing the adored object; then to get a farther initiation, and +to find this worshipped being was but a clumsy idol: then to admit the +silent truth, that it was she was superior, and not the monarch her +master: that she had thoughts which his brains could never master, and was +the better of the two; quite separate from my lord although tied to him, +and bound as almost all people (save a very happy few) to work all her +life alone. My lord sat in his chair, laughing his laugh, cracking his +joke, his face flushing with wine--my lady in her place over against him--he +never suspecting that his superior was there, in the calm resigned lady, +cold of manner, with downcast eyes. When he was merry in his cups, he +would make jokes about her coldness, and, "D---- it, now my lady is gone, we +will have t'other bottle," he would say. He was frank enough in telling +his thoughts, such as they were. There was little mystery about my lord's +words or actions. His fair Rosamond did not live in a labyrinth, like the +lady of Mr. Addison's opera, but paraded with painted cheeks and a tipsy +retinue in the country town. Had she a mind to be revenged, Lady +Castlewood could have found the way to her rival's house easily enough; +and, if she had come with bowl and dagger, would have been routed off the +ground by the enemy with a volley of Billingsgate, which the fair person +always kept by her. + +Meanwhile, it has been said, that for Harry Esmond his benefactress's +sweet face had lost none of its charms. It had always the kindest of looks +and smiles for him--smiles, not so gay and artless perhaps as those which +Lady Castlewood had formerly worn, when, a child herself, playing with her +children, her husband's pleasure and authority were all she thought of; +but out of her griefs and cares, as will happen I think when these trials +fall upon a kindly heart, and are not too unbearable, grew up a number of +thoughts and excellences which had never come into existence, had not her +sorrow and misfortunes engendered them. Sure, occasion is the father of +most that is good in us. As you have seen the awkward fingers and clumsy +tools of a prisoner cut and fashion the most delicate little pieces of +carved work; or achieve the most prodigious underground labours, and cut +through walls of masonry, and saw iron bars and fetters; 'tis misfortune +that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude, or endurance, in hearts where these +qualities had never come to life but for the circumstance which gave them +a being. + +"'Twas after Jason left her, no doubt," Lady Castlewood once said with one +of her smiles to young Esmond (who was reading to her a version of certain +lines out of Euripides), "that Medea became a learned woman and a great +enchantress." + +"And she could conjure the stars out of heaven," the young tutor added, +"but she could not bring Jason back again." + +"What do you mean?" asked my lady, very angry. + +"Indeed I mean nothing," said the other, "save what I've read in books. +What should I know about such matters? I have seen no woman save you and +little Beatrix, and the parson's wife and my late mistress, and your +ladyship's woman here." + +"The men who wrote your books," says my lady, "your Horaces, and Ovids, +and Virgils, as far as I know of them, all thought ill of us, as all the +heroes they wrote about used us basely. We were bred to be slaves always; +and even of our own times, as you are still the only lawgivers, I think +our sermons seem to say that the best woman is she who bears her master's +chains most gracefully. 'Tis a pity there are no nunneries permitted by +our Church: Beatrix and I would fly to one, and end our days in peace +there away from you." + +"And is there no slavery in a convent?" says Esmond. + +"At least if women are slaves there, no one sees them," answered the lady. +"They don't work in street-gangs with the public to jeer them: and if they +suffer, suffer in private. Here comes my lord home from hunting. Take away +the books. My lord does not love to see them. Lessons are over for to-day, +Mr. Tutor." And with a curtsy and a smile she would end this sort of +colloquy. + +Indeed "Mr. Tutor", as my lady called Esmond, had now business enough on +his hands in Castlewood House. He had three pupils, his lady and her two +children, at whose lessons she would always be present; besides writing my +lord's letters, and arranging his accompts for him--when these could be got +from Esmond's indolent patron. + +Of the pupils the two young people were but lazy scholars, and as my lady +would admit no discipline such as was then in use, my lord's son only +learned what he liked, which was but little, and never to his life's end +could be got to construe more than six lines of Virgil. Mistress Beatrix +chattered French prettily from a very early age; and sang sweetly, but +this was from her mother's teaching--not Harry Esmond's, who could scarce +distinguish between "Green Sleeves" and "Lillabullero"; although he had no +greater delight in life than to hear the ladies sing. He sees them now +(will he ever forget them?) as they used to sit together of the summer +evenings--the two golden heads over the page--the child's little hand and +the mother's beating the time, with their voices rising and falling in +unison. + +But if the children were careless, 'twas a wonder how eagerly the mother +learned from her young tutor--and taught him too. The happiest instinctive +faculty was this lady's--a faculty for discerning latent beauties and +hidden graces of books, especially books of poetry, as in a walk she would +spy out field-flowers and make posies of them, such as no other hand +could. She was a critic not by reason but by feeling; the sweetest +commentator of those books they read together; and the happiest hours of +young Esmond's life, perhaps, were those passed in the company of this +kind mistress and her children. + +These happy days were to end soon, however; and it was by the Lady +Castlewood's own decree that they were brought to a conclusion. It +happened about Christmastime, Harry Esmond being now past sixteen years of +age, that his old comrade, adversary, and friend, Tom Tusher, returned +from his school in London, a fair, well-grown, and sturdy lad, who was +about to enter college, with an exhibition from his school, and a prospect +of after promotion in the Church. Tom Tusher's talk was of nothing but +Cambridge, now; and the boys, who were good friends, examined each other +eagerly about their progress in books. Tom had learned some Greek and +Hebrew, besides Latin, in which he was pretty well skilled, and also had +given himself to mathematical studies under his father's guidance, who was +a proficient in those sciences, of which Esmond knew nothing, nor could he +write Latin so well as Tom, though he could talk it better, having been +taught by his dear friend the Jesuit father, for whose memory the lad ever +retained the warmest affection, reading his books, keeping his swords +clean in the little crypt where the father had shown them to Esmond on the +night of his visit; and often of a night sitting in the chaplain's room, +which he inhabited, over his books, his verses, and rubbish, with which +the lad occupied himself, he would look up at the window, thinking he +wished it might open and let in the good father. He had come and passed +away like a dream; but for the swords and books Harry might almost think +the father was an imagination of his mind--and for two letters which had +come to him, one from abroad full of advice and affection, another soon +after he had been confirmed by the Bishop of Hexton, in which Father Holt +deplored his falling away. But Harry Esmond felt so confident now of his +being in the right, and of his own powers as a casuist, that he thought he +was able to face the father himself in argument, and possibly convert him. + +To work upon the faith of her young pupil, Esmond's kind mistress sent to +the library of her father the dean, who had been distinguished in the +disputes of the late king's reign; and, an old soldier now, had hung up +his weapons of controversy. These he took down from his shelves willingly +for young Esmond, whom he benefited by his own personal advice and +instruction. It did not require much persuasion to induce the boy to +worship with his beloved mistress. And the good old nonjuring dean +flattered himself with a conversion which in truth was owing to a much +gentler and fairer persuader. + +Under her ladyship's kind eyes (my lord's being sealed in sleep pretty +generally), Esmond read many volumes of the works of the famous British +divines of the last age, and was familiar with Wake and Sherlock, with +Stillingfleet and Patrick. His mistress never tired to listen or to read, +to pursue the text with fond comments, to urge those points which her +fancy dwelt on most, or her reason deemed most important. Since the death +of her father the dean, this lady hath admitted a certain latitude of +theological reading, which her orthodox father would never have allowed; +his favourite writers appealing more to reason and antiquity than to the +passions or imaginations of their readers, so that the works of Bishop +Taylor, nay, those of Mr. Baxter and Mr. Law, have in reality found more +favour with my Lady Castlewood than the severer volumes of our great +English schoolmen. + +In later life, at the University, Esmond reopened the controversy, and +pursued it in a very different manner, when his patrons had determined for +him that he was to embrace the ecclesiastical life. But though his +mistress's heart was in this calling, his own never was much. After that +first fervour of simple devotion, which his beloved Jesuit priest had +inspired in him, speculative theology took but little hold upon the young +man's mind. When his early credulity was disturbed, and his saints and +virgins taken out of his worship, to rank little higher than the +divinities of Olympus, his belief became acquiescence rather than ardour; +and he made his mind up to assume the cassock and bands, as another man +does to wear a breastplate and jack-boots, or to mount a merchant's desk +for a livelihood, and from obedience and necessity, rather than from +choice. There were scores of such men in Mr. Esmond's time at the +Universities, who were going to the Church with no better calling than +his. + +When Thomas Tusher was gone, a feeling of no small depression and disquiet +fell upon young Esmond, of which, though he did not complain, his kind +mistress must have divined the cause: for soon after she showed not only +that she understood the reason of Harry's melancholy, but could provide a +remedy for it. Her habit was thus to watch, unobservedly, those to whom +duty or affection bound her, and to prevent their designs, or to fulfil +them, when she had the power. It was this lady's disposition to think +kindnesses, and devise silent bounties, and to scheme benevolence for +those about her. We take such goodness, for the most part, as if it was +our due; the Marys who bring ointment for our feet get but little thanks. +Some of us never feel this devotion at all, or are moved by it to +gratitude or acknowledgement; others only recall it years after, when the +days are past in which those sweet kindnesses were spent on us, and we +offer back our return for the debt by a poor tardy payment of tears. Then +forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances shine out of the +past--oh, so bright and clear!--oh, so longed after!--because they are out of +reach; as holiday music from withinside a prison wall--or sunshine seen +through the bars; more prized because unattainable--more bright because of +the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence there is no escape. + +All the notice, then, which Lady Castlewood seemed to take of Harry +Esmond's melancholy, upon Tom Tusher's departure, was, by a gaiety unusual +to her, to attempt to dispel his gloom. She made his three scholars +(herself being the chief one) more cheerful than ever they had been +before, and more docile too, all of them learning and reading much more +than they had been accustomed to do. "For who knows," said the lady, "what +may happen, and whether we may be able to keep such a learned tutor long?" + +Frank Esmond said he for his part did not want to learn any more, and +Cousin Harry might shut up his book whenever he liked, if he would come +out a-fishing; and little Beatrix declared she would send for Tom Tusher, +and _he_ would be glad enough to come to Castlewood, if Harry chose to go +away. + +At last comes a messenger from Winchester one day, bearer of a letter with +a great black seal from the dean there, to say that his sister was dead, +and had left her fortune of 2,000_l._ among her six nieces, the dean's +daughters; and many a time since has Harry Esmond recalled the flushed +face and eager look wherewith, after this intelligence, his kind lady +regarded him. She did not pretend to any grief about the deceased +relative, from whom she and her family had been many years parted. + +When my lord heard of the news, he also did not make any very long face. +"The money will come very handy to furnish the music-room and the cellar, +which is getting low, and buy your ladyship a coach and a couple of horses +that will do indifferent to ride or for the coach. And Beatrix, you shall +have a spinet: and Frank, you shall have a little horse from Hexton Fair; +and Harry, you shall have five pounds to buy some books," said my lord, +who was generous with his own, and indeed with other folks' money. "I wish +your aunt would die once a year, Rachel; we could spend your money, and +all your sisters', too." + +"I have but one aunt--and--and I have another use for the money, my lord," +says my lady, turning very red. + +"Another use, my dear; and what do you know about money?" cries my lord. +"And what the devil is there that I don't give you which you want?" + +"I intend to give this money--can't you fancy how, my lord?" + +My lord swore one of his large oaths that he did not know in the least +what she meant. + +"I intend it for Harry Esmond to go to college.--Cousin Harry," says my +lady, "you mustn't stay longer in this dull place, but make a name to +yourself, and for us too, Harry." + +"D----n it, Harry's well enough here," says my lord, for a moment looking +rather sulky. + +"Is Harry going away? You don't mean to say you will go away?" cry out +Frank and Beatrix at one breath. + +"But he will come back: and this will always be his home," cries my lady, +with blue eyes looking a celestial kindness: "and his scholars will always +love him; won't they?" + +"By G----d, Rachel, you're a good woman!" says my lord, seizing my lady's +hand, at which she blushed very much, and shrank back, putting her +children before her. "I wish you joy, my kinsman," he continued, giving +Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. "I won't balk your luck. Go to +Cambridge, boy; and when Tusher dies you shall have the living here, if +you are not better provided by that time. We'll furnish the dining-room +and buy the horses another year. I'll give thee a nag out of the stable: +take any one except my hack and the bay gelding and the coach-horses; and +God speed thee, my boy!" + +"Have the sorrel, Harry; 'tis a good one. Father says 'tis the best in the +stable," says little Frank, clapping his hands, and jumping up. "Let's +come and see him in the stable." And the other, in his delight and +eagerness, was for leaving the room that instant to arrange about his +journey. + +The Lady Castlewood looked after him with sad penetrating glances. "He +wishes to be gone already, my lord," said she to her husband. + +The young man hung back abashed. "Indeed, I would stay for ever, if your +ladyship bade me," he said. + +"And thou wouldst be a fool for thy pains, kinsman," said my lord. "Tut, +tut, man. Go and see the world. Sow thy wild oats; and take the best luck +that Fate sends thee. I wish I were a boy again that I might go to +college, and taste the Trumpington ale." + +"Ours indeed is but a dull home," cries my lady, with a little of sadness, +and maybe of satire, in her voice: "an old glum house, half ruined, and +the rest only half furnished; a woman and two children are but poor +company for men that are accustomed to better. We are only fit to be your +worship's handmaids, and your pleasures must of necessity lie elsewhere +than at home." + +"Curse me, Rachel, if I know now whether thou art in earnest or not," said +my lord. + +"In earnest, my lord!" says she, still clinging by one of her children. +"Is there much subject here for joke?" And she made him a grand curtsy, +and, giving a stately look to Harry Esmond, which seemed to say, +"Remember; you understand me, though he does not," she left the room with +her children. + +"Since she found out that confounded Hexton business," my lord said--"and +be hanged to them that told her!--she has not been the same woman. She, who +used to be as humble as a milkmaid, is as proud as a princess," says my +lord. "Take my counsel, Harry Esmond, and keep clear of women. Since I +have had anything to do with the jades, they have given me nothing but +disgust. I had a wife at Tangier, with whom, as she couldn't speak a word +of my language, you'd have thought I might lead a quiet life. But she +tried to poison me, because she was jealous of a Jew girl. There was your +aunt, for aunt she is--aunt Jezebel, a pretty life your father led with +_her_, and here's my lady. When I saw her on a pillion riding behind the +dean her father, she looked and was such a baby, that a sixpenny doll +might have pleased her. And now you see what she is--hands off, +highty-tighty, high and mighty, an empress couldn't be grander. Pass us +the tankard, Harry, my boy. A mug of beer and a toast at morn, says my +host. A toast and a mug of beer at noon, says my dear. D----n it, Polly +loves a mug of ale, too, and laced with brandy, by Jove!" Indeed, I +suppose they drank it together; for my lord was often thick in his speech +at mid-day dinner; and at night at supper, speechless altogether. + +Harry Esmond's departure resolved upon, it seemed as if the Lady +Castlewood, too, rejoiced to lose him; for more than once, when the lad, +ashamed perhaps at his own secret eagerness to go away (at any rate +stricken with sadness at the idea of leaving those from whom he had +received so many proofs of love and kindness inestimable), tried to +express to his mistress his sense of gratitude to her, and his sorrow at +quitting those who had so sheltered and tended a nameless and houseless +orphan, Lady Castlewood cut short his protests of love and his +lamentations, and would hear of no grief, but only look forward to Harry's +fame and prospects in life. "Our little legacy will keep you for four +years like a gentleman. Heaven's Providence, your own genius, industry, +honour, must do the rest for you. Castlewood will always be a home for +you; and these children, whom you have taught and loved, will not forget +to love you. And Harry," said she (and this was the only time when she +spoke with a tear in her eye, or a tremor in her voice), "it may happen in +the course of nature that I shall be called away from them: and their +father--and--and they will need true friends and protectors. Promise me that +you will be true to them--as--as I think I have been to you--and a mother's +fond prayer and blessing go with you." + +"So help me God, madam, I will," said Harry Esmond, falling on his knees, +and kissing the hand of his dearest mistress. "If you will have me stay +now, I will. What matters whether or no I make my way in life, or whether +a poor bastard dies as unknown as he is now? 'Tis enough that I have your +love and kindness surely; and to make you happy is duty enough for me." + +"Happy!" says she; "but indeed I ought to be, with my children, and----" + +"Not happy!" cried Esmond (for he knew what her life was, though he and +his mistress never spoke a word concerning it). "If not happiness, it may +be ease. Let me stay and work for you--let me stay and be your servant." + +"Indeed, you are best away," said my lady, laughing, as she put her hand +on the boy's head for a moment. "You shall stay in no such dull place. You +shall go to college and distinguish yourself as becomes your name. That is +how you shall please me best; and--and if my children want you, or I want +you, you shall come to us; and I know we may count on you." + +"May Heaven forsake me if you may not," Harry said, getting up from his +knee. + +"And my knight longs for a dragon this instant that he may fight," said my +lady, laughing; which speech made Harry Esmond start, and turn red; for +indeed the very thought was in his mind, that he would like that some +chance should immediately happen whereby he might show his devotion. And +it pleased him to think that his lady had called him "her knight", and +often and often he recalled this to his mind, and prayed that he might be +her true knight, too. + +My lady's bedchamber window looked out over the country, and you could see +from it the purple hills beyond Castlewood village, the green common +betwixt that and the Hall, and the old bridge which crossed over the +river. When Harry Esmond went away for Cambridge, little Frank ran +alongside his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a +moment, and looked back at the house where the best part of his life had +been passed. It lay before him with its grey familiar towers, a pinnacle +or two shining in the sun, the buttresses and terrace walls casting great +blue shades on the grass. And Harry remembered all his life after how he +saw his mistress at the window looking out on him, in a white robe, the +little Beatrix's chestnut curls resting at her mother's side. Both waved a +farewell to him, and little Frank sobbed to leave him. Yes, he _would_ be +his lady's true knight, he vowed in his heart; he waved her an adieu with +his hat. The village people had good-bye to say to him too. All knew that +Master Harry was going to college, and most of them had a kind word and a +look of farewell. I do not stop to say what adventures he began to +imagine, or what career to devise for himself, before he had ridden three +miles from home. He had not read Monsieur Galland's ingenious Arabian +tales as yet; but be sure that there are other folks who build castles in +the air, and have fine hopes, and kick them down too, besides honest +Alnaschar. + + + +Chapter X. I Go To Cambridge, And Do But Little Good There + + +My lord, who said he should like to revisit the old haunts of his youth, +kindly accompanied Harry Esmond in his first journey to Cambridge. Their +road lay through London, where my lord viscount would also have Harry stay +a few days to show him the pleasures of the town, before he entered upon +his University studies, and whilst here Harry's patron conducted the young +man to my lady dowager's house at Chelsey near London: the kind lady at +Castlewood having specially ordered that the young gentleman and the old +should pay a respectful visit in that quarter. + +Her ladyship the viscountess dowager occupied a handsome new house in +Chelsey, with a garden behind it, and facing the river, always a bright +and animated sight with its swarms of sailors, barges, and wherries. Harry +laughed at recognizing in the parlour the well-remembered old piece of Sir +Peter Lely, wherein his father's widow was represented as a virgin +huntress, armed with a gilt bow and arrow, and encumbered only with that +small quantity of drapery which it would seem the virgins in King +Charles's day were accustomed to wear. + +My lady dowager had left off this peculiar habit of huntress when she +married. But though she was now considerably past sixty years of age, I +believe she thought that airy nymph of the picture could still be easily +recognized in the venerable personage who gave an audience to Harry and +his patron. + +She received the young man with even more favour than she showed to the +elder, for she chose to carry on the conversation in French, in which my +Lord Castlewood was no great proficient, and expressed her satisfaction at +finding that Mr. Esmond could speak fluently in that language. "'Twas the +only one fit for polite conversation," she condescended to say, "and +suitable to persons of high breeding." + +My lord laughed afterwards, as the gentlemen went away, at his kinswoman's +behaviour. He said he remembered the time when she could speak English +fast enough, and joked in his jolly way at the loss he had had of such a +lovely wife as that. + +My lady viscountess deigned to ask his lordship news of his wife and +children; she had heard that Lady Castlewood had had the small-pox; she +hoped she was not so _very_ much disfigured as people said. + +At this remark about his wife's malady, my lord viscount winced and turned +red; but the dowager, in speaking of the disfigurement of the young lady, +turned to her looking-glass and examined her old wrinkled countenance in +it with such a grin of satisfaction, that it was all her guests could do +to refrain from laughing in her ancient face. + +She asked Harry what his profession was to be; and my lord, saying that +the lad was to take orders, and have the living of Castlewood when old Dr. +Tusher vacated it; she did not seem to show any particular anger at the +notion of Harry's becoming a Church of England clergyman, nay, was rather +glad than otherwise, that the youth should be so provided for. She bade +Mr. Esmond not to forget to pay her a visit whenever he passed through +London, and carried her graciousness so far as to send a purse with twenty +guineas for him, to the tavern at which my lord put up (the "Greyhound", +in Charing Cross); and, along with this welcome gift for her kinsman, she +sent a little doll for a present to my lord's little daughter Beatrix, who +was growing beyond the age of dolls by this time, and was as tall almost +as her venerable relative. + +After seeing the town, and going to the plays, my Lord Castlewood and +Esmond rode together to Cambridge, spending two pleasant days upon the +journey. Those rapid new coaches were not established as yet, that +performed the whole journey between London and the University in a single +day; however, the road was pleasant and short enough to Harry Esmond, and +he always gratefully remembered that happy holiday, which his kind patron +gave him. + +Mr. Esmond was entered a pensioner of Trinity College in Cambridge, to +which famous college my lord had also in his youth belonged. Dr. Montague +was master at this time, and received my lord viscount with great +politeness: so did Mr. Bridge, who was appointed to be Harry's tutor. Tom +Tusher, who was of Emmanuel College, and was by this time a junior soph, +came to wait upon my lord, and to take Harry under his protection; and +comfortable rooms being provided for him in the great court close by the +gate, and near to the famous Mr. Newton's lodgings, Harry's patron took +leave of him with many kind words and blessings, and an admonition to him +to behave better at the University than my lord himself had ever done. + +'Tis needless in these memoirs to go at any length into the particulars of +Harry Esmond's college career. It was like that of a hundred young +gentlemen of that day. But he had the ill fortune to be older by a couple +of years than most of his fellow students; and by his previous solitary +mode of bringing up, the circumstances of his life, and the peculiar +thoughtfulness and melancholy that had naturally engendered, he was, in a +great measure, cut off from the society of comrades who were much younger +and higher-spirited than he. His tutor, who had bowed down to the ground, +as he walked my lord over the college grass-plats, changed his behaviour +as soon as the nobleman's back was turned, and was--at least Harry thought +so--harsh and overbearing. When the lads used to assemble in their _greges_ +in hall, Harry found himself alone in the midst of that little flock of +boys; they raised a great laugh at him when he was set on to read Latin, +which he did with the foreign pronunciation taught to him by his old +master, the Jesuit, than which he knew no other. Mr. Bridge, the tutor, +made him the object of clumsy jokes, in which he was fond of indulging. +The young man's spirit was chafed, and his vanity mortified; and he found +himself, for some time, as lonely in this place as ever he had been at +Castlewood, whither he longed to return. His birth was a source of shame +to him, and he fancied a hundred slights and sneers from young and old, +who, no doubt, had treated him better had he met them himself more +frankly. And as he looks back, in calmer days, upon this period of his +life, which he thought so unhappy, he can see that his own pride and +vanity caused no small part of the mortifications which he attributed to +others' ill will. The world deals good-naturedly with good-natured people, +and I never knew a sulky misanthropist who quarrelled with it, but it was +he, and not it, that was in the wrong. Tom Tusher gave Harry plenty of +good advice on this subject, for Tom had both good sense and good humour; +but Mr. Harry chose to treat his senior with a great deal of superfluous +disdain and absurd scorn, and would by no means part from his darling +injuries, in which, very likely, no man believed but himself. As for +honest Doctor Bridge, the tutor found, after a few trials of wit with the +pupil, that the younger man was an ugly subject for wit, and that the +laugh was often turned against him. This did not make tutor and pupil any +better friends; but had, so far, an advantage for Esmond, that Mr. Bridge +was induced to leave him alone; and so long as he kept his chapels, and +did the college exercises required of him, Bridge was content not to see +Harry's glum face in his class, and to leave him to read and sulk for +himself in his own chamber. + +A poem or two in Latin and English, which were pronounced to have some +merit, and a Latin oration (for Mr. Esmond could write that language +better than pronounce it), got him a little reputation both with the +authorities of the University and amongst the young men, with whom he +began to pass for more than he was worth. A few victories over their +common enemy Mr. Bridge, made them incline towards him, and look upon him +as the champion of their order against the seniors. Such of the lads as he +took into his confidence, found him not so gloomy and haughty as his +appearance led them to believe; and Don Dismallo, as he was called, became +presently a person of some little importance in his college, and was, as +he believes, set down by the seniors there as rather a dangerous +character. + +Don Dismallo was a stanch young Jacobite, like the rest of his family; +gave himself many absurd airs of loyalty; used to invite young friends to +burgundy, and give the king's health on King James's birthday; wore black +on the day of his abdication; fasted on the anniversary of King William's +coronation; and performed a thousand absurd antics, of which he smiles now +to think. + +These follies caused many remonstrances on Tom Tusher's part, who was +always a friend to the powers that be, as Esmond was always in opposition +to them. Tom was a Whig, while Esmond was a Tory. Tom never missed a +lecture, and capped the proctor with the profoundest of bows. No wonder he +sighed over Harry's insubordinate courses, and was angry when the others +laughed at him. But that Harry was known to have my lord viscount's +protection, Tom no doubt would have broken with him altogether. But honest +Tom never gave up a comrade as long as he was the friend of a great man. +This was not out of scheming on Tom's part, but a natural inclination +towards the great. 'Twas no hypocrisy in him to flatter, but the bent of +his mind, which was always perfectly good-humoured, obliging, and servile. + +Harry had very liberal allowances, for his dear mistress of Castlewood not +only regularly supplied him, but the dowager at Chelsey made her donation +annual, and received Esmond at her house near London every Christmas; but, +in spite of these benefactions, Esmond was constantly poor; whilst 'twas a +wonder with how small a stipend from his father, Tom Tusher contrived to +make a good figure. 'Tis true that Harry both spent, gave, and lent his +money very freely, which Thomas never did. I think he was like the famous +Duke of Marlborough in this instance, who, getting a present of fifty +pieces, when a young man, from some foolish woman who fell in love with +his good looks, showed the money to Cadogan in a drawer scores of years +after, where it had lain ever since he had sold his beardless honour to +procure it. I do not mean to say that Tom ever let out his good looks so +profitably, for nature had not endowed him with any particular charms of +person, and he ever was a pattern of moral behaviour, losing no +opportunity of giving the very best advice to his younger comrade; with +which article, to do him justice, he parted very freely. Not but that he +was a merry fellow, too, in his way; he loved a joke, if by good fortune +he understood it, and took his share generously of a bottle if another +paid for it, and especially if there was a young lord in company to drink +it. In these cases there was not a harder drinker in the University than +Mr. Tusher could be; and it was edifying to behold him, fresh shaved and +with smug face, singing out "Amen!" at early chapel in the morning. In his +reading, poor Harry permitted himself to go a-gadding after all the Nine +Muses, and so very likely had but little favour from any one of them; +whereas Tom Tusher, who had no more turn for poetry than a ploughboy, +nevertheless, by a dogged perseverance and obsequiousness in courting the +divine Calliope, got himself a prize, and some credit in the University, +and a fellowship at his college, as a reward for his scholarship. In this +time of Mr. Esmond's life, he got the little reading which he ever could +boast of, and passed a good part of his days greedily devouring all the +books on which he could lay hand. In this desultory way the works of most +of the English, French, and Italian poets came under his eyes, and he had +a smattering of the Spanish tongue likewise, besides the ancient +languages, of which, at least of Latin, he was a tolerable master. + +Then, about midway in his University career, he fell to reading for the +profession to which worldly prudence rather than inclination called him, +and was perfectly bewildered in theological controversy. In the course of +his reading (which was neither pursued with that seriousness or that +devout mind which such a study requires), the youth found himself, at the +end of one month, a Papist, and was about to proclaim his faith; the next +month a Protestant, with Chillingworth; and the third a sceptic, with +Hobbs and Bayle. Whereas honest Tom Tusher never permitted his mind to +stray out of the prescribed University path, accepted the Thirty-nine +Articles with all his heart, and would have signed and sworn to other +nine-and-thirty with entire obedience. Harry's wilfulness in this matter, +and disorderly thoughts and conversation, so shocked and afflicted his +senior, that there grew up a coldness and estrangement between them, so +that they became scarce more than mere acquaintances, from having been +intimate friends when they came to college first. Politics ran high, too, +at the University; and here, also, the young men were at variance. Tom +professed himself, albeit a High Churchman, a strong King William's-man; +whereas Harry brought his family Tory politics to college with him, to +which he must add a dangerous admiration for Oliver Cromwell, whose side, +or King James's by turns, he often chose to take in the disputes which the +young gentlemen used to hold in each other's rooms, where they debated on +the state of the nation, crowned and deposed kings, and toasted past and +present heroes or beauties in flagons of college ale. + +Thus, either from the circumstances of his birth, or the natural +melancholy of his disposition, Esmond came to live very much by himself +during his stay at the University, having neither ambition enough to +distinguish himself in the college career, nor caring to mingle with the +mere pleasures and boyish frolics of the students, who were, for the most +part, two or three years younger than he. He fancied that the gentlemen of +the common-room of his college slighted him on account of his birth, and +hence kept aloof from their society. It may be that he made the ill will, +which he imagined came from them, by his own behaviour, which, as he looks +back on it in after-life, he now sees was morose and haughty. At any rate, +he was as tenderly grateful for kindness as he was susceptible of slight +and wrong; and, lonely as he was generally, yet had one or two very warm +friendships for his companions of those days. + +One of these was a queer gentleman that resided in the University, though +he was no member of it, and was the professor of a science scarce +recognized in the common course of college education. This was a French +refugee officer, who had been driven out of his native country at the time +of the Protestant persecutions there, and who came to Cambridge, where he +taught the science of the small-sword, and set up a saloon-of-arms. Though +he declared himself a Protestant, 'twas said Mr. Moreau was a Jesuit in +disguise; indeed, he brought very strong recommendations to the Tory +party, which was pretty strong in that University, and very likely was one +of the many agents whom King James had in this country. Esmond found this +gentleman's conversation very much more agreeable, and to his taste, than +the talk of the college divines in the common-room; he never wearied of +Moreau's stories of the wars of Turenne and Conde, in which he had borne a +part; and being familiar with the French tongue from his youth, and in a +place where but few spoke it, his company became very agreeable to the +brave old professor of arms, whose favourite pupil he was, and who made +Mr. Esmond a very tolerable proficient in the noble science of _escrime_. + +At the next term Esmond was to take his degree of Bachelor of Arts, and +afterwards, in proper season, to assume the cassock and bands which his +fond mistress would have him wear. Tom Tusher himself was a parson and a +fellow of his college by this time; and Harry felt that he would very +gladly cede his right to the living of Castlewood to Tom, and that his own +calling was in no way the pulpit. But as he was bound, before all things +in the world, to his dear mistress at home, and knew that a refusal on his +part would grieve her, he determined to give her no hint of his +unwillingness to the clerical office; and it was in this unsatisfactory +mood of mind that he went to spend the last vacation he should have at +Castlewood before he took orders. + + + +Chapter XI. I Come Home For A Holiday To Castlewood, And Find A Skeleton +In The House + + +At his third long vacation, Esmond came as usual to Castlewood, always +feeling an eager thrill of pleasure when he found himself once more in the +house where he had passed so many years, and beheld the kind familiar eyes +of his mistress looking upon him. She and her children (out of whose +company she scarce ever saw him) came to greet him. Miss Beatrix was grown +so tall that Harry did not quite know whether he might kiss her or no; and +she blushed and held back when he offered that salutation, though she took +it, and even courted it, when they were alone. The young lord was shooting +up to be like his gallant father in look, though with his mother's kind +eyes: the Lady of Castlewood herself seemed grown, too, since Harry saw +her--in her look more stately, in her person fuller, in her face, still as +ever most tender and friendly, a greater air of command and decision than +had appeared in that guileless sweet countenance which Harry remembered so +gratefully. The tone of her voice was so much deeper and sadder when she +spoke and welcomed him, that it quite startled Esmond, who looked up at +her surprised as she spoke, when she withdrew her eyes from him; nor did +she ever look at him afterwards when his own eyes were gazing upon her. A +something hinting at grief and secret, and filling his mind with alarm +undefinable, seemed to speak with that low thrilling voice of hers, and +look out of those dear sad eyes. Her greeting to Esmond was so cold that +it almost pained the lad (who would have liked to fall on his knees and +kiss the skirt of her robe, so fond and ardent was his respect and regard +for her), and he faltered in answering the questions which she, hesitating +on her side, began to put to him. Was he happy at Cambridge? Did he study +too hard? She hoped not. He had grown very tall, and looked very well. + +"He has got a moustache!" cries out Master Esmond. + +"Why does he not wear a peruke like my Lord Mohun?" asked Miss Beatrix. +"My lord says that nobody wears their own hair." + +"I believe you will have to occupy your old chamber," says my lady. "I +hope the housekeeper has got it ready." + +"Why, mamma, you have been there ten times these three days yourself!" +exclaims Frank. + +"And she cut some flowers which you planted in my garden--do you remember, +ever so many years ago?--when I was quite a little girl," cries out Miss +Beatrix, on tiptoe. "And mamma put them in your window." + +"I remember when you grew well after you were ill that you used to like +roses," said the lady, blushing like one of them. They all conducted Harry +Esmond to his chamber; the children running before, Harry walking by his +mistress hand-in-hand. + +The old room had been ornamented and beautified not a little to receive +him. The flowers were in the window in a china vase; and there was a fine +new counterpane on the bed, which chatterbox Beatrix said mamma had made +too. A fire was crackling on the hearth, although it was June. My lady +thought the room wanted warming; everything was done to make him happy and +welcome: "And you are not to be a page any longer, but a gentleman and +kinsman, and to walk with papa and mamma," said the children. And as soon +as his dear mistress and children had left him to himself, it was with a +heart overflowing with love and gratefulness that he flung himself down on +his knees by the side of the little bed, and asked a blessing upon those +who were so kind to him. + +The children, who are always house tell-tales, soon made him acquainted +with the little history of the house and family. Papa had been to London +twice. Papa often went away now. Papa had taken Beatrix to Westlands, +where she was taller than Sir George Harper's second daughter, though she +was two years older. Papa had taken Beatrix and Frank both to Bellminster, +where Frank had got the better of Lord Bellminster's son in a +boxing-match--my lord, laughing, told Harry afterwards. Many gentlemen came +to stop with papa, and papa had gotten a new game from London, a French +game, called a billiard--that the French king played it very well: and the +Dowager Lady Castlewood had sent Miss Beatrix a present; and papa had +gotten a new chaise, with two little horses, which he drove himself, +beside the coach, which mamma went in; and Dr. Tusher was a cross old +plague, and they did not like to learn from him at all; and papa did not +care about them learning, and laughed when they were at their books, but +mamma liked them to learn, and taught them; and "I don't think papa is +fond of mamma", said Miss Beatrix, with her great eyes. She had come quite +close up to Harry Esmond by the time this prattle took place, and was on +his knee, and had examined all the points of his dress, and all the good +or bad features of his homely face. + +"You shouldn't say that papa is not fond of mamma," said the boy, at this +confession. "Mamma never said so; and mamma forbade you to say it, Miss +Beatrix." + +'Twas this, no doubt, that accounted for the sadness in Lady Castlewood's +eyes, and the plaintive vibrations of her voice. Who does not know of +eyes, lighted by love once, where the flame shines no more?--of lamps +extinguished, once properly trimmed and tended? Every man has such in his +house. Such mementoes make our splendidest chambers look blank and sad; +such faces seen in a day cast a gloom upon our sunshine. So oaths mutually +sworn, and invocations of Heaven, and priestly ceremonies, and fond +belief, and love, so fond and faithful that it never doubted but that it +should live for ever, are all of no avail towards making love eternal: it +dies, in spite of the banns and the priest; and I have often thought there +should be a visitation of the sick for it, and a funeral service, and an +extreme unction, and an _abi in pace_. It has its course, like all mortal +things--its beginning, progress, and decay. It buds and it blooms out into +sunshine, and it withers and ends. Strephon and Chloe languish apart; join +in a rapture: and presently you hear that Chloe is crying, and Strephon +has broken his crook across her back. Can you mend it so as to show no +marks of rupture? Not all the priests of Hymen, not all the incantations +to the gods, can make it whole! + +Waking up from dreams, books, and visions of college honours, in which, +for two years, Harry Esmond had been immersed, he found himself instantly, +on his return home, in the midst of this actual tragedy of life, which +absorbed and interested him more than all his tutor taught him. The +persons whom he loved best in the world, and to whom he owed most, were +living unhappily together. The gentlest and kindest of women was suffering +ill-usage and shedding tears in secret: the man who made her wretched by +neglect, if not by violence, was Harry's benefactor and patron. In houses +where, in place of that sacred, inmost flame of love, there is discord at +the centre, the whole, household becomes hypocritical, and each lies to +his neighbour. The husband (or it may be the wife) lies when the visitor +comes in, and wears a grin of reconciliation or politeness before him. The +wife lies (indeed, her business is to do that, and to smile, however much +she is beaten), swallows her tears, and lies to her lord and master; lies +in bidding little Jacky respect dear papa; lies in assuring grandpapa that +she is perfectly happy. The servants lie, wearing grave faces behind their +master's chair, and pretending to be unconscious of the fighting; and so, +from morning till bedtime, life is passed in falsehood. And wiseacres call +this a proper regard of morals, and point out Baucis and Philemon as +examples of a good life. + +If my lady did not speak of her griefs to Harry Esmond, my lord was by no +means reserved when in his cups, and spoke his mind very freely, bidding +Harry in his coarse way, and with his blunt language, beware of all women +as cheats, jades, jilts, and using other unmistakable monosyllables in +speaking of them. Indeed, 'twas the fashion of the day as I must own; and +there's not a writer of my time of any note, with the exception of poor +Dick Steele, that does not speak of a woman as of a slave, and scorn and +use her as such. Mr. Pope, Mr. Congreve, Mr. Addison, Mr. Gay, every one +of 'em, sing in this key, each according to his nature and politeness; and +louder and fouler than all in abuse is Dr. Swift, who spoke of them as he +treated them, worst of all. + +Much of the quarrels and hatred which arise between married people come in +my mind from the husband's rage and revolt at discovering that his slave +and bedfellow, who is to minister to all his wishes, and is church-sworn +to honour and obey him--is his superior; and that _he_, and not she, ought +to be the subordinate of the twain; and in these controversies, I think, +lay the cause of my lord's anger against his lady. When he left her, she +began to think for herself, and her thoughts were not in his favour. After +the illumination, when the love-lamp is put out that anon we spoke of, and +by the common daylight we look at the picture, what a daub it looks! what +a clumsy effigy! How many men and wives come to this knowledge, think you? +And if it be painful to a woman to find herself mated for life to a boor, +and ordered to love and honour a dullard; it is worse still for the man +himself perhaps, whenever in his dim comprehension the idea dawns that his +slave and drudge yonder is, in truth, his superior; that the woman who +does his bidding, and submits to his humour, should be his lord; that she +can think a thousand things beyond the power of his muddled brains; and +that in yonder head, on the pillow opposite to him, lie a thousand +feelings, mysteries of thought, latent scorns and rebellions, whereof he +only dimly perceives the existence as they look out furtively from her +eyes: treasures of love doomed to perish without a hand to gather them; +sweet fancies and images of beauty that would grow and unfold themselves +into flower; bright wit that would shine like diamonds could it be brought +into the sun: and the tyrant in possession crushes the outbreak of all +these, drives them back like slaves into the dungeon and darkness, and +chafes without that his prisoner is rebellious, and his sworn subject +undutiful and refractory. So the lamp was out in Castlewood Hall, and the +lord and lady there saw each other as they were. With her illness and +altered beauty my lord's fire for his wife disappeared; with his +selfishness and faithlessness her foolish fiction of love and reverence +was rent away. Love!--who is to love what is base and unlovely? +Respect!--who is to respect what is gross and sensual? Not all the marriage +oaths sworn before all the parsons, cardinals, ministers, muftis, and +rabbins in the world, can bind to that monstrous allegiance. This couple +was living apart then; the woman happy to be allowed to love and tend her +children (who were never of her own goodwill away from her) and thankful +to have saved such treasures as these out of the wreck in which the better +part of her heart went down. + +These young ones had had no instructors save their mother, and Doctor +Tusher for their theology occasionally, and had made more progress than +might have been expected under a tutor so indulgent and fond as Lady +Castlewood. Beatrix could sing and dance like a nymph. Her voice was her +father's delight after dinner. She ruled over the house with little +imperial ways, which her parents coaxed and laughed at. She had long +learned the value of her bright eyes, and tried experiments in coquetry, +_in corpore vili_, upon rustics and country squires, until she should +prepare to conquer the world and the fashion. She put on a new ribbon to +welcome Harry Esmond, made eyes at him, and directed her young smiles at +him, not a little to the amusement of the young man, and the joy of her +father, who laughed his great laugh, and encouraged her in her thousand +antics. Lady Castlewood watched the child gravely and sadly: the little +one was pert in her replies to her mother, yet eager in her protestations +of love and promises of amendment; and as ready to cry (after a little +quarrel brought on by her own giddiness) until she had won back her +mamma's favour, as she was to risk the kind lady's displeasure by fresh +outbreaks of restless vanity. From her mother's sad looks she fled to her +father's chair and boozy laughter. She already set the one against the +other: and the little rogue delighted in the mischief which she knew how +to make so early. + +The young heir of Castlewood was spoiled by father and mother both. He +took their caresses as men do, and as if they were his right. He had his +hawks and his spaniel dog, his little horse and his beagles. He had +learned to ride and to drink, and to shoot flying: and he had a small +court, the sons of the huntsman and woodman, as became the heir-apparent, +taking after the example of my lord his father. If he had a headache, his +mother was as much frightened as if the plague were in the house: my lord +laughed and jeered in his abrupt way--(indeed, 'twas on the day after New +Year's Day, and an excess of mince-pie)--and said with some of his usual +oaths--"D----n it, Harry Esmond--you see how my lady takes on about Frank's +megrim. She used to be sorry about me, my boy (pass the tankard, Harry), +and to be frightened if I had a headache once. She don't care about my +head now. They're like that--women are--all the same, Harry, all jilts in +their hearts. Stick to college--stick to punch and buttery ale: and never +see a woman that's handsomer than an old cinder-faced bedmaker. That's my +counsel." + +It was my lord's custom to fling out many jokes of this nature, in +presence of his wife and children, at meals--clumsy sarcasms which my lady +turned many a time, or which, sometimes, she affected not to hear, or +which now and again would hit their mark and make the poor victim wince +(as you could see by her flushing face and eyes filling with tears), or +which again worked her up to anger and retort, when, in answer to one of +these heavy bolts, she would flash back with a quivering reply. The pair +were not happy; nor indeed was it happy to be with them. Alas that +youthful love and truth should end in bitterness and bankruptcy! To see a +young couple loving each other is no wonder; but to see an old couple +loving each other is the best sight of all. Harry Esmond became the +confidant of one and the other--that is, my lord told the lad all his +griefs and wrongs (which were indeed of Lord Castlewood's own making), and +Harry divined my lady's; his affection leading him easily to penetrate the +hypocrisy under which Lady Castlewood generally chose to go disguised, and +see her heart aching whilst her face wore a smile. 'Tis a hard task for +women in life, that mask which the world bids them wear. But there is no +greater crime than for a woman who is ill used and unhappy to show that +she is so. The world is quite relentless about bidding her to keep a +cheerful face; and our women, like the Malabar wives, are forced to go +smiling and painted to sacrifice themselves with their husbands; their +relations being the most eager to push them on to their duty, and, under +their shouts and applauses, to smother and hush their cries of pain. + +So, into the sad secret of his patron's household, Harry Esmond became +initiated, he scarce knew how. It had passed under his eyes two years +before, when he could not understand it; but reading, and thought, and +experience of men, had oldened him; and one of the deepest sorrows of a +life which had never, in truth, been very happy, came upon him now, when +he was compelled to understand and pity a grief which he stood quite +powerless to relieve. + + ------------------------------------- + +It hath been said my lord would never take the oath of allegiance, nor his +seat as a peer of the kingdom of Ireland, where, indeed, he had but a +nominal estate; and refused an English peerage which King William's +Government offered him as a bribe to secure his loyalty. + +He might have accepted this, and would doubtless, but for the earnest +remonstrances of his wife (who ruled her husband's opinions better than +she could govern his conduct), and who being a simple-hearted woman, with +but one rule of faith and right, never thought of swerving from her +fidelity to the exiled family, or of recognizing any other sovereign but +King James; and, though she acquiesced in the doctrine of obedience to the +reigning power, no temptation, she thought, could induce her to +acknowledge the Prince of Orange as rightful monarch, nor to let her lord +so acknowledge him. So my Lord Castlewood remained a nonjuror all his life +nearly, though his self-denial caused him many a pang, and left him sulky +and out of humour. + +The year after the Revolution, and all through King William's life, 'tis +known there were constant intrigues for the restoration of the exiled +family; but if my Lord Castlewood took any share of these, as is probable, +'twas only for a short time, and when Harry Esmond was too young to be +introduced into such important secrets. + +But in the year 1695, when that conspiracy of Sir John Fenwick, Colonel +Lowick, and others, was set on foot, for waylaying King William as he came +from Hampton Court to London, and a secret plot was formed, in which a +vast number of the nobility and people of honour were engaged; Father Holt +appeared at Castlewood, and brought a young friend with him, a gentleman +whom 'twas easy to see that both my lord and the father treated with +uncommon deference. Harry Esmond saw this gentleman, and knew and +recognized him in after-life, as shall be shown in its place; and he has +little doubt now that my lord viscount was implicated somewhat in the +transactions which always kept Father Holt employed and travelling hither +and thither under a dozen of different names and disguises. The father's +companion went by the name of Captain James; and it was under a very +different name and appearance that Harry Esmond afterwards saw him. + +It was the next year that the Fenwick conspiracy blew up, which is a +matter of public history now, and which ended in the execution of Sir John +and many more, who suffered manfully for their treason, and who were +attended to Tyburn by my lady's father, Dean Armstrong, Mr. Collier, and +other stout nonjuring clergymen, who absolved them at the gallows' foot. + +'Tis known that when Sir John was apprehended, discovery was made of a +great number of names of gentlemen engaged in the conspiracy; when, with a +noble wisdom and clemency, the prince burned the list of conspirators +furnished to him, and said he would know no more. Now it was, after this, +that Lord Castlewood swore his great oath, that he would never, so help +him Heaven, be engaged in any transaction against that brave and merciful +man; and so he told Holt when the indefatigable priest visited him, and +would have had him engage in a farther conspiracy. After this my lord ever +spoke of King William as he was--as one of the wisest, the bravest, and the +greatest of men. My Lady Esmond (for her part) said she could never pardon +the king, first, for ousting his father-in-law from his throne, and +secondly, for not being constant to his wife, the Princess Mary. Indeed, I +think if Nero were to rise again, and be king of England, and a good +family man, the ladies would pardon him. My lord laughed at his wife's +objections--the standard of virtue did not fit him much. + +The last conference which Mr. Holt had with his lordship took place when +Harry was come home for his first vacation from college (Harry saw his old +tutor but for a half-hour, and exchanged no private words with him), and +their talk, whatever it might be, left my lord viscount very much +disturbed in mind--so much so, that his wife, and his young kinsman, Henry +Esmond, could not but observe his disquiet. After Holt was gone, my lord +rebuffed Esmond, and again treated him with the greatest deference; he +shunned his wife's questions and company, and looked at his children with +such a face of gloom and anxiety, muttering, "Poor children--poor +children!" in a way that could not but fill those whose life it was to +watch him and obey him, with great alarm. For which gloom, each person +interested in the Lord Castlewood, framed in his or her own mind an +interpretation. + +My lady, with a laugh of cruel bitterness, said, "I suppose the person at +Hexton has been ill, or has scolded him" (for my lord's infatuation about +Mrs. Marwood was known only too well). Young Esmond feared for his money +affairs, into the condition of which he had been initiated; and that the +expenses, always greater than his revenue, had caused Lord Castlewood +disquiet. + +One of the causes why my lord viscount had taken young Esmond into his +special favour was a trivial one, that hath not before been mentioned, +though it was a very lucky accident in Henry Esmond's life. A very few +months after my lord's coming to Castlewood, in the winter-time--the little +boy, being a child in a petticoat, trotting about--it happened that little +Frank was with his father after dinner, who fell asleep over his wine, +heedless of the child, who crawled to the fire; and, as good fortune would +have it, Esmond was sent by his mistress for the boy just as the poor +little screaming urchin's coat was set on fire by a log; when Esmond, +rushing forward, tore the dress off the infant, so that his own hands were +burned more than the child's, who was frightened rather than hurt, by this +accident. But certainly 'twas providential that a resolute person should +have come in at that instant, or the child had been burned to death +probably, my lord sleeping very heavily after drinking, and not waking so +cool as a man should who had a danger to face. + +Ever after this the father, loud in his expressions of remorse and +humility for being a tipsy good-for-nothing, and of admiration for Harry +Esmond, whom his lordship would style a hero for doing a very trifling +service, had the tenderest regard for his son's preserver, and Harry +became quite as one of the family. His burns were tended with the greatest +care by his kind mistress, who said that Heaven had sent him to be the +guardian of her children, and that she would love him all her life. + +And it was after this, and from the very great love and tenderness which +had grown up in this little household, rather than to the exhortations of +Dean Armstrong (though these had no small weight with him), that Harry +came to be quite of the religion of his house and his dear mistress, of +which he has ever since been a professing member. As for Dr. Tusher's +boasts that he was the cause of this conversion--even in these young days +Mr. Esmond had such a contempt for the doctor, that had Tusher bade him +believe anything (which he did not--never meddling at all), Harry would +that instant have questioned the truth on't. + +My lady seldom drank wine; but on certain days of the year, such as +birthdays (poor Harry had never a one) and anniversaries, she took a +little; and this day, the 29th December, was one. At the end, then, of +this year, '96, it might have been a fortnight after Mr. Holt's last +visit, Lord Castlewood being still very gloomy in mind, and sitting at +table--my lady bidding a servant bring her a glass of wine, and looking at +her husband with one of her sweet smiles, said-- + +"My lord, will you not fill a bumper too, and let me call a toast?" + +"What is it, Rachel?" says he, holding out his empty glass to be filled. + +"'Tis the 29th of December," says my lady, with her fond look of +gratitude; "and my toast is, 'Harry--and God bless him, who saved my boy's +life!' " + +My lord looked at Harry hard, and drank the glass, but clapped it down on +the table in a moment, and, with a sort of groan, rose up, and went out of +the room. What was the matter? We all knew that some great grief was over +him. + +Whether my lord's prudence had made him richer, or legacies had fallen to +him, which enabled him to support a greater establishment than that frugal +one which had been too much for his small means, Harry Esmond knew not; +but the house of Castlewood was now on a scale much more costly than it +had been during the first year of his lordship's coming to the title. +There were more horses in the stable and more servants in the hall, and +many more guests coming and going now than formerly, when it was found +difficult enough by the strictest economy to keep the house as befitted +one of his lordship's rank, and the estate out of debt. And it did not +require very much penetration to find, that many of the new acquaintances +at Castlewood were not agreeable to the lady there: not that she ever +treated them or any mortal with anything but courtesy; but they were +persons who could not be welcome to her; and whose society a lady so +refined and reserved could scarce desire for her children. There came +fuddling squires from the country round, who bawled their songs under her +windows and drank themselves tipsy with my lord's punch and ale: there +came officers from Hexton, in whose company our little lord was made to +hear talk and to drink, and swear too in a way that made the delicate lady +tremble for her son. Esmond tried to console her by saying what he knew of +his college experience; that with this sort of company and conversation a +man must fall in sooner or later in his course through the world: and it +mattered very little whether he heard it at twelve years old or twenty--the +youths who quitted mother's apron-strings the latest being not uncommonly +the wildest rakes. But it was about her daughter that Lady Castlewood was +the most anxious, and the danger which she thought menaced the little +Beatrix from the indulgences which her father gave her (it must be owned +that my lord, since these unhappy domestic differences especially, was at +once violent in his language to the children when angry, as he was too +familiar, not to say coarse, when he was in a good humour), and from the +company into which the careless lord brought the child. + +Not very far off from Castlewood is Sark Castle, where the Marchioness of +Sark lived, who was known to have been a mistress of the late King +Charles--and to this house, whither indeed a great part of the country +gentry went, my lord insisted upon going, not only himself, but on taking +his little daughter and son to play with the children there. The children +were nothing loath, for the house was splendid, and the welcome kind +enough. But my lady, justly no doubt, thought that the children of such a +mother as that noted Lady Sark had been, could be no good company for her +two; and spoke her mind to her lord. His own language when he was thwarted +was not indeed of the gentlest: to be brief, there was a family dispute on +this, as there had been on many other points--and the lady was not only +forced to give in, for the other's will was law--nor could she, on account +of their tender age, tell her children what was the nature of her +objection to their visit of pleasure, or indeed mention to them any +objection at all--but she had the additional secret mortification to find +them returning delighted with their new friends, loaded with presents from +them, and eager to be allowed to go back to a place of such delights as +Sark Castle. Every year she thought the company there would be more +dangerous to her daughter, as from a child Beatrix grew to a woman, and +her daily increasing beauty, and many faults of character too, expanded. + +It was Harry Esmond's lot to see one of the visits which the old lady of +Sark paid to the lady of Castlewood Hall: whither she came in state with +six chestnut horses and blue ribbons, a page on each carriage step, a +gentleman of the horse, and armed servants riding before and behind her. +And, but that it was unpleasant to see Lady Castlewood's face, it was +amusing to watch the behaviour of the two enemies: the frigid patience of +the younger lady, and the unconquerable good humour of the elder--who would +see no offence whatever her rival intended, and who never ceased to smile +and to laugh, and to coax the children, and to pay compliments to every +man, woman, child, nay dog, or chair and table, in Castlewood, so bent was +she upon admiring everything there. She lauded the children, and wished--as +indeed she well might--that her own family had been brought up as well as +those cherubs. She had never seen such a complexion as dear +Beatrix's--though to be sure she had a right to it from father and +mother--Lady Castlewood's was indeed a wonder of freshness, and Lady Sark +sighed to think she had not been born a fair woman; and remarking Harry +Esmond, with a fascinating superannuated smile, she complimented him on +his wit, which she said she could see from his eyes and forehead; and +vowed that she would never have _him_ at Sark until her daughter were out +of the way. + + + +Chapter XII. My Lord Mohun Comes Among Us For No Good + + +There had ridden along with this old princess's cavalcade, two gentlemen; +her son, my Lord Firebrace, and his friend, my Lord Mohun, who both were +greeted with a great deal of cordiality by the hospitable Lord of +Castlewood. My Lord Firebrace was but a feeble-minded and weak-limbed +young nobleman, small in stature and limited in understanding--to judge +from the talk young Esmond had with him; but the other was a person of a +handsome presence, with the _bel air_, and a bright daring warlike aspect, +which, according to the chronicle of those days, had already achieved for +him the conquest of several beauties and toasts. He had fought and +conquered in France, as well as in Flanders; he had served a couple of +campaigns with the Prince of Baden on the Danube, and witnessed the rescue +of Vienna from the Turk. And he spoke of his military exploits pleasantly, +and with the manly freedom of a soldier, so as to delight all his hearers +at Castlewood, who were little accustomed to meet a companion so +agreeable. + +On the first day this noble company came, my lord would not hear of their +departure before dinner, and carried away the gentlemen to amuse them, +whilst his wife was left to do the honours of her house to the old +marchioness and her daughter within. They looked at the stables, where my +Lord Mohun praised the horses, though there was but a poor show there: +they walked over the old house and gardens, and fought the siege of +Oliver's time over again: they played a game of rackets in the old court, +where my Lord Castlewood beat my Lord Mohun, who said he loved ball of all +things, and would quickly come back to Castlewood for his revenge. After +dinner they played bowls, and drank punch in the green alley; and when +they parted they were sworn friends, my Lord Castlewood kissing the other +lord before he mounted on horseback, and pronouncing him the best +companion he had met for many a long day. All night long, over his +tobacco-pipe Castlewood did not cease to talk to Harry Esmond in praise of +his new friend, and in fact did not leave off speaking of him until his +lordship was so tipsy that he could not speak plainly any more. + +At breakfast next day it was the same talk renewed; and when my lady said +there was something free in the Lord Mohun's looks and manner of speech +which caused her to mistrust him, her lord burst out with one of his +laughs and oaths; said that he never liked man, woman, or beast, but what +she was sure to be jealous of it; that Mohun was the prettiest fellow in +England; that he hoped to see more of him whilst in the country; and that +he would let Mohun know what my Lady Prude said of him. + +"Indeed," Lady Castlewood said, "I liked his conversation well enough. +'Tis more amusing than that of most people I know. I thought it, I own, +too free; not from what he said, as rather from what he implied." + +"Psha! your ladyship does not know the world," said her husband; "and you +have always been as squeamish as when you were a miss of fifteen." + +"You found no fault when I was a miss at fifteen." + +"Begad, madam, you are grown too old for a pinafore now; and I hold that +'tis for me to judge what company my wife shall see," said my lord, +slapping the table. + +"Indeed, Francis, I never thought otherwise," answered my lady, rising and +dropping him a curtsy, in which stately action, if there was obedience, +there was defiance too; and in which a bystander, deeply interested in the +happiness of that pair as Harry Esmond was, might see how hopelessly +separated they were; what a great gulf of difference and discord had run +between them. + +"By G----d! Mohun is the best fellow in England; and I'll invite him here, +just to plague that woman. Did you ever see such a frigid insolence as it +is, Harry? That's the way she treats me," he broke out, storming, and his +face growing red as he clenched his fists and went on. "I'm nobody in my +own house. I'm to be the humble servant of that parson's daughter. By +Jove! I'd rather she should fling the dish at my head than sneer at me as +she does. She puts me to shame before the children with her d----d airs; +and, I'll swear, tells Frank and Beaty that papa's a reprobate, and that +they ought to despise me." + +"Indeed and indeed, sir, I never heard her say a word out of respect +regarding you," Harry Esmond interposed. + +"No, curse it! I wish she would speak. But she never does. She scorns me, +and holds her tongue. She keeps off from me, as if I was a pestilence. By +George! she was fond enough of her pestilence once. And when I came +a-courting, you would see miss blush--blush red, by George! for joy. Why, +what do you think she said to me, Harry? She said herself, when I joked +with her about her d--d smiling red cheeks: ''Tis as they do at St. +James's; I put up my red flag when my king comes.' I was the king, you +see, she meant. But now, sir, look at her! I believe she would be glad if +I was dead; and dead I've been to her these five years--ever since you all +of you had the small-pox: and she never forgave me for going away." + +"Indeed, my lord, though 'twas hard to forgive, I think my mistress +forgave it," Harry Esmond said; "and remember how eagerly she watched your +lordship's return, and how sadly she turned away when she saw your cold +looks." + +"Damme!" cries out my lord; "would you have had me wait and catch the +small-pox? Where the deuce had been the good of that? I'll bear danger +with any man--but not useless danger--no, no. Thank you for nothing. And--you +nod your head, and I know very well, Parson Harry, what you mean. There +was the--the other affair to make her angry. But is a woman never to +forgive a husband who goes a-tripping? Do you take me for a saint?" + +"Indeed, sir, I do not," says Harry, with a smile. + +"Since that time my wife's as cold as the statue at Charing Cross. I tell +thee she has no forgiveness in her, Henry. Her coldness blights my whole +life, and sends me to the punch-bowl, or driving about the country. My +children are not mine, but hers, when we are together. 'Tis only when she +is out of sight with her abominable cold glances, that run through me, +that they'll come to me, and that I dare to give them so much as a kiss; +and that's why I take 'em and love 'em in other people's houses, Harry. +I'm killed by the very virtue of that proud woman. Virtue! give me the +virtue that can forgive; give me the virtue that thinks not of preserving +itself, but of making other folks happy. Damme, what matters a scar or two +if 'tis got in helping a friend in ill fortune?" + +And my lord again slapped the table, and took a great draught from the +tankard. Harry Esmond admired as he listened to him, and thought how the +poor preacher of this self-sacrifice had fled from the small-pox, which +the lady had borne so cheerfully, and which had been the cause of so much +disunion in the lives of all in this house. "How well men preach," thought +the young man, "and each is the example in his own sermon. How each has a +story in a dispute, and a true one, too, and both are right, or wrong as +you will!" Harry's heart was pained within him, to watch the struggles and +pangs that tore the breast of this kind, manly friend and protector. + +"Indeed, sir," said he, "I wish to God that my mistress could hear you +speak as I have heard you; she would know much that would make her life +the happier, could she hear it." But my lord flung away with one of his +oaths, and a jeer; he said that Parson Harry was a good fellow; but that +as for women, all women were alike--all jades and heartless. So a man +dashes a fine vase down and despises it for being broken. It may be +worthless--true: but who had the keeping of it, and who shattered it? + +Harry, who would have given his life to make his benefactress and her +husband happy, bethought him, now that he saw what my lord's state of mind +was, and that he really had a great deal of that love left in his heart, +and ready for his wife's acceptance if she would take it, whether he could +not be a means of reconciliation between these two persons, whom he +revered the most in the world. And he cast about how he should break a +part of his mind to his mistress, and warn her that in his, Harry's +opinion, at least, her husband was still her admirer, and even her lover. + +But he found the subject a very difficult one to handle, when he ventured +to remonstrate, which he did in the very gravest tone (for long confidence +and reiterated proofs of devotion and loyalty had given him a sort of +authority in the house, which he resumed as soon as ever he returned to +it); and with a speech that should have some effect, as, indeed, it was +uttered with the speaker's own heart, he ventured most gently to hint to +his adored mistress, that she was doing her husband harm by her ill +opinion of him, and that the happiness of all the family depended upon +setting her right. + +She, who was ordinarily calm and most gentle, and full of smiles and soft +attentions, flushed up when young Esmond so spoke to her, and rose from +her chair, looking at him with a haughtiness and indignation that he had +never before known her to display. She was quite an altered being for that +moment; and looked an angry princess insulted by a vassal. + +"Have you ever heard me utter a word in my lord's disparagement?" she +asked hastily, hissing out her words, and stamping her foot. + +"Indeed, no," Esmond said, looking down. + +"Are you come to me as his ambassador--_You?_" she continued. + +"I would sooner see peace between you than anything else in the world," +Harry answered, "and would go of any embassy that had that end." + +"So _you_ are my lord's go-between?" she went on, not regarding this +speech. "You are sent to bid me back into slavery again, and inform me +that my lord's favour is graciously restored to his handmaid? He is weary +of Covent Garden, is he, that he comes home and would have the fatted calf +killed?" + +"There's good authority for it, surely," said Esmond. + +"For a son, yes; but my lord is not my son. It was he who cast me away +from him. It was he who broke our happiness down, and he bids me to repair +it. It was he who showed himself to me at last, as he was, not as I had +thought him. It is he who comes before my children stupid and senseless +with wine--who leaves our company for that of frequenters of taverns and +bagnios--who goes from his home to the city yonder and his friends there, +and when he is tired of them returns hither, and expects that I shall +kneel and welcome him. And he sends _you_ as his chamberlain! What a proud +embassy! Monsieur, I make you my compliment of the new place." + +"It would be a proud embassy, and a happy embassy too, could I bring you +and my lord together," Esmond replied. + +"I presume you have fulfilled your mission now, sir. 'Twas a pretty one +for you to undertake. I don't know whether 'tis your Cambridge philosophy, +or time, that has altered your ways of thinking," Lady Castlewood +continued, still in a sarcastic tone. "Perhaps you too have learned to +love drink, and to hiccup over your wine or punch;--which is your worship's +favourite liquor? Perhaps you too put up at the 'Rose' on your way through +London, and have your acquaintances in Covent Garden. My services to you, +sir, to principal and ambassador, to master and--and lackey." + +"Great Heavens, madam," cried Harry, "what have I done that thus, for a +second time, you insult me? Do you wish me to blush for what I used to be +proud of, that I lived on your bounty? Next to doing you a service (which +my life would pay for), you know that to receive one from you is my +highest pleasure. What wrong have I done you that you should wound me so, +cruel woman?" + +"What wrong?" she said, looking at Esmond with wild eyes. "Well, none--none +that you know of, Harry, or could help. Why did you bring back the +small-pox," she added, after a pause, "from Castlewood village? You could +not help it, could you? Which of us knows whither fate leads us? But we +were all happy, Henry, till then." And Harry went away from this colloquy, +thinking still that the estrangement between his patron and his beloved +mistress was remediable, and that each had at heart a strong attachment to +the other. + +The intimacy between the Lords Mohun and Castlewood appeared to increase +as long as the former remained in the country; and my Lord of Castlewood +especially seemed never to be happy out of his new comrade's sight. They +sported together, they drank, they played bowls and tennis: my Lord +Castlewood would go for three days to Sark, and bring back my Lord Mohun +to Castlewood--where indeed his lordship made himself very welcome to all +persons, having a joke or a new game at romps for the children, all the +talk of the town for my lord, and music and gallantry and plenty of the +_beau langage_ for my lady, and for Harry Esmond, who was never tired of +hearing his stories of his campaigns and his life at Vienna, Venice, +Paris, and the famous cities of Europe which he had visited both in peace +and war. And he sang at my lady's harpsichord, and played cards or +backgammon, or his new game of billiards with my lord (of whom he +invariably got the better); always having a consummate good humour, and +bearing himself with a certain manly grace, that might exhibit somewhat of +the camp and Alsatia perhaps, but that had its charm and stamped him a +gentleman: and his manner to Lady Castlewood was so devoted and +respectful, that she soon recovered from the first feelings of dislike +which she had conceived against him--nay, before long, began to be +interested in his spiritual welfare, and hopeful of his conversion, +lending him books of piety, which he promised dutifully to study. With her +my lord talked of reform, of settling into quiet life, quitting the Court +and town, and buying some land in the neighbourhood--though it must be +owned that, when the two lords were together over their burgundy after +dinner, their talk was very different, and there was very little question +of conversion on my Lord Mohun's part. When they got to their second +bottle, Harry Esmond used commonly to leave these two noble topers, who, +though they talked freely enough, Heaven knows, in his presence (Good +Lord, what a set of stories, of Alsatia and Spring Garden, of the taverns +and gaming-houses, of the ladies of the Court, and mesdames of the +theatres, he can recall out of their godly conversation!)--although I say +they talked before Esmond freely, yet they seemed pleased when he went +away, and then they had another bottle, and then they fell to cards, and +then my Lord Mohun came to her ladyship's drawing-room; leaving his boon +companion to sleep off his wine. + +'Twas a point of honour with the fine gentlemen of those days to lose or +win magnificently at their horse-matches, or games of cards and dice--and +you could never tell, from the demeanour of these two lords afterwards, +which had been successful and which the loser at their games. And when my +lady hinted to my lord that he played more than she liked, he dismissed +her with a "pish", and swore that nothing was more equal than play betwixt +gentlemen, if they did but keep it up long enough. And these kept it up +long enough you may be sure. A man of fashion of that time often passed a +quarter of his day at cards, and another quarter at drink: I have known +many a pretty fellow, who was a wit too, ready of repartee, and possessed +of a thousand graces, who would be puzzled if he had to write more than +his name. + +There is scarce any thoughtful man or woman, I suppose, but can look back +upon his course of past life, and remember some point, trifling as it may +have seemed at the time of occurrence, which has nevertheless turned and +altered his whole career. 'Tis with almost all of us, as in Monsieur +Massillon's magnificent image regarding King William, a _grain de sable_ +that perverts or perhaps overthrows us; and so it was but a light word +flung in the air, a mere freak of a perverse child's temper, that brought +down a whole heap of crushing woes upon that family whereof Harry Esmond +formed a part. + +Coming home to his dear Castlewood in the third year of his academical +course (wherein he had now obtained some distinction, his Latin Poem on +the death of the Duke of Gloucester, Princess Anne of Denmark's son, +having gained him a medal, and introduced him to the society of the +University wits), Esmond found his little friend and pupil Beatrix grown +to be taller than her mother, a slim and lovely young girl, with cheeks +mantling with health and roses: with eyes like stars shining out of azure, +with waving bronze hair clustered about the fairest young forehead ever +seen: and a mien and shape haughty and beautiful, such as that of the +famous antique statue of the huntress Diana--at one time haughty, rapid, +imperious, with eyes and arrows that dart and kill. Harry watched and +wondered at this young creature, and likened her in his mind to Artemis +with the ringing bow and shafts flashing death upon the children of Niobe; +at another time she was coy and melting as Luna shining tenderly upon +Endymion. This fair creature, this lustrous Phoebe, was only young as yet, +nor had nearly reached her full splendour: but crescent and brilliant, our +young gentleman of the University, his head full of poetical fancies, his +heart perhaps throbbing with desires undefined, admired this rising young +divinity; and gazed at her (though only as at some "bright particular +star", far above his earth) with endless delight and wonder. She had been +a coquette from the earliest times almost, trying her freaks and +jealousies, her wayward frolics and winning caresses, upon all that came +within her reach; she set her women quarrelling in the nursery, and +practised her eyes on the groom as she rode behind him on the pillion. + +She was the darling and torment of father and mother. She intrigued with +each secretly; and bestowed her fondness and withdrew it, plied them with +tears, smiles, kisses, cajolements;--when the mother was angry, as happened +often, flew to the father, and sheltering behind him, pursued her victim; +when both were displeased, transferred her caresses to the domestics, or +watched until she could win back her parents' good graces, either by +surprising them into laughter and good humour, or appeasing them by +submission and artful humility. She was _saevo laeta negotio_, like that +fickle goddess Horace describes, and of whose "malicious joy" a great poet +of our own has written so nobly--who, famous and heroic as he was, was not +strong enough to resist the torture of women. + +It was but three years before, that the child, then but ten years old, had +nearly managed to make a quarrel between Harry Esmond and his comrade, +good-natured, phlegmatic Thomas Tusher, who never of his own seeking +quarrelled with anybody: by quoting to the latter some silly joke which +Harry had made regarding him--(it was the merest, idlest jest, though it +near drove two old friends to blows, and I think such a battle would have +pleased her)--and from that day Tom kept at a distance from her; and she +respected him, and coaxed him sedulously whenever they met. But Harry was +much more easily appeased, because he was fonder of the child: and when +she made mischief, used cutting speeches, or caused her friends pain, she +excused herself for her fault, not by admitting and deploring it, but by +pleading not guilty, and asserting innocence so constantly, and with such +seeming artlessness, that it was impossible to question her plea. In her +childhood, they were but mischiefs then which she did; but her power +became more fatal as she grew older--as a kitten first plays with a ball, +and then pounces on a bird and kills it. 'Tis not to be imagined that +Harry Esmond had all this experience at this early stage of his life, +whereof he is now writing the history--many things here noted were but +known to him in later days. Almost everything Beatrix did or undid seemed +good, or at least pardonable, to him then, and years afterwards. + +It happened, then, that Harry Esmond came home to Castlewood for his last +vacation, with good hopes of a fellowship at his college, and a contented +resolve to advance his fortune that way. 'Twas in the first year of the +present century, Mr. Esmond (as far as he knew the period of his birth) +being then twenty-two years old. He found his quondam pupil shot up into +this beauty of which we have spoken, and promising yet more: her brother, +my lord's son, a handsome high-spirited brave lad, generous and frank, and +kind to everybody, save perhaps his sister, with whom Frank was at war +(and not from his but her fault)--adoring his mother, whose joy he was: and +taking her side in the unhappy matrimonial differences which were now +permanent, while of course Mistress Beatrix ranged with her father. When +heads of families fall out, it must naturally be that their dependants +wear the one or the other party's colour; and even in the parliaments in +the servants' hall or the stables, Harry, who had an early observant turn, +could see which were my lord's adherents and which my lady's, and +conjecture pretty shrewdly how their unlucky quarrel was debated. Our +lackeys sit in judgement on us. My lord's intrigues may be ever so +stealthily conducted, but his valet knows them; and my lady's woman +carries her mistress's private history to the servants' scandal-market, +and exchanges it against the secrets of other abigails. + + + +Chapter XIII. My Lord Leaves Us And His Evil Behind Him + + +My Lord Mohun (of whose exploits and fame some of the gentlemen of the +University had brought down but ugly reports) was once more a guest at +Castlewood, and seemingly more intimately allied with my lord even than +before. Once in the spring those two noblemen had ridden to Cambridge from +Newmarket, whither they had gone for the horse-racing, and had honoured +Harry Esmond with a visit at his rooms; after which Doctor Montague, the +master of the college, who had treated Harry somewhat haughtily, seeing +his familiarity with these great folks, and that my Lord Castlewood +laughed and walked with his hand on Harry's shoulder, relented to Mr. +Esmond, and condescended to be very civil to him; and some days after his +arrival, Harry, laughing, told this story to Lady Esmond, remarking how +strange it was that men famous for learning and renowned over Europe, +should, nevertheless, so bow down to a title, and cringe to a nobleman +ever so poor. At this, Mistress Beatrix flung up her head, and said, it +became those of low origin to respect their betters; that the parsons made +themselves a great deal too proud, she thought; and that she liked the way +at Lady Sark's best, where the chaplain, though he loved pudding, as all +parsons do, always went away before the custard. + +"And when I am a parson," says Mr. Esmond, "will you give me no custard, +Beatrix?" + +"You--you are different," Beatrix answered. "You are of our blood." + +"My father was a parson, as you call him," said my lady. + +"But mine is a peer of Ireland," says Mistress Beatrix, tossing her head. +"Let people know their places. I suppose you will have me go down on my +knees and ask a blessing of Mr. Thomas Tusher, that has just been made a +curate, and whose mother was a waiting-maid." + +And she tossed out of the room, being in one of her flighty humours then. + +When she was gone, my lady looked so sad and grave, that Harry asked the +cause of her disquietude. She said it was not merely what he said of +Newmarket, but what she had remarked, with great anxiety and terror, that +my lord, ever since his acquaintance with the Lord Mohun especially, had +recurred to his fondness for play, which he had renounced since his +marriage. + +"But men promise more than they are able to perform in marriage," said my +lady, with a sigh. "I fear he has lost large sums; and our property, +always small, is dwindling away under this reckless dissipation. I heard +of him in London with very wild company. Since his return letters and +lawyers are constantly coming and going: he seems to me to have a constant +anxiety, though he hides it under boisterousness and laughter. I looked +through--through the door last night, and--and before," said my lady, "and +saw them at cards after midnight; no estate will bear that extravagance, +much less ours, which will be so diminished that my son will have nothing +at all, and my poor Beatrix no portion!" + +"I wish I could help you, madam," said Harry Esmond, sighing, and wishing +that unavailingly, and for the thousandth time in his life. + +"Who can? Only God," said Lady Esmond--"only God, in whose hands we are." +And so it is, and for his rule over his family, and for his conduct to +wife and children--subjects over whom his power is monarchical--any one who +watches the world must think with trembling sometimes of the account which +many a man will have to render. For in our society there's no law to +control the King of the Fireside. He is master of property, happiness--life +almost. He is free to punish, to make happy or unhappy--to ruin or to +torture. He may kill a wife gradually, and be no more questioned than the +Grand Seignior who drowns a slave at midnight. He may make slaves and +hypocrites of his children; or friends and freemen; or drive them into +revolt and enmity against the natural law of love. I have heard +politicians and coffee-house wiseacres talking over the newspaper, and +railing at the tyranny of the French king, and the emperor, and wondered +how these (who are monarchs, too, in their way) govern their own dominions +at home, where each man rules absolute? When the annals of each little +reign are shown to the Supreme Master, under whom we hold sovereignty, +histories will be laid bare of household tyrants as cruel as Amurath, and +as savage as Nero, and as reckless and dissolute as Charles. + +If Harry Esmond's patron erred, 'twas in the latter way, from a +disposition rather self-indulgent than cruel; and he might have been +brought back to much better feelings, had time been given to him to bring +his repentance to a lasting reform. + +As my lord and his friend Lord Mohun were such close companions, Mistress +Beatrix chose to be jealous of the latter; and the two gentlemen often +entertained each other by laughing, in their rude boisterous way, at the +child's freaks of anger and show of dislike. "When thou art old enough, +thou shalt marry Lord Mohun," Beatrix's father would say: on which the +girl would pout and say, "I would rather marry Tom Tusher." And because +the Lord Mohun always showed an extreme gallantry to my Lady Castlewood, +whom he professed to admire devotedly, one day, in answer to this old joke +of her father's, Beatrix said, "I think my lord would rather marry mamma +than marry me; and is waiting till you die to ask her." + +The words were said lightly and pertly by the girl one night before +supper, as the family party were assembled near the great fire. The two +lords, who were at cards, both gave a start; my lady turned as red as +scarlet, and bade Mistress Beatrix go to her own chamber; whereupon the +girl, putting on, as her wont was, the most innocent air, said, "I am sure +I meant no wrong; I am sure mamma talks a great deal more to Harry Esmond +than she does to papa--and she cried when Harry went away, and she never +does when papa goes away; and last night she talked to Lord Mohun for ever +so long, and sent us out of the room, and cried when we came back, and----" + +"D----n!" cried out my Lord Castlewood, out of all patience. "Go out of the +room, you little viper!" and he started up and flung down his cards. + +"Ask Lord Mohun what I said to him, Francis," her ladyship said, rising up +with a scared face, but yet with a great and touching dignity and candour +in her look and voice. "Come away with me, Beatrix." Beatrix sprung up +too; she was in tears now. + +"Dearest mamma, what have I done?" she asked. "Sure I meant no harm." And +she clung to her mother, and the pair went out sobbing together. + +"I will tell you what your wife said to me, Frank," my Lord Mohun +cried--"Parson Harry may hear it; and, as I hope for heaven, every word I +say is true. Last night, with tears in her eyes, your wife implored me to +play no more with you at dice or at cards, and you know best whether what +she asked was not for your good." + +"Of course it was, Mohun," says my lord, in a dry hard voice. "Of course, +you are a model of a man: and the world knows what a saint you are." + +My Lord Mohun was separated from his wife, and had had many affairs of +honour: of which women as usual had been the cause. + +"I am no saint, though your wife is--and I can answer for my actions as +other people must for their words," said my Lord Mohun. + +"By G----, my lord, you shall," cried the other, starting up. + +"We have another little account to settle first, my lord," says Lord +Mohun. Whereupon Harry Esmond, filled with alarm for the consequences to +which this disastrous dispute might lead, broke out into the most vehement +expostulations with his patron and his adversary. "Gracious Heavens!" he +said, "my lord, are you going to draw a sword upon your friend in your own +house? Can you doubt the honour of a lady who is as pure as Heaven, and +would die a thousand times rather than do you a wrong? Are the idle words +of a jealous child to set friends at variance? Has not my mistress, as +much as she dared to, besought your lordship, as the truth must be told, +to break your intimacy with my Lord Mohun; and to give up the habit which +may bring ruin on your family? But for my Lord Mohun's illness, had he not +left you?" + +"Faith, Frank, a man with a gouty toe can't run after other men's wives," +broke out my Lord Mohun, who indeed was in that way, and with a laugh and +a look at his swathed limb so frank and comical, that the other dashing +his fist across his forehead was caught by that infectious good humour, +and said with his oath, "---- it, Harry, I believe thee," and so this +quarrel was over, and the two gentlemen, at swords drawn but just now, +dropped their points, and shook hands. + +_Beati pacifici._ "Go, bring my lady back," said Harry's patron. Esmond +went away only too glad to be the bearer of such good news. He found her +at the door; she had been listening there, but went back as he came. She +took both his hands, hers were marble cold. She seemed as if she would +fall on his shoulder. "Thank you, and God bless you, my dear brother +Harry," she said. She kissed his hand, Esmond felt her tears upon it: and +leading her into the room, and up to my lord, the Lord Castlewood with an +outbreak of feeling and affection, such as he had not exhibited for many a +long day, took his wife to his heart, and bent over and kissed her and +asked her pardon. + +"'Tis time for me to go to roost. I will have my gruel abed," said my Lord +Mohun: and limped off comically on Harry Esmond's arm. "By George, that +woman is a pearl!" he said; "and 'tis only a pig that wouldn't value her. +Have you seen the vulgar trapesing orange-girl whom Esmond"--but here Mr. +Esmond interrupted him, saying, that these were not affairs for him to +know. + +My lord's gentleman came in to wait upon his master, who was no sooner in +his nightcap and dressing-gown than he had another visitor whom his host +insisted on sending to him: and this was no other than the Lady Castlewood +herself with the toast and gruel, which her husband bade her make and +carry with her own hands in to her guest. + +Lord Castlewood stood looking after his wife as she went on this errand, +and as he looked, Harry Esmond could not but gaze on him, and remarked in +his patron's face an expression of love, and grief, and care, which very +much moved and touched the young man. Lord Castlewood's hands fell down at +his sides, and his head on his breast, and presently he said-- + +"You heard what Mohun said, parson?" + +"That my lady was a saint?" + +"That there are two accounts to settle. I have been going wrong these five +years, Harry Esmond. Ever since you brought that damned small-pox into the +house, there has been a fate pursuing me, and I had best have died of it, +and not run away from it like a coward. I left Beatrix with her relations, +and went to London; and I fell among thieves, Harry, and I got back to +confounded cards and dice, which I hadn't touched since my marriage--no, +not since I was in the duke's guard, with those wild Mohocks. And I have +been playing worse and worse, and going deeper and deeper into it; and I +owe Mohun two thousand pounds now; and when it's paid I am little better +than a beggar. I don't like to look my boy in the face; he hates me, I +know he does. And I have spent Beaty's little portion; and the Lord knows +what will come if I live; the best thing I can do is to die, and release +what portion of the estate is redeemable for the boy." + +Mohun was as much master at Castlewood as the owner of the Hall itself; +and his equipages filled the stables, where, indeed, there was room in +plenty for many more horses than Harry Esmond's impoverished patron could +afford to keep. He had arrived on horseback with his people; but when his +gout broke out my Lord Mohun sent to London for a light chaise he had, +drawn by a pair of small horses, and running as swift, wherever roads were +good, as a Laplander's sledge. When this carriage came, his lordship was +eager to drive the Lady Castlewood abroad in it, and did so many times, +and at a rapid pace, greatly to his companion's enjoyment, who loved the +swift motion and the healthy breezes over the downs which lie hard upon +Castlewood, and stretch thence towards the sea. As this amusement was very +pleasant to her, and her lord, far from showing any mistrust of her +intimacy with Lord Mohun, encouraged her to be his companion; as if +willing, by his present extreme confidence, to make up for any past +mistrust which his jealousy had shown; the Lady Castlewood enjoyed herself +freely in this harmless diversion, which, it must be owned, her guest was +very eager to give her; and it seemed that she grew the more free with +Lord Mohun, and pleased with his company, because of some sacrifice which +his gallantry was pleased to make in her favour. + +Seeing the two gentlemen constantly at cards still of evenings, Harry +Esmond one day deplored to his mistress that this fatal infatuation of her +lord should continue; and now they seemed reconciled together, begged his +lady to hint to her husband that he should play no more. + +But Lady Castlewood, smiling archly and gaily, said she would speak to him +presently, and that, for a few nights more at least, he might be let to +have his amusement. + +"Indeed, madam," said Harry, "you know not what it costs you; and 'tis +easy for any observer who knows the game, to see that Lord Mohun is by far +the stronger of the two." + +"I know he is," says my lady, still with exceeding good humour; "he is not +only the best player, but the kindest player in the world." + +"Madam, madam," Esmond cried, transported and provoked. "Debts of honour +must be paid some time or other; and my master will be ruined if he goes +on." + +"Harry, shall I tell you a secret?" my lady replied, with kindness and +pleasure still in her eyes. "Francis will not be ruined if he goes on; he +will be rescued if he goes on. I repent of having spoken and thought +unkindly of the Lord Mohun when he was here in the past year. He is full +of much kindness and good: and 'tis my belief that we shall bring him to +better things. I have lent him Tillotson and your favourite Bishop Taylor, +and he is much touched, he says; and as a proof of his repentance--(and +herein lies my secret)--what do you think he is doing with Francis? He is +letting poor Frank win his money back again. He hath won already at the +last four nights; and my Lord Mohun says that he will not be the means of +injuring poor Frank and my dear children." + +"And in God's name, what do you return him for this sacrifice?" asked +Esmond, aghast; who knew enough of men, and of this one in particular, to +be aware that such a finished rake gave nothing for nothing. "How, in +Heaven's name, are you to pay him?" + +"Pay him! With a mother's blessing and a wife's prayers!" cries my lady, +clasping her hands together. Harry Esmond did not know whether to laugh, +to be angry, or to love his dear mistress more than ever for the obstinate +innocency with which she chose to regard the conduct of a man of the +world, whose designs he knew better how to interpret. He told the lady, +guardedly, but so as to make his meaning quite clear to her, what he knew +in respect of the former life and conduct of this nobleman; of other women +against whom he had plotted, and whom he had overcome; of the conversation +which he Harry himself had had with Lord Mohun, wherein the lord made a +boast of his libertinism, and frequently avowed that he held all women to +be fair game (as his lordship styled this pretty sport), and that they +were all, without exception, to be won. And the return Harry had for his +entreaties and remonstrances was a fit of anger on Lady Castlewood's part, +who would not listen to his accusations, she said, and retorted that he +himself must be very wicked and perverted, to suppose evil designs, where +she was sure none were meant. "And this is the good meddlers get of +interfering," Harry thought to himself with much bitterness; and his +perplexity and annoyance were only the greater, because he could not speak +to my Lord Castlewood himself upon a subject of this nature, or venture to +advise or warn him regarding a matter so very sacred as his own honour, of +which my lord was naturally the best guardian. + +But though Lady Castlewood would listen to no advice from her young +dependant, and appeared indignantly to refuse it when offered, Harry had +the satisfaction to find that she adopted the counsel which she professed +to reject; for the next day she pleaded a headache, when my Lord Mohun +would have had her drive out, and the next day the headache continued; and +next day, in a laughing gay way she proposed that the children should take +her place in his lordship's car, for they would be charmed with a ride of +all things; and she must not have all the pleasure for herself. My lord +gave them a drive with a very good grace, though I dare say with rage and +disappointment inwardly--not that his heart was very seriously engaged in +his designs upon this simple lady: but the life of such men is often one +of intrigue, and they can no more go through the day without a woman to +pursue, than a fox-hunter without his sport after breakfast. + +Under an affected carelessness of demeanour, and though there was no +outward demonstration of doubt upon his patron's part since the quarrel +between the two lords, Harry yet saw that Lord Castlewood was watching his +guest very narrowly; and caught signs of distrust and smothered rage (as +Harry thought) which foreboded no good. On the point of honour Esmond knew +how touchy his patron was; and watched him almost as a physician watches a +patient, and it seemed to him that this one was slow to take the disease, +though he could not throw off the poison when once it had mingled with his +blood. We read in Shakespeare (whom the writer for his part considers to +be far beyond Mr. Congreve, Mr. Dryden, or any of the wits of the present +period) that when jealousy is once declared, nor poppy, nor mandragora, +nor all the drowsy syrups of the East, will ever soothe it or medicine it +away. + +In fine, the symptoms seemed to be so alarming to this young physician +(who indeed young as he was had felt the kind pulses of all those dear +kinsmen), that Harry thought it would be his duty to warn my Lord Mohun, +and let him know that his designs were suspected and watched. So one day, +when in rather a pettish humour, his lordship had sent to Lady Castlewood, +who had promised to drive with him, and now refused to come, Harry +said--"My lord, if you will kindly give me a place by your side I will +thank you; I have much to say to you, and would like to speak to you +alone." + +"You honour me by giving me your confidence, Mr. Henry Esmond," says the +other, with a very grand bow. My lord was always a fine gentleman, and +young as he was there was that in Esmond's manner which showed that he was +a gentleman too, and that none might take a liberty with him--so the pair +went out, and mounted the little carriage which was in waiting for them in +the court, with its two little cream-coloured Hanoverian horses covered +with splendid furniture and champing at the bit. + +"My lord," says Harry Esmond, after they were got into the country, and +pointing to my Lord Mohun's foot, which was swathed in flannel, and put up +rather ostentatiously on a cushion--"my lord, I studied medicine at +Cambridge." + +"Indeed, Parson Harry," says he: "and are you going to take out a diploma: +and cure your fellow student of the----" + +"Of the gout," says Harry, interrupting him, and looking him hard in the +face; "I know a good deal about the gout." + +"I hope you may never have it. 'Tis an infernal disease," says my lord, +"and its twinges are diabolical. Ah!" and he made a dreadful wry face, as +if he just felt a twinge. + +"Your lordship would be much better if you took off all that flannel--it +only serves to inflame the toe," Harry continued, looking his man full in +the face. + +"Oh! it only serves to inflame the toe, does it?" says the other, with an +innocent air. + +"If you took off that flannel, and flung that absurd slipper away, and +wore a boot," continues Harry. + +"You recommend me boots, Mr. Esmond?" asks my lord. + +"Yes, boots and spurs. I saw your lordship three days ago run down the +gallery fast enough," Harry goes on. "I am sure that taking gruel at night +is not so pleasant as claret to your lordship; and besides it keeps your +lordship's head cool for play, whilst my patron's is hot and flustered +with drink." + +"'Sdeath, sir, you dare not say that I don't play fair?" cries my lord, +whipping his horses, which went away at a gallop. + +"You are cool when my lord is drunk," Harry continued; "your lordship gets +the better of my patron. I have watched you as I looked up from my books." + +"You young Argus!" says Lord Mohun, who liked Harry Esmond--and for whose +company and wit, and a certain daring manner, Harry had a great liking +too--"You young Argus! you may look with all your hundred eyes and see we +play fair. I've played away an estate of a night, and I've played my shirt +off my back; and I've played away my periwig and gone home in a nightcap. +But no man can say I ever took an advantage of him beyond the advantage of +the game. I played a dice-cogging scoundrel in Alsatia for his ears and +won 'em, and have one of 'em in my lodging in Bow Street in a bottle of +spirits. Harry Mohun will play any man for anything--always would." + +"You are playing awful stakes, my lord, in my patron's house," Harry said, +"and more games than are on the cards." + +"What do you mean, sir?" cries my lord, turning round, with a flush on his +face. + +"I mean," answers Harry, in a sarcastic tone, "that your gout is well--if +ever you had it." + +"Sir!" cried my lord, getting hot. + +"And to tell the truth I believe your lordship has no more gout than I +have. At any rate, change of air will do you good, my Lord Mohun. And I +mean fairly that you had better go from Castlewood." + +"And were you appointed to give me this message?" cries the Lord Mohun. +"Did Frank Esmond commission you?" + +"No one did. 'Twas the honour of my family that commissioned me." + +"And you are prepared to answer this?" cries the other, furiously lashing +his horses. + +"Quite, my lord: your lordship will upset the carriage if you whip so +hotly." + +"By George, you have a brave spirit!" my lord cried out, bursting into a +laugh. "I suppose 'tis that infernal _botte de Jesuite_ that makes you so +bold," he added. + +"'Tis the peace of the family I love best in the world," Harry Esmond said +warmly--"'tis the honour of a noble benefactor--the happiness of my dear +mistress and her children. I owe them everything in life, my lord; and +would lay it down for any one of them. What brings you here to disturb +this quiet household? What keeps you lingering month after month in the +country? What makes you feign illness and invent pretexts for delay? Is it +to win my poor patron's money? Be generous, my lord, and spare his +weakness for the sake of his wife and children. Is it to practise upon the +simple heart of a virtuous lady? You might as well storm the Tower +single-handed. But you may blemish her name by light comments on it, or by +lawless pursuits--and I don't deny that 'tis in your power to make her +unhappy. Spare these innocent people, and leave them." + +"By the Lord, I believe thou hast an eye to the pretty Puritan thyself, +Master Harry," says my lord, with his reckless, good-humoured laugh, and +as if he had been listening with interest to the passionate appeal of the +young man. "Whisper, Harry. Art thou in love with her thyself? Hath tipsy +Frank Esmond come by the way of all flesh?" + +"My lord, my lord," cried Harry, his face flushing and his eyes filling as +he spoke, "I never had a mother, but I love this lady as one. I worship +her as a devotee worships a saint. To hear her name spoken lightly seems +blasphemy to me. Would you dare think of your own mother so, or suffer any +one so to speak of her! It is a horror to me to fancy that any man should +think of her impurely. I implore you, I beseech you, to leave her. Danger +will come out of it." + +"Danger, psha!" says my lord, giving a cut to the horses, which at this +minute--for we were got on to the Downs--fairly ran off into a gallop that +no pulling could stop. The rein broke in Lord Mohun's hands, and the +furious beasts scampered madly forwards, the carriage swaying to and fro, +and the persons within it holding on to the sides as best they might, +until seeing a great ravine before them, where an upset was inevitable, +the two gentlemen leapt for their lives, each out of his side of the +chaise. Harry Esmond was quit for a fall on the grass, which was so severe +that it stunned him for a minute; but he got up presently very sick, and +bleeding at the nose, but with no other hurt. The Lord Mohun was not so +fortunate; he fell on his head against a stone, and lay on the ground dead +to all appearance. + +This misadventure happened as the gentlemen were on their return +homewards; and my Lord Castlewood, with his son and daughter, who were +going out for a ride, met the ponies as they were galloping with the car +behind, the broken traces entangling their heels, and my lord's people +turned and stopped them. It was young Frank who spied out Lord Mohun's +scarlet coat as he lay on the ground, and the party made up to that +unfortunate gentleman and Esmond, who was now standing over him. His large +periwig and feathered hat had fallen off, and he was bleeding profusely +from a wound on the forehead, and looking, and being, indeed, a corpse. + +"Great God! he's dead!" says my lord. "Ride, some one: fetch a +doctor--stay. I'll go home and bring back Tusher; he knows surgery," and my +lord, with his son after him, galloped away. + +They were scarce gone when Harry Esmond, who was indeed but just come to +himself, bethought him of a similar accident which he had seen on a ride +from Newmarket to Cambridge, and taking off a sleeve of my lord's coat, +Harry, with a penknife, opened a vein in his arm, and was greatly +relieved, after a moment, to see the blood flow. He was near half an hour +before he came to himself, by which time Doctor Tusher and little Frank +arrived, and found my lord not a corpse indeed, but as pale as one. + +After a time, and when he was able to bear motion, they put my lord upon a +groom's horse, and gave the other to Esmond, the men walking on each side +of my lord, to support him, if need were, and worthy Doctor Tusher with +them. Little Frank and Harry rode together at a foot pace. + +When we rode together home, the boy said: "We met mamma, who was walking +on the terrace with the doctor, and papa frightened her, and told her you +were dead----" + +"That I was dead?" asks Harry. + +"Yes. Papa says: 'Here's poor Harry killed, my dear;' on which mamma gives +a great scream; and oh, Harry! she drops down; and I thought she was dead, +too. And you never saw such a way as papa was in: he swore one of his +great oaths: and he turned quite pale; and then he began to laugh somehow, +and he told the doctor to take his horse, and me to follow him; and we +left him. And I looked back, and saw him dashing water out of the fountain +on to mamma. Oh, she was so frightened!" + +Musing upon this curious history--for my Lord Mohun's name was Henry too, +and they called each other Frank and Harry often--and not a little +disturbed and anxious, Esmond rode home. His dear lady was on the terrace +still, one of her women with her, and my lord no longer there. There are +steps and a little door thence down into the road. My lord passed, looking +very ghastly, with a handkerchief over his head, and without his hat and +periwig, which a groom carried, but his politeness did not desert him, and +he made a bow to the lady above. + +"Thank Heaven you are safe," she said. + +"And so is Harry, too, mamma," says little Frank,--"huzzay!" + +Harry Esmond got off the horse to run to his mistress, as did little +Frank, and one of the grooms took charge of the two beasts, while the +other, hat and periwig in hand, walked by my lord's bridle to the front +gate, which lay half a mile away. + +"Oh, my boy! what a fright you have given me!" Lady Castlewood said, when +Harry Esmond came up, greeting him with one of her shining looks, and a +voice of tender welcome; and she was so kind as to kiss the young man +('twas the second time she had so honoured him), and she walked into the +house between him and her son, holding a hand of each. + + + +Chapter XIV. We Ride After Him To London + + +After a repose of a couple of days, the Lord Mohun was so far recovered of +his hurt as to be able to announce his departure for the next morning; +when, accordingly, he took leave of Castlewood, proposing to ride to +London by easy stages, and lie two nights upon the road. His host treated +him with a studied and ceremonious courtesy, certainly different from my +lord's usual frank and careless demeanour; but there was no reason to +suppose that the two lords parted otherwise than good friends, though +Harry Esmond remarked that my lord viscount only saw his guest in company +with other persons, and seemed to avoid being alone with him. Nor did he +ride any distance with Lord Mohun, as his custom was with most of his +friends, whom he was always eager to welcome and unwilling to lose; but +contented himself, when his lordship's horses were announced, and their +owner appeared booted for his journey, to take a courteous leave of the +ladies of Castlewood, by following the Lord Mohun downstairs to his +horses, and by bowing and wishing him a good day, in the courtyard. "I +shall see you in London before very long, Mohun," my lord said, with, a +smile; "when we will settle our accounts together." + +"Do not let them trouble you, Frank," said the other good-naturedly, and, +holding out his hand, looked rather surprised at the grim and stately +manner in which his host received his parting salutation: and so, followed +by his people, he rode away. + +Harry Esmond was witness of the departure. It was very different to my +lord's coming, for which great preparation had been made (the old house +putting on its best appearance to welcome its guest), and there was a +sadness and constraint about all persons that day, which filled Mr. Esmond +with gloomy forebodings, and sad indefinite apprehensions. Lord Castlewood +stood at the door watching his guest and his people as they went out under +the arch of the outer gate. When he was there, Lord Mohun turned once +more, my lord viscount slowly raised his beaver and bowed. His face wore a +peculiar livid look, Harry thought. He cursed and kicked away his dogs, +which came jumping about him--then he walked up to the fountain in the +centre of the court, and leaned against a pillar and looked into the +basin. As Esmond crossed over to his own room, late the chaplain's, on the +other side of the court, and turned to enter in at the low door, he saw +Lady Castlewood looking through the curtains of the great window of the +drawing-room overhead, at my lord as he stood regarding the fountain. +There was in the court a peculiar silence somehow; and the scene remained +long in Esmond's memory;--the sky bright overhead; the buttresses of the +building and the sundial casting shadow over the gilt _memento mori_ +inscribed underneath; the two dogs, a black greyhound and a spaniel nearly +white, the one with his face up to the sun, and the other snuffing amongst +the grass and stones, and my lord leaning over the fountain, which was +plashing audibly. 'Tis strange how that scene and the sound of that +fountain remain fixed on the memory of a man who has beheld a hundred +sights of splendour, and danger too, of which he has kept no account. + +It was Lady Castlewood, she had been laughing all the morning, and +especially gay and lively before her husband and his guest, who, as soon +as the two gentlemen went together from her room, ran to Harry, the +expression of her countenance quite changed now, and with a face and eyes +full of care, and said, "Follow them, Harry, I am sure something has gone +wrong." And so it was that Esmond was made an eavesdropper at this lady's +orders: and retired to his own chamber, to give himself time in truth to +try and compose a story which would soothe his mistress, for he could not +but have his own apprehension that some serious quarrel was pending +between the two gentlemen. + +And now for several days the little company at Castlewood sat at table as +of evenings: this care, though unnamed and invisible, being nevertheless +present alway, in the minds of at least three persons there. My lord was +exceeding gentle and kind. Whenever he quitted the room, his wife's eyes +followed him. He behaved to her with a kind of mournful courtesy and +kindness remarkable in one of his blunt ways and ordinary rough manner. He +called her by her Christian name often and fondly, was very soft and +gentle with the children, especially with the boy, whom he did not love, +and being lax about church generally, he went thither and performed all +the offices (down even to listening to Doctor Tusher's sermon) with great +devotion. + +"He paces his room all night; what is it? Henry, find out what it is," +Lady Castlewood said constantly to her young dependant. "He has sent three +letters to London," she said, another day. + +"Indeed, madam, they were to a lawyer," Harry answered, who knew of these +letters, and had seen a part of the correspondence, which related to a new +loan my lord was raising; and when the young man remonstrated with his +patron, my lord said, "He was only raising money to pay off an old debt on +the property, which must be discharged." + +Regarding the money, Lady Castlewood was not in the least anxious. Few +fond women feel money-distressed; indeed you can hardly give a woman a +greater pleasure than to bid her pawn her diamonds for the man she loves; +and I remember hearing Mr. Congreve say of my Lord Marlborough, that the +reason why my lord was so successful with women as a young man was, +because he took money of them. "There are few men who will make such a +sacrifice for them," says Mr. Congreve, who knew a part of the sex pretty +well. + +Harry Esmond's vacation was just over, and, as hath been said, he was +preparing to return to the University for his last term before taking his +degree and entering into the Church. He had made up his mind for this +office, not indeed with that reverence which becomes a man about to enter +upon a duty so holy, but with a worldly spirit of acquiescence in the +prudence of adopting that profession for his calling. But his reasoning +was that he owed all to the family of Castlewood, and loved better to be +near them than anywhere else in the world; that he might be useful to his +benefactors, who had the utmost confidence in him and affection for him in +return; that he might aid in bringing up the young heir of the house and +acting as his governor; that he might continue to be his dear patron's and +mistress's friend and adviser, who both were pleased to say that they +should ever look upon him as such: and so, by making himself useful to +those he loved best, he proposed to console himself for giving up of any +schemes of ambition which he might have had in his own bosom. Indeed, his +mistress had told him that she would not have him leave her; and whatever +she commanded was will to him. + +The Lady Castlewood's mind was greatly relieved in the last few days of +this well-remembered holiday time, by my lord's announcing one morning, +after the post had brought him letters from London, in a careless tone, +that the Lord Mohun was gone to Paris, and was about to make a great +journey in Europe; and though Lord Castlewood's own gloom did not wear +off, or his behaviour alter, yet this cause of anxiety being removed from +his lady's mind, she began to be more hopeful and easy in her spirits: +striving too, with all her heart, and by all the means of soothing in her +power, to call back my lord's cheerfulness and dissipate his moody humour. + +He accounted for it himself, by saying that he was out of health; that he +wanted to see his physician; that he would go to London, and consult +Doctor Cheyne. It was agreed that his lordship and Harry Esmond should +make the journey as far as London together; and of a Monday morning, the +10th of October, in the year 1700, they set forwards towards London on +horseback. The day before being Sunday, and the rain pouring down, the +family did not visit church; and at night my lord read the service to his +family, very finely, and with a peculiar sweetness and gravity--speaking +the parting benediction, Harry thought, as solemn as ever he heard it. And +he kissed and embraced his wife and children before they went to their own +chambers with more fondness than he was ordinarily wont to show, and with +a solemnity and feeling of which they thought in after days with no small +comfort. + +They took horse the next morning (after adieux from the family as tender +as on the night previous), lay that night on the road, and entered London +at nightfall; my lord going to the "Trumpet", in the Cockpit, Whitehall, a +house used by the military in his time as a young man, and accustomed by +his lordship ever since. + +An hour after my lord's arrival (which showed that his visit had been +arranged beforehand), my lord's man of business arrived from Gray's Inn; +and thinking that his patron might wish to be private with the lawyer, +Esmond was for leaving them: but my lord said his business was short; +introduced Mr. Esmond particularly to the lawyer, who had been engaged for +the family in the old lord's time; who said that he had paid the money, as +desired that day, to my Lord Mohun himself, at his lodgings in Bow Street; +that his lordship had expressed some surprise, as it was not customary to +employ lawyers, he said, in such transactions between men of honour; but, +nevertheless, he had returned my lord viscount's note of hand, which he +held at his client's disposition. + +"I thought the Lord Mohun had been in Paris!" cried Mr. Esmond, in great +alarm and astonishment. + +"He is come back at my invitation," said my lord viscount. "We have +accounts to settle together." + +"I pray Heaven they are over, sir," says Esmond. + +"Oh, quite," replied the other, looking hard at the young man. "He was +rather troublesome about that money which I told you I had lost to him at +play. And now 'tis paid, and we are quits on that score, and we shall meet +good friends again." + +"My lord," cried out Esmond, "I am sure you are deceiving me, and that +there is a quarrel between the Lord Mohun and you." + +"Quarrel--pish! We shall sup together this very night, and drink a bottle. +Every man is ill-humoured who loses such a sum as I have lost. But now +'tis paid, and my anger is gone with it." + +"Where shall we sup, sir?" says Harry. + +"_We!_ Let some gentlemen wait till they are asked," says my lord +viscount, with a laugh. "You go to Duke Street, and see Mr. Betterton. You +love the play, I know. Leave me to follow my own devices; and in the +morning we'll breakfast together, with what appetite we may, as the play +says." + +"By G----! my lord, I will not leave you this night," says Harry Esmond. "I +think I know the cause of your dispute. I swear to you 'tis nothing. On +the very day the accident befell Lord Mohun, I was speaking to him about +it. I know that nothing has passed but idle gallantry on his part." + +"You know that nothing has passed but idle gallantry between Lord Mohun +and my wife," says my lord, in a thundering voice--"you knew of this, and +did not tell me?" + +"I knew more of it than my dear mistress did herself, sir--a thousand times +more. How was she, who was as innocent as a child, to know what was the +meaning of the covert addresses of a villain?" + +"A villain he is, you allow, and would have taken my wife away from me." + +"Sir, she is as pure as an angel," cried young Esmond. + +"Have I said a word against her?" shrieks out my lord. "Did I ever doubt +that she was pure? It would have been the last day of her life when I did. +Do you fancy I think that _she_ would go astray? No, she hasn't passion +enough for that. She neither sins nor forgives. I know her temper--and now +I've lost her: by Heaven I love her ten thousand times more than ever I +did--yes, when she was young and as beautiful as an angel--when she smiled +at me in her old father's house, and used to lie in wait for me there as I +came from hunting--when I used to fling my head down on her little knees +and cry like a child on her lap--and swear I would reform and drink no +more, and play no more, and follow women no more; when all the men of the +Court used to be following her--when she used to look with her child more +beautiful, by George, than the Madonna in the Queen's Chapel. I am not +good like her, I know it. Who is--by Heaven, who is? I tired and wearied +her, I know that very well. I could not talk to her. You men of wit and +books could do that, and I couldn't--I felt I couldn't. Why, when you was +but a boy of fifteen I could hear you two together talking your poetry and +your books till I was in such a rage that I was fit to strangle you. But +you were always a good lad, Harry, and I loved you, you know I did. And I +felt she didn't belong to me: and the children don't. And I besotted +myself, and gambled, and drank, and took to all sorts of devilries out of +despair and fury. And now comes this Mohun, and she likes him, I know she +likes him." + +"Indeed, and on my soul, you are wrong, sir," Esmond cried. + +"She takes letters from him," cries my lord--"look here Harry," and he +pulled out a paper with a brown stain of blood upon it. "It fell from him +that day he wasn't killed. One of the grooms picked it up from the ground +and gave it me. Here it is in their d----d comedy jargon. 'Divine +Gloriana--Why look so coldly on your slave who adores you? Have you no +compassion on the tortures you have seen me suffering? Do you vouchsafe no +reply to billets that are written with the blood of my heart.' She had +more letters from him." + +"But she answered none," cries Esmond. + +"That's not Mohun's fault," says my lord, "and I will be revenged on him, +as God's in heaven, I will." + +"For a light word or two, will you risk your lady's honour and your +family's happiness, my lord?" Esmond interposed beseechingly. + +"Psha--there shall be no question of my wife's honour," said my lord; "we +can quarrel on plenty of grounds beside. If I live, that villain will be +punished; if I fall, my family will be only the better: there will only be +a spendthrift the less to keep in the world: and Frank has better teaching +than his father. My mind is made up, Harry Esmond, and whatever the event +is I am easy about it. I leave my wife and you as guardians to the +children." + +Seeing that my lord was bent upon pursuing this quarrel, and that no +entreaties would draw him from it, Harry Esmond (then of a hotter and more +impetuous nature than now, when care, and reflection, and grey hairs have +calmed him) thought it was his duty to stand by his kind generous patron, +and said--"My lord, if you are determined upon war, you must not go into it +alone. 'Tis the duty of our house to stand by its chief: and I should +neither forgive myself nor you if you did not call me, or I should be +absent from you at a moment of danger." + +"Why, Harry, my poor boy, you are bred for a parson," says my lord, taking +Esmond by the hand very kindly: "and it were a great pity that you should +meddle in the matter." + +"Your lordship thought of being a churchman once," Harry answered, "and +your father's orders did not prevent him fighting at Castlewood against +the Roundheads. Your enemies are mine, sir: I can use the foils, as you +have seen, indifferently well, and don't think I shall be afraid when the +buttons are taken off 'em." And then Harry explained with some blushes and +hesitation (for the matter was delicate, and he feared lest, by having put +himself forward in the quarrel, he might have offended his patron), how he +had himself expostulated with the Lord Mohun, and proposed to measure +swords with him if need were, and he could not be got to withdraw +peaceably in this dispute. "And I should have beat him, sir," says Harry, +laughing. "He never could parry that _botte_ I brought from Cambridge. Let +us have half an hour of it, and rehearse--I can teach it your lordship: +'tis the most delicate point in the world, and if you miss it your +adversary's sword is through you." + +"By George, Harry! you ought to be the head of the house," says my lord +gloomily. "You had been better Lord Castlewood than a lazy sot like me," +he added, drawing his hand across his eyes, and surveying his kinsman with +very kind and affectionate glances. + +"Let us take our coats off and have half an hour's practice before +nightfall," says Harry, after thankfully grasping his patron's manly hand. + +"You are but a little bit of a lad," says my lord good-humouredly; "but, +in faith, I believe you could do for that fellow. No, my boy," he +continued, "I'll have none of your feints and tricks of stabbing: I can +use my sword pretty well too, and will fight my own quarrel my own way." + +"But I shall be by to see fair play," cries Harry. + +"Yes, God bless you--you shall be by." + +"When is it, sir?" says Harry, for he saw that the matter had been +arranged privately, and beforehand, by my lord. + +"'Tis arranged thus: I sent off a courier to Jack Westbury to say that I +wanted him specially. He knows for what, and will be here presently, and +drink part of that bottle of sack. Then we shall go to the theatre in Duke +Street, where we shall meet Mohun; and then we shall all go sup at the +'Rose' or the 'Greyhound'. Then we shall call for cards, and there will be +probably a difference over the cards--and then, God help us!--either a +wicked villain and traitor shall go out of the world, or a poor worthless +devil, that doesn't care to remain in it. I am better away, Hal--my wife +will be all the happier when I am gone," says my lord, with a groan, that +tore the heart of Harry Esmond so that he fairly broke into a sob over his +patron's kind hand. + +"The business was talked over with Mohun before he left home--Castlewood I +mean"--my lord went on. "I took the letter in to him, which I had read, and +I charged him with his villany, and he could make no denial of it, only he +said that my wife was innocent." + +"And so she is; before Heaven, my lord, she is!" cries Harry. + +"No doubt, no doubt. They always are," says my lord. "No doubt, when she +heard he was killed, she fainted from accident." + +"But, my lord, _my_ name is Harry," cried out Esmond, burning red. "You +told my lady, 'Harry was killed!' " + +"Damnation! shall I fight you too?" shouts my lord, in a fury. "Are you, +you little serpent, warmed by my fire, going to sting--_you?_--No, my boy, +you're an honest boy; you are a good boy." (And here he broke from rage +into tears even more cruel to see.) "You are an honest boy, and I love +you; and, by Heavens, I am so wretched that I don't care what sword it is +that ends me. Stop, here's Jack Westbury. Well, Jack! Welcome, old boy! +This is my kinsman, Harry Esmond." + +"Who brought your bowls for you at Castlewood, sir," says Harry, bowing; +and the three gentlemen sat down and drank of that bottle of sack which +was prepared for them. + +"Harry is number three," says my lord. "You needn't be afraid of him, +Jack." And the colonel gave a look, as much as to say, "Indeed, he don't +look as if I need." And then my lord explained what he had only told by +hints before. When he quarrelled with Lord Mohun he was indebted to his +lordship in a sum of sixteen hundred pounds, for which Lord Mohun said he +proposed to wait until my lord viscount should pay him. My lord had raised +the sixteen hundred pounds and sent them to Lord Mohun that morning, and +before quitting home had put his affairs into order, and was now quite +ready to abide the issue of the quarrel. + +When we had drunk a couple of bottles of sack, a coach was called, and the +three gentlemen went to the Duke's Playhouse, as agreed. The play was one +of Mr. Wycherley's--_Love in a Wood_. + +Harry Esmond has thought of that play ever since with a kind of terror, +and of Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress who performed the girl's part in the +comedy. She was disguised as a page, and came and stood before the +gentlemen as they sat on the stage, and looked over her shoulder with a +pair of arch black eyes, and laughed at my lord, and asked what ailed the +gentlemen from the country, and had he had bad news from Bullock Fair? + +Between the acts of the play the gentlemen crossed over and conversed +freely. There were two of Lord Mohun's party, Captain Macartney, in a +military habit, and a gentleman in a suit of blue velvet and silver in a +fair periwig, with a rich fall of point of Venice lace--my lord the Earl of +Warwick and Holland. My lord had a paper of oranges, which he ate and +offered to the actresses, joking with them. And Mrs. Bracegirdle, when my +Lord Mohun said something rude, turned on him, and asked him what he did +there, and whether he and his friends had come to stab anybody else, as +they did poor Will Mountford? My lord's dark face grew darker at this +taunt, and wore a mischievous fatal look. They that saw it remembered it, +and said so afterward. + +When the play was ended the two parties joined company; and my Lord +Castlewood then proposed that they should go to a tavern and sup. +Lockit's, the "Greyhound", in Charing Cross, was the house selected. All +six marched together that way; the three lords going ahead, Lord Mohun's +captain, and Colonel Westbury, and Harry Esmond, walking behind them. As +they walked, Westbury told Harry Esmond about his old friend Dick the +Scholar, who had got promotion, and was cornet of the Guards, and had +wrote a book called the _Christian Hero_, and had all the Guards to laugh +at him for his pains, for the Christian Hero was breaking the commandments +constantly, Westbury said, and had fought one or two duels already. And, +in a lower tone, Westbury besought young Mr. Esmond to take no part in the +quarrel. "There was no need for more seconds than one," said the colonel, +"and the captain or Lord Warwick might easily withdraw." But Harry said +no; he was bent on going through with the business. Indeed, he had a plan +in his head, which, he thought, might prevent my lord viscount from +engaging. + +They went in at the bar of the tavern, and desired a private room and wine +and cards, and when the drawer had brought these, they began to drink and +call healths, and as long as the servants were in the room appeared very +friendly. + +Harry Esmond's plan was no other than to engage in talk with Lord Mohun, +to insult him, and so get the first of the quarrel. So when cards were +proposed he offered to play. "Psha!" says my Lord Mohun (whether wishing +to save Harry, or not choosing to try the _botte de Jesuite_, it is not to +be known)--"young gentlemen from college should not play these stakes. You +are too young." + +"Who dares say I am too young?" broke out Harry. "Is your lordship +afraid?" + +"Afraid!" cries out Mohun. + +But my good lord viscount saw the move--"I'll play you for ten moidores, +Mohun," says he--"You silly boy, we don't play for groats here as you do at +Cambridge:" and Harry, who had no such sum in his pocket (for his +half-year's salary was always pretty well spent before it was due), fell +back with rage and vexation in his heart that he had not money enough to +stake. + +"I'll stake the young gentleman a crown," says the Lord Mohun's captain. + +"I thought crowns were rather scarce with the gentlemen of the army," says +Harry. + +"Do they birch at college?" says the captain. + +"They birch fools," says Harry, "and they cane bullies, and they fling +puppies into the water." + +"Faith, then, there's some escapes drowning," says the captain, who was an +Irishman; and all the gentlemen began to laugh, and made poor Harry only +more angry. + +My Lord Mohun presently snuffed a candle. It was when the drawers brought +in fresh bottles and glasses and were in the room--on which my lord +viscount said--"The deuce take you, Mohun, how damned awkward you are! +Light the candle, you drawer." + +"Damned awkward is a damned awkward expression, my lord," says the other. +"Town gentlemen don't use such words--or ask pardon if they do." + +"I'm a country gentleman," says my lord viscount. + +"I see it by your manner," says my Lord Mohun. "No man shall say 'damned +awkward' to me." + +"I fling the words in your face, my lord," says the other; "shall I send +the cards too?" + +"Gentlemen, gentlemen! before the servants?" cry out Colonel Westbury and +my Lord Warwick in a breath. The drawers go out of the room hastily. They +tell the people below of the quarrel upstairs. + +"Enough has been said," says Colonel Westbury. "Will your lordships meet +to-morrow morning?" + +"Will my Lord Castlewood withdraw his words?" asks the Earl of Warwick. + +"My Lord Castlewood will be ---- first," says Colonel Westbury. + +"Then we have nothing for it. Take notice, gentlemen, there have been +outrageous words--reparation asked and refused." + +"And refused," says my Lord Castlewood, putting on his hat. "Where shall +the meeting be? and when?" + +"Since my lord refuses me satisfaction, which I deeply regret, there is no +time so good as now," says my Lord Mohun. "Let us have chairs and go to +Leicester Field." + +"Are your lordship and I to have the honour of exchanging a pass or two?" +says Colonel Westbury, with a low bow to my Lord of Warwick and Holland. + +"It is an honour for me," says my lord, with a profound congee, "to be +matched with a gentleman who has been at Mons and Namur." + +"Will your reverence permit me to give you a lesson?" says the captain. + +"Nay, nay, gentlemen, two on a side are plenty," says Harry's patron. +"Spare the boy, Captain Macartney," and he shook Harry's hand--for the last +time, save one, in his life. + +At the bar of the tavern all the gentlemen stopped, and my lord viscount +said, laughing, to the barwoman, that those cards set people sadly +a-quarrelling; but that the dispute was over now, and the parties were all +going away to my Lord Mohun's house, in Bow Street, to drink a bottle more +before going to bed. + +A half-dozen of chairs were now called, and the six gentlemen stepping +into them, the word was privately given to the chairmen to go to Leicester +Field, where the gentlemen were set down opposite the "Standard" Tavern. +It was midnight, and the town was abed by this time, and only a few lights +in the windows of the houses; but the night was bright enough for the +unhappy purpose which the disputants came about; and so all six entered +into that fatal square, the chairmen standing without the railing and +keeping the gate, lest any persons should disturb the meeting. + +All that happened there hath been matter of public notoriety, and is +recorded, for warning to lawless men, in the annals of our country. After +being engaged for not more than a couple of minutes, as Harry Esmond +thought (though being occupied at the time with his own adversary's point, +which was active, he may not have taken a good note of time), a cry from +the chairmen without, who were smoking their pipes, and leaning over the +railings of the field as they watched the dim combat within, announced +that some catastrophe had happened which caused Esmond to drop his sword +and look round, at which moment his enemy wounded him in the right hand. +But the young man did not heed this hurt much, and ran up to the place +where he saw his dear master was down. + +My Lord Mohun was standing over him. + +"Are you much hurt, Frank?" he asked, in a hollow voice. + +"I believe I'm a dead man," my lord said from the ground. + +"No, no, not so," says the other; "and I call God to witness, Frank +Esmond, that I would have asked your pardon, had you but given me a +chance. In--in the first cause of our falling out, I swear that no one was +to blame but me, and--and that my lady----" + +"Hush!" says my poor lord viscount, lifting himself on his elbow, and +speaking faintly. "'Twas a dispute about the cards--the cursed cards. +Harry, my boy, are you wounded, too? God help thee! I loved thee, Harry, +and thou must watch over my little Frank--and--and carry this little heart +to my wife." + +And here my dear lord felt in his breast for a locket he wore there, and, +in the act, fell back, fainting. + +We were all at this terrified, thinking him dead; but Esmond and Colonel +Westbury bade the chairmen to come into the field; and so my lord was +carried to one Mr. Aimes, a surgeon, in Long Acre, who kept a bath, and +there the house was wakened up, and the victim of this quarrel carried in. + +My lord viscount was put to bed, and his wound looked to by the surgeon, +who seemed both kind and skilful. When he had looked to my lord, he +bandaged up Harry Esmond's hand (who, from loss of blood, had fainted too, +in the house, and may have been some time unconscious); and when the young +man came to himself, you may be sure he eagerly asked what news there were +of his dear patron; on which the surgeon carried him to the room where the +Lord Castlewood lay; who had already sent for a priest; and desired +earnestly, they said, to speak with his kinsman. He was lying on a bed, +very pale and ghastly, with that fixed, fatal look in his eyes, which +betokens death; and faintly beckoning all the other persons away from him +with his hand, and crying out "Only Harry Esmond", the hand fell powerless +down on the coverlet, as Harry came forward, and knelt down and kissed it. + +"Thou art all but a priest, Harry," my lord viscount gasped out, with a +faint smile, and pressure of his cold hand. "Are they all gone? Let me +make thee a death-bed confession." + +And with sacred Death waiting, as it were, at the bed-foot, as an awful +witness of his words, the poor dying soul gasped out his last wishes in +respect of his family;--his humble profession of contrition for his +faults;--and his charity towards the world he was leaving. Some things he +said concerned Harry Esmond as much as they astonished him. And my lord +viscount, sinking visibly, was in the midst of these strange confessions, +when the ecclesiastic for whom my lord had sent, Mr. Atterbury, arrived. + +This gentleman had reached to no great church dignity as yet, but was only +preacher at St. Bride's, drawing all the town thither by his eloquent +sermons. He was godson to my lord, who had been pupil to his father; had +paid a visit to Castlewood from Oxford more than once; and it was by his +advice, I think, that Harry Esmond was sent to Cambridge, rather than to +Oxford, of which place Mr. Atterbury, though a distinguished member, spoke +but ill. + +Our messenger found the good priest already at his books, at five o'clock +in the morning, and he followed the man eagerly to the house where my poor +lord viscount lay--Esmond watching him, and taking his dying words from his +mouth. + +My lord, hearing of Mr. Atterbury's arrival, and squeezing Esmond's hand, +asked to be alone with the priest; and Esmond left them there for this +solemn interview. You may be sure that his own prayers and grief +accompanied that dying benefactor. My lord had said to him that which +confounded the young man--informed him of a secret which greatly concerned +him. Indeed, after hearing it, he had had good cause for doubt and dismay; +for mental anguish as well as resolution. While the colloquy between Mr. +Atterbury and his dying penitent took place within, an immense contest of +perplexity was agitating Lord Castlewood's young companion. + +At the end of an hour--it may be more--Mr. Atterbury came out of the room +looking very hard at Esmond, and holding a paper. + +"He is on the brink of God's awful judgement," the priest whispered. "He +has made his breast clean to me. He forgives and believes, and makes +restitution. Shall it be in public? Shall we call a witness to sign it?" + +"God knows," sobbed out the young man, "my dearest lord has only done me +kindness all his life." + +The priest put the paper into Esmond's hand. He looked at it. It swam +before his eyes. + +"'Tis a confession," he said. + +"'Tis as you please," said Mr. Atterbury. + +There was a fire in the room, where the cloths were drying for the baths, +and there lay a heap in a corner, saturated with the blood of my dear +lord's body. Esmond went to the fire, and threw the paper into it. 'Twas a +great chimney with glazed Dutch tiles. How we remember such trifles in +such awful moments!--the scrap of the book that we have read in a great +grief--the taste of that last dish that we have eaten before a duel or some +such supreme meeting or parting. On the Dutch tiles at the bagnio was a +rude picture representing Jacob in hairy gloves, cheating Isaac of Esau's +birthright. The burning paper lighted it up. + +"'Tis only a confession, Mr. Atterbury," said the young man. He leaned his +head against the mantelpiece: a burst of tears came to his eyes. They were +the first he had shed as he sat by his lord, scared by this calamity and +more yet by what the poor dying gentleman had told him, and shocked to +think that he should be the agent of bringing this double misfortune on +those he loved best. + +"Let us go to him," said Mr. Esmond. And accordingly they went into the +next chamber, where, by this time, the dawn had broke, which showed my +lord's poor pale face and wild appealing eyes, that wore that awful fatal +look of coming dissolution. The surgeon was with him. He went into the +chamber as Atterbury came out thence. My lord viscount turned round his +sick eyes towards Esmond. It choked the other to hear that rattle in his +throat. + +"My lord viscount," says Mr. Atterbury, "Mr. Esmond wants no witnesses, +and hath burned the paper." + +"My dearest master!" Esmond said, kneeling down, and taking his hand and +kissing it. + +My lord viscount sprang up in his bed, and flung his arms round Esmond. +"God bl--bless...," was all he said. The blood rushed from his mouth, +deluging the young man. My dearest lord was no more. He was gone with a +blessing on his lips, and love and repentance and kindness in his manly +heart. + +"_Benedicti benedicentes_," says Mr. Atterbury, and the young man kneeling +at the bedside, groaned out an Amen. + +"Who shall take the news to her?" was Mr. Esmond's next thought. And on +this he besought Mr. Atterbury to bear the tidings to Castlewood. He could +not face his mistress himself with those dreadful news. Mr. Atterbury +complying kindly, Esmond writ a hasty note on his table-book to my lord's +man, bidding him get the horses for Mr. Atterbury, and ride with him, and +send Esmond's own valise to the Gatehouse prison, whither he resolved to +go and give himself up. + + + + +Book II. Contains Mr. Esmond's Military Life, And Other Matters +Appertaining To The Esmond Family + + + +Chapter I. I Am In Prison, And Visited, But Not Consoled There + + +Those may imagine, who have seen death untimely strike down persons +revered and beloved, and know how unavailing consolation is, what was +Harry Esmond's anguish after being an actor in that ghastly midnight scene +of blood and homicide. He could not, he felt, have faced his dear +mistress, and told her that story. He was thankful that kind Atterbury +consented to break the sad news to her; but, besides his grief, which he +took into prison with him, he had that in his heart which secretly cheered +and consoled him. + +A great secret had been told to Esmond by his unhappy stricken kinsman, +lying on his death-bed. Were he to disclose it, as in equity and honour he +might do, the discovery would but bring greater grief upon those whom he +loved best in the world, and who were sad enough already. Should he bring +down shame and perplexity upon all those beings to whom he was attached by +so many tender ties of affection and gratitude? degrade his father's +widow? impeach and sully his father's and kinsman's honour? and for what? +for a barren title, to be worn at the expense of an innocent boy, the son +of his dearest benefactress. He had debated this matter in his conscience, +whilst his poor lord was making his dying confession. On one side were +ambition, temptation, justice even; but love, gratitude, and fidelity, +pleaded on the other. And when the struggle was over in Harry's mind, a +glow of righteous happiness filled it; and it was with grateful tears in +his eyes that he returned thanks to God for that decision which he had +been enabled to make. + +"When I was denied by my own blood," thought he; "these dearest friends +received and cherished me. When I was a nameless orphan myself, and needed +a protector, I found one in yonder kind soul, who has gone to his account +repenting of the innocent wrong he has done." + +And with this consoling thought he went away to give himself up at the +prison, after kissing the cold lips of his benefactor. + +It was on the third day after he had come to the Gatehouse prison (where +he lay in no small pain from his wound, which inflamed and ached +severely); and with those thoughts and resolutions that have been just +spoke of, to depress, and yet to console him, that H. Esmond's keeper came +and told him that a visitor was asking for him, and though he could not +see her face, which was enveloped in a black hood, her whole figure, too, +being veiled and covered with the deepest mourning, Esmond knew at once +that his visitor was his dear mistress. + +He got up from his bed, where he was lying, being very weak; and advancing +towards her, as the retiring keeper shut the door upon him and his guest +in that sad place, he put forward his left hand (for the right was wounded +and bandaged), and he would have taken that kind one of his mistress, +which had done so many offices of friendship for him for so many years. + +But the Lady Castlewood went back from him, putting back her hood, and +leaning against the great stanchioned door which the gaoler had just +closed upon them. Her face was ghastly white, as Esmond saw it, looking +from the hood; and her eyes, ordinarily so sweet and tender, were fixed at +him with such a tragic glance of woe and anger, as caused the young man, +unaccustomed to unkindness from that person, to avert his own glances from +her face. + +"And this, Mr. Esmond," she said, "is where I see you; and 'tis to this +you have brought me!" + +"You have come to console me in my calamity, madam," said he (though, in +truth, he scarce knew how to address her, his emotions at beholding her, +so overpowered him). + +She advanced a little, but stood silent and trembling, looking out at him +from her black draperies, with her small white hands clasped together, and +quivering lips and hollow eyes. + +"Not to reproach me," he continued, after a pause, "My grief is sufficient +as it is." + +"Take back your hand--do not touch me with it!" she cried. "Look! there's +blood on it!" + +"I wish they had taken it all," said Esmond; "if you are unkind to me." + +"Where is my husband?" she broke out. "Give me back my husband, Henry? Why +did you stand by at midnight and see him murdered? Why did the traitor +escape who did it? You, the champion of your house, who offered to die for +us! You that he loved and trusted, and to whom I confided him--you that +vowed devotion and gratitude, and I believed you--yes, I believed you--why +are you here, and my noble Francis gone? Why did you come among us? You +have only brought us grief and sorrow; and repentance, bitter, bitter +repentance, as a return for our love and kindness. Did I ever do you a +wrong, Henry? You were but an orphan child when I first saw you--when _he_ +first saw you, who was so good, and noble, and trusting. He would have had +you sent away, but, like a foolish woman, I besought him to let you stay. +And you pretended to love us, and we believed you--and you made our house +wretched, and my husband's heart went from me: and I lost him through +you--I lost him--the husband of my youth, I say. I worshipped him: you know +I worshipped him--and he was changed to me. He was no more my Francis of +old--my dear, dear soldier. He loved me before he saw you; and I loved him; +oh, God is my witness how I loved him! Why did he not send you from among +us? 'Twas only his kindness, that could refuse me nothing then. And, young +as you were--yes, and weak and alone--there was evil, I knew there was evil +in keeping you. I read it in your face and eyes. I saw that they boded +harm to us--and it came, I knew it would. Why did you not die when you had +the small-pox--and I came myself and watched you, and you didn't know me in +your delirium--and you called out for me, though I was there at your side. +All that has happened since, was a just judgement on my wicked heart--my +wicked jealous heart. Oh, I am punished--awfully punished! My husband lies +in his blood--murdered for defending me, my kind, kind, generous lord--and +you were by, and you let him die, Henry!" + +These words, uttered in the wildness of her grief, by one who was +ordinarily quiet, and spoke seldom except with a gentle smile and a +soothing tone, rung in Esmond's ear; and 'tis said that he repeated many +of them in the fever into which he now fell from his wound, and perhaps +from the emotion which such passionate, undeserved upbraidings caused him. +It seemed as if his very sacrifices and love for this lady and her family +were to turn to evil and reproach: as if his presence amongst them was +indeed a cause of grief, and the continuance of his life but woe and +bitterness to theirs. As the Lady Castlewood spoke bitterly, rapidly, +without a tear, he never offered a word of appeal or remonstrance; but sat +at the foot of his prison-bed, stricken only with the more pain at +thinking it was that soft and beloved hand which should stab him so +cruelly, and powerless against her fatal sorrow. Her words as she spoke +struck the chords of all his memory, and the whole of his boyhood and +youth passed within him; whilst this lady, so fond and gentle but +yesterday--this good angel whom he had loved and worshipped--stood before +him, pursuing him with keen words and aspect malign. + +"I wish I were in my lord's place," he groaned out. "It was not my fault +that I was not there, madam. But Fate is stronger than all of us, and +willed what has come to pass. It had been better for me to have died when +I had the illness." + +"Yes, Henry," said she--and as she spoke she looked at him with a glance +that was at once so fond and so sad, that the young man, tossing up his +arms, wildly fell back, hiding his head in the coverlet of the bed. As he +turned he struck against the wall with his wounded hand, displacing the +ligature; and he felt the blood rushing again from the wound. He +remembered feeling a secret pleasure at the accident--and thinking, +"Suppose I were to end now, who would grieve for me?" + +This haemorrhage, or the grief and despair in which the luckless young man +was at the time of the accident, must have brought on a deliquium +presently; for he had scarce any recollection afterwards, save of some +one, his mistress probably, seizing his hand--and then of the buzzing noise +in his ears as he awoke, with two or three persons of the prison around +his bed, whereon he lay in a pool of blood from his arm. + +It was now bandaged up again by the prison surgeon, who happened to be in +the place; and the governor's wife and servant, kind people both, were +with the patient. Esmond saw his mistress still in the room when he awoke +from his trance; but she went away without a word; though the governor's +wife told him that she sat in her room for some time afterward, and did +not leave the prison until she heard that Esmond was likely to do well. + +Days afterwards, when Esmond was brought out of a fever which he had, and +which attacked him that night pretty sharply, the honest keeper's wife +brought her patient a handkerchief fresh washed and ironed, and at the +corner of which he recognized his mistress's well-known cipher and +viscountess's crown. "The lady had bound it round his arm when he fainted, +and before she called for help," the keeper's wife said; "poor lady; she +took on sadly about her husband. He has been buried to-day, and a many of +the coaches of the nobility went with him,--my Lord Marlborough's and my +Lord Sunderland's, and many of the officers of the Guards, in which he +served in the old king's time; and my lady has been with her two children +to the king at Kensington, and asked for justice against my Lord Mohun, +who is in hiding, and my lord the Earl of Warwick and Holland, who is +ready to give himself up and take his trial." + +Such were the news, coupled with assertions about her own honesty and that +of Molly her maid, who would never have stolen a certain trumpery gold +sleeve-button of Mr. Esmond's that was missing after his fainting fit, +that the keeper's wife brought to her lodger. His thoughts followed to +that untimely grave, the brave heart, the kind friend, the gallant +gentleman, honest of word and generous of thought (if feeble of purpose, +but are his betters much stronger than he?) who had given him bread and +shelter when he had none; home and love when he needed them; and who, if +he had kept one vital secret from him, had done that of which he repented +ere dying--a wrong indeed, but one followed by remorse, and occasioned by +almost irresistible temptation. + +Esmond took his handkerchief when his nurse left him, and very likely +kissed it, and looked at the bauble embroidered in the corner. "It has +cost thee grief enough," he thought, "dear lady, so loving and so tender. +Shall I take it from thee and thy children? No, never! Keep it, and wear +it, my little Frank, my pretty boy. If I cannot make a name for myself, I +can die without one. Some day, when my dear mistress sees my heart, I +shall be righted; or if not here or now, why, elsewhere; where Honour doth +not follow us, but where Love reigns perpetual." + +'Tis needless to narrate here, as the reports of the lawyers already have +chronicled them, the particulars or issue of that trial which ensued upon +my Lord Castlewood's melancholy homicide. Of the two lords engaged in that +said matter, the second, my lord the Earl of Warwick and Holland, who had +been engaged with Colonel Westbury, and wounded by him, was found not +guilty by his peers, before whom he was tried (under the presidence of the +Lord Steward, Lord Somers); and the principal, the Lord Mohun, being found +guilty of the manslaughter (which, indeed, was forced upon him, and of +which he repented most sincerely), pleaded his clergy; and so was +discharged without any penalty. The widow of the slain nobleman, as it was +told us in prison, showed an extraordinary spirit; and, though she had to +wait for ten years before her son was old enough to compass it, declared +she would have revenge of her husband's murderer. So much and suddenly had +grief, anger, and misfortune appeared to change her. But fortune, good or +ill, as I take it, does not change men and women. It but develops their +characters. As there are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he +does not know till he takes up the pen to write, so the heart is a secret +even to him (or her) who has it in his own breast. Who hath not found +himself surprised into revenge, or action, or passion, for good or evil; +whereof the seeds lay within him, latent and unsuspected, until the +occasion called them forth? With the death of her lord, a change seemed to +come over the whole conduct and mind of Lady Castlewood; but of this we +shall speak in the right season and anon. + +The lords being tried then before their peers at Westminster, according to +their privilege, being brought from the Tower with state processions and +barges, and accompanied by lieutenants and axe-men, the commoners engaged +in that melancholy fray took their trial at Newgate, as became them; and, +being all found guilty, pleaded likewise their benefit of clergy. The +sentence, as we all know, in these cases is, that the culprit lies a year +in prison, or during the king's pleasure, and is burned in the hand, or +only stamped with a cold iron; or this part of the punishment is +altogether remitted at the grace of the sovereign. So Harry Esmond found +himself a criminal and a prisoner at two-and-twenty years old; as for the +two colonels, his comrades, they took the matter very lightly. Duelling +was a part of their business; and they could not in honour refuse any +invitations of that sort. + +But the case was different with Mr. Esmond. His life was changed by that +stroke of the sword which destroyed his kind patron's. As he lay in +prison, old Dr. Tusher fell ill and died; and Lady Castlewood appointed +Thomas Tusher to the vacant living; about the filling of which she had a +thousand times fondly talked to Harry Esmond: how they never should part; +how he should educate her boy; how to be a country clergyman, like saintly +George Herbert, or pious Dr. Ken, was the happiness and greatest lot in +life; how (if he were obstinately bent on it, though, for her part, she +owned rather to holding Queen Bess's opinion, that a bishop should have no +wife, and if not a bishop why a clergyman?) she would find a good wife for +Harry Esmond: and so on, with a hundred pretty prospects told by fireside +evenings, in fond prattle, as the children played about the hall. All +these plans were overthrown now. Thomas Tusher wrote to Esmond, as he lay +in prison, announcing that his patroness had conferred upon him the living +his reverend father had held for many years; that she never, after the +tragical events which had occurred (whereof Tom spoke with a very edifying +horror), could see in the revered Tusher's pulpit, or at her son's table, +the man who was answerable for the father's life; that her ladyship bade +him to say that she prayed for her kinsman's repentance and his worldly +happiness; that he was free to command her aid for any scheme of life +which he might propose to himself; but that on this side of the grave she +would see him no more. And Tusher, for his own part, added that Harry +should have his prayers as a friend of his youth, and commended him whilst +he was in prison to read certain works of theology, which his reverence +pronounced to be very wholesome for sinners in his lamentable condition. + +And this was the return for a life of devotion--this the end of years of +affectionate intercourse and passionate fidelity! Harry would have died +for his patron, and was held as little better than his murderer: he had +sacrificed, she did not know how much, for his mistress, and she threw him +aside--he had endowed her family with all they had, and she talked about +giving him alms as to a menial! The grief for his patron's loss: the pains +of his own present position, and doubts as to the future: all these were +forgotten under the sense of the consummate outrage which he had to +endure, and overpowered by the superior pang of that torture. + +He writ back a letter to Mr. Tusher from his prison, congratulating his +reverence upon his appointment to the living of Castlewood: sarcastically +bidding him to follow in the footsteps of his admirable father, whose gown +had descended upon him--thanking her ladyship for her offer of alms, which +he said he should trust not to need; and beseeching her to remember that, +if ever her determination should change towards him, he would be ready to +give her proofs of a fidelity which had never wavered, and which ought +never to have been questioned by that house. "And if we meet no more, or +only as strangers in this world," Mr. Esmond concluded, "a sentence +against the cruelty and injustice of which I disdain to appeal; hereafter +she will know who was faithful to her, and whether she had any cause to +suspect the love and devotion of her kinsman and servant." + +After the sending of this letter, the poor young fellow's mind was more at +ease than it had been previously. The blow had been struck, and he had +borne it. His cruel goddess had shaken her wings and fled: and left him +alone and friendless, but _virtute sua_. And he had to bear him up, at +once the sense of his right and the feeling of his wrongs, his honour and +his misfortune. As I have seen men waking and running to arms at a sudden +trumpet; before emergency a manly heart leaps up resolute; meets the +threatening danger with undaunted countenance; and, whether conquered or +conquering, faces it always. Ah! no man knows his strength or his +weakness, till occasion proves them. If there be some thoughts and actions +of his life from the memory of which a man shrinks with shame, sure there +are some which he may be proud to own and remember; forgiven injuries, +conquered temptations (now and then), and difficulties vanquished by +endurance. + + ------------------------------------- + +It was these thoughts regarding the living, far more than any great +poignancy of grief respecting the dead, which affected Harry Esmond whilst +in prison after his trial: but it may be imagined that he could take no +comrade of misfortune into the confidence of his feelings, and they +thought it was remorse and sorrow for his patron's loss which affected the +young man, in error of which opinion he chose to leave them. As a +companion he was so moody and silent that the two officers, his fellow +sufferers, left him to himself mostly, liked little very likely what they +knew of him, consoled themselves with dice, cards, and the bottle, and +whiled away their own captivity in their own way. It seemed to Esmond as +if he lived years in that prison: and was changed and aged when he came +out of it. At certain periods of life we live years of emotion in a few +weeks--and look back on those times, as on great gaps between the old life +and the new. You do not know how much you suffer in those critical +maladies of the heart, until the disease is over and you look back on it +afterwards. During the time, the suffering is at least sufferable. The day +passes in more or less of pain, and the night wears away somehow. 'Tis +only in after-days that we see what the danger has been--as a man out +a-hunting or riding for his life looks at a leap, and wonders how he +should have survived the taking of it. O dark months of grief and rage! of +wrong and cruel endurance! He is old now who recalls you. Long ago he has +forgiven and blest the soft hand that wounded him: but the mark is there, +and the wound is cicatrized only--no time, tears, caresses, or repentance, +can obliterate the scar. We are indocile to put up with grief, however. +_Reficimus rates quassas_: we tempt the ocean again and again, and try +upon new ventures. Esmond thought of his early time as a novitiate, and of +this past trial as an initiation before entering into life--as our young +Indians undergo tortures silently before they pass to the rank of warriors +in the tribe. + +The officers, meanwhile, who were not let into the secret of the grief +which was gnawing at the side of their silent young friend, and being +accustomed to such transactions, in which one comrade or another was daily +paying the forfeit of the sword, did not of course bemoan themselves very +inconsolably about the fate of their late companion in arms. This one told +stories of former adventures of love, or war, or pleasure, in which poor +Frank Esmond had been engaged; t'other recollected how a constable had +been bilked, or a tavern-bully beaten: whilst my lord's poor widow was +sitting at his tomb worshipping him as an actual saint and spotless +hero--so the visitors said who had news of Lady Castlewood; and Westbury +and Macartney had pretty nearly had all the town to come and see them. + +The duel, its fatal termination, the trial of the two peers and the three +commoners concerned, had caused the greatest excitement in the town. The +prints and News Letters were full of them. The three gentlemen in Newgate +were almost as much crowded as the bishops in the Tower, or a highwayman +before execution. We were allowed to live in the governor's house, as hath +been said, both before trial and after condemnation, waiting the king's +pleasure; nor was the real cause of the fatal quarrel known, so closely +had my lord and the two other persons who knew it kept the secret, but +every one imagined that the origin of the meeting was a gambling dispute. +Except fresh air, the prisoners had, upon payment, most things they could +desire. Interest was made that they should not mix with the vulgar +convicts, whose ribald choruses and loud laughter and curses could be +heard from their own part of the prison, where they and the miserable +debtors were confined pell-mell. + + + +Chapter II. I Come To The End Of My Captivity, But Not Of My Trouble + + +Among the company which came to visit the two officers was an old +acquaintance of Harry Esmond; that gentleman of the Guards, namely, who +had been so kind to Harry when Captain Westbury's troop had been quartered +at Castlewood more than seven years before. Dick the Scholar was no longer +Dick the Trooper now, but Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, and +secretary to my Lord Cutts, that famous officer of King William's, the +bravest and most beloved man of the English army. The two jolly prisoners +had been drinking with a party of friends (for our cellar and that of the +keepers of Newgate, too, were supplied with endless hampers of burgundy +and champagne that the friends of the colonels sent in); and Harry, having +no wish for their drink or their conversation, being too feeble in health +for the one and too sad in spirits for the other, was sitting apart in his +little room, reading such books as he had, one evening, when honest +Colonel Westbury, flushed with liquor, and always good-humoured in and out +of his cups, came laughing into Harry's closet, and said, "Ho, young +Killjoy! here's a friend come to see thee; he'll pray with thee, or he'll +drink with thee; or he'll drink and pray turn about. Dick, my Christian +hero, here's the little scholar of Castlewood." + +Dick came up and kissed Esmond on both cheeks, imparting a strong perfume +of burnt sack along with his caress to the young man. + +"What! is this the little man that used to talk Latin and fetch our bowls? +How tall thou art grown! I protest I should have known thee anywhere. And +so you have turned ruffian and fighter; and wanted to measure swords with +Mohun, did you? I protest that Mohun said at the Guard dinner yesterday, +where there was a pretty company of us, that the young fellow wanted to +fight him, and was the better man of the two." + +"I wish we could have tried and proved it, Mr. Steele," says Esmond, +thinking of his dead benefactor, and his eyes filling with tears. + +With the exception of that one cruel letter which he had from his +mistress, Mr. Esmond heard nothing from her, and she seemed determined to +execute her resolve of parting from him and disowning him. But he had news +of her, such as it was, which Mr. Steele assiduously brought him from the +prince's and princesses' Court, where our honest captain had been advanced +to the post of gentleman waiter. When off duty there, Captain Dick often +came to console his friends in captivity; a good nature and a friendly +disposition towards all who were in ill fortune no doubt prompting him to +make his visits, and good fellowship and good wine to prolong them. + +"Faith," says Westbury, "the little scholar was the first to begin the +quarrel--I mind me of it now--at Lockit's. I always hated that fellow Mohun. +What was the real cause of the quarrel betwixt him and poor Frank? I would +wager 'twas a woman." + +"'Twas a quarrel about play--on my word, about play," Harry said. "My poor +lord lost great sums to his guest at Castlewood. Angry words passed +between them; and, though Lord Castlewood was the kindest and most pliable +soul alive, his spirit was very high; and hence that meeting which has +brought us all here," says Mr. Esmond, resolved never to acknowledge that +there had ever been any other but cards for the duel. + +"I do not like to use bad words of a nobleman," says Westbury; "but if my +Lord Mohun were a commoner, I would say, 'twas a pity he was not hanged. +He was familiar with dice and women at a time other boys are at school, +being birched; he was as wicked as the oldest rake, years ere he had done +growing; and handled a sword and a foil, and a bloody one too, before ever +he used a razor. He held poor Will Mountford in talk that night, when +bloody Dick Hill ran him through. He will come to a bad end, will that +young lord; and no end is bad enough for him," says honest Mr. Westbury: +whose prophecy was fulfilled twelve years after, upon that fatal day when +Mohun fell, dragging down one of the bravest and greatest gentlemen in +England in his fall. + +From Mr. Steele, then, who brought the public rumour, as well as his own +private intelligence, Esmond learned the movements of his unfortunate +mistress. Steele's heart was of very inflammable composition; and the +gentleman usher spoke in terms of boundless admiration both of the widow +(that most beautiful woman, as he said) and of her daughter, who, in the +captain's eyes, was a still greater paragon. If the pale widow, whom +Captain Richard, in his poetic rapture, compared to a Niobe in tears--to a +Sigismunda--to a weeping Belvidera, was an object the most lovely and +pathetic which his eyes had ever beheld, or for which his heart had +melted, even her ripened perfections and beauty were as nothing compared +to the promise of that extreme loveliness which the good captain saw in +her daughter. It was _matre pulcra filia pulcrior_. Steele composed +sonnets whilst he was on duty in his prince's antechamber, to the maternal +and filial charms. He would speak for hours about them to Harry Esmond; +and, indeed, he could have chosen few subjects more likely to interest the +unhappy young man, whose heart was now as always devoted to these ladies; +and who was thankful to all who loved them, or praised them, or wished +them well. + +Not that his fidelity was recompensed by any answering kindness, or show +of relenting even, on the part of a mistress obdurate now after ten years +of love and benefactions. The poor young man getting no answer, save +Tusher's, to that letter which he had written, and being too proud to +write more, opened a part of his heart to Steele, than whom no man, when +unhappy, could find a kinder hearer or more friendly emissary; described +(in words which were no doubt pathetic, for they came _imo pectore_, and +caused honest Dick to weep plentifully) his youth, his constancy, his fond +devotion to that household which had reared him; his affection how earned, +and how tenderly requited until but yesterday, and (as far as he might) +the circumstances and causes for which that sad quarrel had made of Esmond +a prisoner under sentence, a widow and orphans of those whom in life he +held dearest. In terms that might well move a harder-hearted man than +young Esmond's confidant--for, indeed, the speaker's own heart was half +broke as he uttered them; he described a part of what had taken place in +that only sad interview which his mistress had granted him; how she had +left him with anger and almost imprecation, whose words and thoughts until +then had been only blessing and kindness; how she had accused him of the +guilt of that blood, in exchange for which he would cheerfully have +sacrificed his own (indeed, in this the Lord Mohun, the Lord Warwick, and +all the gentlemen engaged, as well as the common rumour out of +doors--Steele told him--bore out the luckless young man); and with all his +heart, and tears, he besought Mr. Steele to inform his mistress of her +kinsman's unhappiness, and to deprecate that cruel anger she showed him. +Half frantic with grief at the injustice done him, and contrasting it with +a thousand soft recollections of love and confidence gone by, that made +his present misery inexpressibly more bitter, the poor wretch passed many +a lonely day and wakeful night in a kind of powerless despair and rage +against his iniquitous fortune. It was the softest hand that struck him, +the gentlest and most compassionate nature that persecuted him. "I would +as lief," he said, "have pleaded guilty to the murder, and have suffered +for it like any other felon, as have to endure the torture to which my +mistress subjects me." + +Although the recital of Esmond's story, and his passionate appeals and +remonstrances, drew so many tears from Dick who heard them, they had no +effect upon the person whom they were designed to move. Esmond's +ambassador came back from the mission with which the poor young gentleman +had charged him, with a sad blank face and a shake of the head, which told +that there was no hope for the prisoner; and scarce a wretched culprit in +that prison of Newgate ordered for execution, and trembling for a +reprieve, felt more cast down than Mr. Esmond, innocent and condemned. + +As had been arranged between the prisoner and his counsel in their +consultations, Mr. Steele had gone to the dowager's house in Chelsey, +where it has been said the widow and her orphans were, had seen my lady +viscountess and pleaded the cause of her unfortunate kinsman. "And I think +I spoke well, my poor boy," says Mr. Steele; "for who would not speak well +in such a cause, and before so beautiful a judge? I did not see the lovely +Beatrix (sure her famous namesake of Florence was never half so +beautiful), only the young viscount was in the room with the Lord +Churchill, my Lord of Marlborough's eldest son. But these young gentlemen +went off to the garden, I could see them from the window tilting at each +other with poles in a mimic tournament (grief touches the young but +lightly, and I remember that I beat a drum at the coffin of my own +father). My lady viscountess looked out at the two boys at their game, and +said--'You see, sir, children are taught to use weapons of death as toys, +and to make a sport of murder'; and as she spoke she looked so lovely, and +stood there in herself so sad and beautiful an instance of that doctrine +whereof I am a humble preacher, that had I not dedicated my little volume +of the _Christian Hero_ (I perceive, Harry, thou hast not cut the leaves +of it. The sermon is good, believe me, though the preacher's life may not +answer it)--I say, hadn't I dedicated the volume to Lord Cutts, I would +have asked permission to place her ladyship's name on the first page. I +think I never saw such a beautiful violet as that of her eyes, Harry. Her +complexion is of the pink of the blush-rose, she hath an exquisite turned +wrist and dimpled hand, and I make no doubt----" + +"Did you come to tell me about the dimples on my lady's hand?" broke out +Mr. Esmond, sadly. + +"A lovely creature in affliction seems always doubly beautiful to me," +says the poor captain, who indeed was but too often in a state to see +double, and so checked he resumed the interrupted thread of his story. "As +I spoke my business," Mr. Steele said, "and narrated to your mistress what +all the world knows, and the other side hath been eager to +acknowledge--that you had tried to put yourself between the two lords, and +to take your patron's quarrel on your own point; I recounted the general +praises of your gallantry, besides my Lord Mohun's particular testimony to +it; I thought the widow listened with some interest, and her eyes--I have +never seen such a violet, Harry--looked up at mine once or twice. But after +I had spoken on this theme for a while she suddenly broke away with a cry +of grief. 'I would to God, sir,' she said, 'I had never heard that word +gallantry which you use, or known the meaning of it. My lord might have +been here but for that; my home might be happy; my poor boy have a father. +It was what you gentlemen call gallantry came into my home, and drove my +husband on to the cruel sword that killed him. You should not speak the +word to a Christian woman, sir--a poor widowed mother of orphans, whose +home was happy until the world came into it--the wicked godless world, that +takes the blood of the innocent, and lets the guilty go free.' + +"As the afflicted lady spoke in this strain, sir," Mr. Steele continued, +"it seemed as if indignation moved her, even more than grief. +'Compensation!' she went on passionately, her cheeks and eyes kindling; +'what compensation does your world give the widow for her husband, and the +children for the murderer of their father? The wretch who did the deed has +not even a punishment. Conscience! what conscience has he, who can enter +the house of a friend, whisper falsehood and insult to a woman that never +harmed him, and stab the kind heart that trusted him? My lord--my Lord +Wretch, my Lord Villain's, my Lord Murderer's peers meet to try him, and +they dismiss him with a word or two of reproof, and send him into the +world again, to pursue women with lust and falsehood, and to murder +unsuspecting guests that harbour him. That day, my lord--my Lord +Murderer--(I will never name him)--was let loose, a woman was executed at +Tyburn for stealing in a shop. But a man may rob another of his life, or a +lady of her honour, and shall pay no penalty! I take my child, run to the +throne, and on my knees ask for justice, and the king refuses me. The +king! he is no king of mine--he never shall be. He, too, robbed the throne +from the king his father--the true king--and he has gone unpunished, as the +great do.' + +"I then thought to speak for you," Mr. Steele continued, "and I interposed +by saying, 'There was one, madam, who, at least, would have put his own +breast between your husband's and my Lord Mohun's sword. Your poor young +kinsman, Harry Esmond, hath told me that he tried to draw the quarrel on +himself.' + +" 'Are you come from _him_?' asked the lady" (so Mr. Steele went on), +"rising up with a great severity and stateliness. 'I thought you had come +from the princess. I saw Mr. Esmond in his prison, and bade him farewell. +He brought misery into my house. He never should have entered it.' + +" 'Madam, madam, he is not to blame,' I interposed," continued Mr. Steele. + +" 'Do I blame him to you, sir?' asked the widow. 'If 'tis he who sent you, +say that I have taken counsel, where'--she spoke with a very pallid cheek +now, and a break in her voice--'where all who ask may have it;--and that it +bids me to part from him, and to see him no more. We met in the prison for +the last time--at least for years to come. It may be, in years hence, +when--when our knees and our tears and our contrition have changed our +sinful hearts, sir, and wrought our pardon, we may meet again--but not now. +After what has passed, I could not bear to see him. I wish him well, sir; +but I wish him farewell, too; and if he has that--that regard towards us +which he speaks of, I beseech him to prove it by obeying me in this.' + +" 'I shall break the young man's heart, madam, by this hard sentence,' " +Mr. Steele said. + +"The lady shook her head," continued my kind scholar. " 'The hearts of +young men, Mr. Steele, are not so made,' she said. 'Mr. Esmond will find +other--other friends. The mistress of this house has relented very much +towards the late lord's son,' she added, with a blush, 'and has promised +me, that is, has promised that she will care for his fortune. Whilst I +live in it, after the horrid, horrid deed which has passed, Castlewood +must never be a home to him--never. Nor would I have him write to +me--except--no--I would have him never write to me, nor see him more. Give +him, if you will, my parting--Hush! not a word of this before my daughter.' + +"Here the fair Beatrix entered from the river, with her cheeks flushing +with health, and looking only the more lovely and fresh for the mourning +habiliments which she wore. And my lady viscountess said-- + +" 'Beatrix, this is Mr. Steele, gentleman-usher to the prince's highness. +When does your new comedy appear, Mr. Steele?' I hope thou wilt be out of +prison for the first night, Harry." + +The sentimental captain concluded his sad tale, saying, "Faith, the beauty +of _Filia pulcrior_ drove _pulcram matrem_ out of my head; and yet as I +came down the river, and thought about the pair, the pallid dignity and +exquisite grace of the matron had the uppermost, and I thought her even +more noble than the virgin!" + + ------------------------------------- + +The party of prisoners lived very well in Newgate, and with comforts very +different to those which were awarded to the poor wretches there (his +insensibility to their misery, their gaiety still more frightful, their +curses and blasphemy, hath struck with a kind of shame since--as proving +how selfish, during his imprisonment, his own particular grief was, and +how entirely the thoughts of it absorbed him): if the three gentlemen +lived well under the care of the warden of Newgate, it was because they +paid well: and indeed the cost at the dearest ordinary or the grandest +tavern in London could not have furnished a longer reckoning, than our +host of the "Handcuff Inn"--as Colonel Westbury called it. Our rooms were +the three in the gate over Newgate--on the second story looking up Newgate +Street towards Cheapside and Paul's Church. And we had leave to walk on +the roof, and could see thence Smithfield and the Bluecoat Boys' School, +Gardens, and the Chartreux, where, as Harry Esmond remembered, Dick the +Scholar, and his friend Tom Tusher, had had their schooling. + +Harry could never have paid his share of that prodigious heavy reckoning +which my landlord brought to his guests once a week: for he had but three +pieces in his pockets that fatal night before the duel, when the gentlemen +were at cards, and offered to play five. But whilst he was yet ill at the +Gatehouse, after Lady Castlewood had visited him there, and before his +trial, there came one in an orange-tawny coat and blue lace, the livery +which the Esmonds always wore, and brought a sealed packet for Mr. Esmond, +which contained twenty guineas, and a note saying that a counsel had been +appointed for him, and that more money would be forthcoming whenever he +needed it. + +'Twas a queer letter from the scholar as she was, or as she called +herself: the Dowager Viscountess Castlewood, written in the strange +barbarous French which she and many other fine ladies of that time--witness +Her Grace of Portsmouth--employed. Indeed, spelling was not an article of +general commodity in the world then, and my Lord Marlborough's letters can +show that he, for one, had but a little share of this part of grammar. + + + Mong Coussin (my lady viscountess dowager wrote), je scay que vous + vous etes bravement batew et grievement blessay--du coste de feu M. + le Vicomte. M. le Compte de Varique ne se playt qua parlay de + vous: M. de Moon aucy. Il di que vous avay voulew vous bastre + avecque luy--que vous estes plus fort que luy sur + l'ayscrimme--quil'y a surtout certaine Botte que vous scavay quil + n'a jammay sceu pariay: et que c'en eut ete fay de luy si vouseluy + vous vous fussiay battews ansamb. Aincy ce pauv Vicompte est mort. + Mort et peutayt--Mon coussin, mon coussin! jay dans la tayste que + vous n'estes quung pety Monst--angcy que les Esmonds ong tousjours + este. La veuve est chay moy. J'ay recuilly cet' pauve famme. Elle + est furieuse cont vous, allans tous les jours chercher le Roy + (d'icy) demandant a gran cri revanche pour son Mary. Elle ne veux + voyre ni entende parlay de vous: pourtant elle ne fay qu'en parlay + milfoy par jour. Quand vous seray hor prison venay me voyre. + J'auray soing de vous. Si cette petite Prude veut se defaire de + song pety Monste (Helas je craing quil ne soy trotar!) je m'en + chargeray. J'ay encor quelqu interay et quelques escus de costay. + + La Veuve se raccommode avec Miladi Marlboro qui est tout puicante + avecque la Reine Anne. Cet dam senteraysent pour la petite prude; + qui pourctant a un fi du mesme asge que vous savay. + + En sortant de prisong venez icy. Je ne puy vous recevoir chay-moy + a cause des mechansetes du monde, may pre du moy vous aurez + logement. + + ISABELLE VICOMPTESSE D'ESMOND. + + +Marchioness of Esmond this lady sometimes called herself, in virtue of +that patent which had been given by the late King James to Harry Esmond's +father; and in this state she had her train carried by a knight's wife, a +cup and cover of assay to drink from, and fringed cloth. + +He who was of the same age as little Francis, whom we shall henceforth +call Viscount Castlewood here, was H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, born in the +same year and month with Frank, and just proclaimed at St. Germains, King +of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. + + + +Chapter III. I Take The Queen's Pay In Quin's Regiment + + +The fellow in the orange-tawny livery with blue lace and facings was in +waiting when Esmond came out of prison, and, taking the young gentleman's +slender baggage, led the way out of that odious Newgate, and by Fleet +Conduit, down to the Thames, where a pair of oars was called, and they +went up the river to Chelsea. Esmond thought the sun had never shone so +bright; nor the air felt so fresh and exhilarating. Temple Garden, as they +rowed by, looked like the garden of Eden to him, and the aspect of the +quays, wharves, and buildings by the river, Somerset House, and +Westminster (where the splendid new bridge was just beginning), Lambeth +tower and palace, and that busy shining scene of the Thames swarming with +boats and barges, filled his heart with pleasure and cheerfulness--as well +such a beautiful scene might to one who had been a prisoner so long, and +with so many dark thoughts deepening the gloom of his captivity. They +rowed up at length to the pretty village of Chelsey, where the nobility +have many handsome country-houses; and so came to my lady viscountess's +house, a cheerful new house in the row facing the river, with a handsome +garden behind it, and a pleasant look-out both towards Surrey and +Kensington, where stands the noble ancient palace of the Lord Warwick, +Harry's reconciled adversary. + +Here in her ladyship's saloon, the young man saw again some of those +pictures which had been at Castlewood, and which she had removed thence on +the death of her lord, Harry's father. Specially, and in the place of +honour, was Sir Peter Lely's picture of the Honourable Mistress Isabella +Esmond as Diana, in yellow satin, with a bow in her hand and a crescent in +her forehead; and dogs frisking about her. 'Twas painted about the time +when royal Endymions were said to find favour with this virgin huntress; +and, as goddesses have youth perpetual, this one believed to the day of +her death that she never grew older: and always persisted in supposing the +picture was still like her. + +After he had been shown to her room by the groom of the chamber, who +filled many offices besides in her ladyship's modest household; and after +a proper interval, his elderly goddess Diana vouchsafed to appear to the +young man. A blackamoor in a Turkish habit, with red boots and a silver +collar, on which the viscountess's arms were engraven, preceded her and +bore her cushion; then came her gentlewoman; a little pack of spaniels +barking and frisking about preceded the austere huntress--then, behold, the +viscountess herself "dropping odours". Esmond recollected from his +childhood that rich aroma of musk which his mother-in-law (for she may be +called so) exhaled. As the sky grows redder and redder towards sunset, so, +in the decline of her years, the cheeks of my lady dowager blushed more +deeply. Her face was illuminated with vermilion, which appeared the +brighter from the white paint employed to set it off. She wore the +ringlets which had been in fashion in King Charles's time; whereas the +ladies of King William's had head-dresses like the towers of Cybele. Her +eyes gleamed out from the midst of this queer structure of paint, dyes, +and pomatums. Such was my lady viscountess, Mr. Esmond's father's widow. + +He made her such a profound bow as her dignity and relationship merited: +and advanced with the greatest gravity, and once more kissed that hand, +upon the trembling knuckles of which glittered a score of +rings--remembering old times when that trembling hand made him tremble. +"Marchioness," says he, bowing, and on one knee, "is it only the hand I +may have the honour of saluting?" For, accompanying that inward laughter, +which the sight of such an astonishing old figure might well produce in +the young man, there was goodwill too, and the kindness of consanguinity. +She had been his father's wife, and was his grandfather's daughter. She +had suffered him in old days, and was kind to him now after her fashion. +And now that bar-sinister was removed from Esmond's thought, and that +secret opprobrium no longer cast upon his mind, he was pleased to feel +family ties and own them--perhaps secretly vain of the sacrifice he had +made, and to think that he, Esmond, was really the chief of his house, and +only prevented by his own magnanimity from advancing his claim. + +At least, ever since he had learned that secret from his poor patron on +his dying bed, actually as he was standing beside it, he had felt an +independency which he had never known before, and which since did not +desert him. So he called his old aunt marchioness, but with an air as if +he was the Marquis of Esmond who so addressed her. + +Did she read in the young gentleman's eyes, which had now no fear of hers +or their superannuated authority, that he knew or suspected the truth +about his birth? She gave a start of surprise at his altered manner: +indeed, it was quite a different bearing to that of the Cambridge student +who had paid her a visit two years since, and whom she had dismissed with +five pieces sent by the groom of the chamber. She eyed him, then trembled +a little more than was her wont, perhaps, and said, "Welcome, cousin", in +a frightened voice. + +His resolution, as has been said before, had been quite different, namely, +so to bear himself through life as if the secret of his birth was not +known to him; but he suddenly and rightly determined on a different +course. He asked that her ladyship's attendants should be dismissed, and +when they were private--"Welcome, nephew, at least, madam, it should be," +he said, "A great wrong has been done to me and to you, and to my poor +mother, who is no more." + +"I declare before Heaven that I was guiltless of it," she cried out, +giving up her cause at once. "It was your wicked father who----" + +"Who brought this dishonour on our family," says Mr. Esmond. "I know it +full well. I want to disturb no one. Those who are in present possession +have been my dearest benefactors, and are quite innocent of intentional +wrong to me. The late lord, my dear patron, knew not the truth until a few +months before his death, when Father Holt brought the news to him." + +"The wretch! he had it in confession! He had it in confession!" cried out +the dowager lady. + +"Not so. He learned it elsewhere as well as in confession," Mr. Esmond +answered. "My father, when wounded at the Boyne, told the truth to a +French priest, who was in hiding after the battle, as well as to the +priest there, at whose house he died. This gentleman did not think fit to +divulge the story till he met with Mr. Holt at St. Omer's. And the latter +kept it back for his own purpose, and until he had learned whether my +mother was alive or no. She is dead years since: my poor patron told me +with his dying breath; and I doubt him not. I do not know even whether I +could prove a marriage. I would not if I could. I do not care to bring +shame on our name, or grief upon those whom I love, however hardly they +may use me. My father's son, madam, won't aggravate the wrong my father +did you. Continue to be his widow, and give me your kindness. 'Tis all I +ask from you; and I shall never speak of this matter again." + +"_Mais vous etes un noble jeune homme!_" breaks out my lady, speaking, as +usual with her when she was agitated, in the French language. + +"_Noblesse oblige_," says Mr. Esmond, making her a low bow. "There are +those alive to whom, in return for their love to me, I often fondly said I +would give my life away. Shall I be their enemy now, and quarrel about a +title? What matters who has it? 'Tis with the family still." + +"What can there be in that little prude of a woman, that makes men so +_raffoler_ about her?" cries out my lady dowager. "She was here for a +month petitioning the king. She is pretty, and well conserved; but she has +not the _bel air_. In his late Majesty's Court all the men pretended to +admire her; and she was no better than a little wax doll. She is better +now, and looks the sister of her daughter: but what mean you all by +bepraising her? Mr. Steele, who was in waiting on Prince George, seeing +her with her two children going to Kensington, writ a poem about her; and +says he shall wear her colours, and dress in black for the future. Mr. +Congreve says he will write a _Mourning Widow_, that shall be better than +his _Mourning Bride_. Though their husbands quarrelled and fought when +that wretch Churchill deserted the king (for which he deserved to be +hung), Lady Marlborough has again gone wild about the little widow; +insulted me in my own drawing-room, by saying that 'twas not the _old_ +widow, but the young viscountess, she had come to see. Little Castlewood +and little Lord Churchill are to be sworn friends, and have boxed each +other twice or thrice like brothers already. 'Twas that wicked young Mohun +who, coming back from the provinces last year, where he had disinterred +her, raved about her all the winter; said she was a pearl set before +swine; and killed poor stupid Frank. The quarrel was all about his wife. I +know 'twas all about her. Was there anything between her and Mohun, +nephew? Tell me now; was there anything? About yourself, I do not ask you +to answer questions." Mr. Esmond blushed up. "My lady's virtue is like +that of a saint in heaven, madam," he cried out. + +"Eh!--_mon neveu_. Many saints get to Heaven after having a deal to repent +of. I believe you are like all the rest of the fools, and madly in love +with her." + +"Indeed, I loved and honoured her before all the world," Esmond answered. +"I take no shame in that." + +"And she has shut her door on you--given the living to that horrid young +cub, son of that horrid old bear, Tusher, and says she will never see you +more. _Monsieur mon neveu_--we are all like that. When I was a young woman, +I'm positive that a thousand duels were fought about me. And when poor +Monsieur de Souchy drowned himself in the canal at Bruges because I danced +with Count Springbock, I couldn't squeeze out a single tear, but danced +till five o'clock the next morning. 'Twas the count--no, 'twas my Lord +Ormonde that paid the fiddles, and his Majesty did me the honour of +dancing all night with me.--How you are grown! You have got the _bel air_. +You are a black man. Our Esmonds are all black. The little prude's son is +fair; so was his father--fair and stupid. You were an ugly little wretch +when you came to Castlewood--you were all eyes, like a young crow. We +intended you should be a priest. That awful Father Holt--how he used to +frighten me when I was ill! I have a comfortable director now--the Abbe +Douillette--a dear man. We make meagre on Fridays always. My cook is a +devout pious man. You, of course, are of the right way of thinking. They +say the Prince of Orange is very ill indeed." + +In this way the old dowager rattled on remorselessly to Mr. Esmond, who +was quite astounded with her present volubility, contrasting it with her +former haughty behaviour to him. But she had taken him into favour for the +moment, and chose not only to like him, as far as her nature permitted, +but to be afraid of him; and he found himself to be as familiar with her +now as a young man, as when a boy, he had been timorous and silent. She +was as good as her word respecting him. She introduced him to her company, +of which she entertained a good deal--of the adherents of King James of +course--and a great deal of loud intriguing took place over her +card-tables. She presented Mr. Esmond as her kinsman to many persons of +honour; she supplied him not illiberally with money, which he had no +scruple in accepting from her, considering the relationship which he bore +to her, and the sacrifices which he himself was making in behalf of the +family. But he had made up his mind to continue at no woman's +apron-strings longer; and perhaps had cast about how he should distinguish +himself, and make himself a name, which his singular fortune had denied +him. A discontent with his former bookish life and quietude,--a bitter +feeling of revolt at that slavery in which he had chosen to confine +himself for the sake of those whose hardness towards him made his heart +bleed,--a restless wish to see men and the world,--led him to think of the +military profession: at any rate, to desire to see a few campaigns, and +accordingly he pressed his new patroness to get him a pair of colours; and +one day had the honour of finding himself appointed an ensign in Colonel +Quin's regiment of Fusiliers on the Irish establishment. + +Mr. Esmond's commission was scarce three weeks old when that accident +befell King William which ended the life of the greatest, the wisest, the +bravest, and most clement sovereign whom England ever knew. 'Twas the +fashion of the hostile party to assail this great prince's reputation +during his life; but the joy which they and all his enemies in Europe +showed at his death, is a proof of the terror in which they held him. +Young as Esmond was, he was wise enough (and generous enough too, let it +be said) to scorn that indecency of gratulation which broke out amongst +the followers of King James in London, upon the death of this illustrious +prince, this invincible warrior, this wise and moderate statesman. Loyalty +to the exiled king's family was traditional, as has been said, in that +house to which Mr. Esmond belonged. His father's widow had all her hopes, +sympathies, recollections, prejudices, engaged on King James's side; and +was certainly as noisy a conspirator as ever asserted the king's rights, +or abused his opponent's, over a quadrille table or a dish of bohea. Her +ladyship's house swarmed with ecclesiastics, in disguise and out; with +tale-bearers from St. Germains; and quidnuncs that knew the last news from +Versailles; nay, the exact force and number of the next expedition which +the French king was to send from Dunkirk, and which was to swallow up the +Prince of Orange, his army, and his Court. She had received the Duke of +Berwick when he landed here in '96. She kept the glass he drank from, +vowing she never would use it till she drank King James the Third's health +in it on his Majesty's return; she had tokens from the queen, and relics +of the saint who, if the story was true, had not always been a saint as +far as she and many others were concerned. She believed in the miracles +wrought at his tomb, and had a hundred authentic stories of wondrous cures +effected by the blessed king's rosaries, the medals which he wore, the +locks of his hair, or what not. Esmond remembered a score of marvellous +tales which the credulous old woman told him. There was the Bishop of +Autun, that was healed of a malady he had for forty years, and which left +him after he said mass for the repose of the king's soul. There was +Monsieur Marais, a surgeon in Auvergne, who had a palsy in both his legs, +which was cured through the king's intercession. There was Philip Pitet, +of the Benedictines, who had a suffocating cough, which wellnigh killed +him, but he besought relief of Heaven through the merits and intercession +of the blessed king, and he straightway felt a profuse sweat breaking out +all over him, and was recovered perfectly. And there was the wife of +Monsieur Lepervier, dancing-master to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, who was +entirely eased of a rheumatism by the king's intercession, of which +miracle there could be no doubt, for her surgeon and his apprentice had +given their testimony, under oath, that they did not in any way contribute +to the cure. Of these tales, and a thousand like them, Mr. Esmond believed +as much as he chose. His kinswoman's greater faith had swallow for them +all. + +The English High Church party did not adopt these legends. But truth and +honour, as they thought, bound them to the exiled king's side; nor had the +banished family any warmer supporter than that kind lady of Castlewood, in +whose house Esmond was brought up. She influenced her husband, very much +more perhaps than my lord knew, who admired his wife prodigiously though +he might be inconstant to her, and who, adverse to the trouble of thinking +himself, gladly enough adopted the opinions which she chose for him. To +one of her simple and faithful heart, allegiance to any sovereign but the +one was impossible. To serve King William for interest's sake would have +been a monstrous hypocrisy and treason. Her pure conscience could no more +have consented to it than to a theft, a forgery, or any other base action. +Lord Castlewood might have been won over, no doubt, but his wife never +could: and he submitted his conscience to hers in this case as he did in +most others, when he was not tempted too sorely. And it was from his +affection and gratitude most likely, and from that eager devotion for his +mistress, which characterized all Esmond's youth, that the young man +subscribed to this, and other articles of faith, which his fond +benefactress set him. Had she been a Whig, he had been one; had she +followed Mr. Fox, and turned Quaker, no doubt he would have abjured +ruffles and a periwig, and have forsworn swords, lace coats, and clocked +stockings. In the scholars' boyish disputes at the University, where +parties ran very high, Esmond was noted as a Jacobite, and very likely +from vanity as much as affection took the side of his family. + +Almost the whole of the clergy of the country and more than a half of the +nation were on this side. Ours is the most loyal people in the world +surely; we admire our kings, and are faithful to them long after they have +ceased to be true to us. 'Tis a wonder to any one who looks back at the +history of the Stuart family to think how they kicked their crowns away +from them; how they flung away chances after chances; what treasures of +loyalty they dissipated, and how fatally they were bent on consummating +their own ruin. If ever men had fidelity, 'twas they; if ever men +squandered opportunity, 'twas they; and, of all the enemies they had, they +themselves were the most fatal.(8) + +When the Princess Anne succeeded, the wearied nation was glad enough to +cry a truce from all these wars, controversies, and conspiracies, and to +accept in the person of a princess of the blood royal a compromise between +the parties into which the country was divided. The Tories could serve +under her with easy consciences; though a Tory herself, she represented +the triumph of the Whig opinion. The people of England, always liking that +their princes should be attached to their own families, were pleased to +think the princess was faithful to hers; and up to the very last day and +hour of her reign, and but for that fatality which he inherited from his +fathers along with their claims to the English crown, King James the Third +might have worn it. But he neither knew how to wait an opportunity, nor to +use it when he had it; he was venturesome when he ought to have been +cautious, and cautious when he ought to have dared everything. 'Tis with a +sort of rage at his inaptitude that one thinks of his melancholy story. Do +the Fates deal more specially with kings than with common men? One is apt +to imagine so, in considering the history of that royal race, in whose +behalf so much fidelity, so much valour, so much blood were desperately +and bootlessly expended. + +The king dead then, the Princess Anne (ugly Anne Hyde's daughter, our +dowager at Chelsey called her) was proclaimed by trumpeting heralds all +over the town from Westminster to Ludgate Hill, amidst immense jubilations +of the people. + +Next week my Lord Marlborough was promoted to the Garter, and to be +captain-general of her Majesty's forces at home and abroad. This +appointment only inflamed the dowager's rage, or, as she thought it, her +fidelity to her rightful sovereign. "The princess is but a puppet in the +hands of that fury of a woman, who comes into my drawing-room and insults +me to my face. What can come to a country that is given over to such a +woman?" says the dowager: "As for that double-faced traitor, my Lord +Marlborough, he has betrayed every man and every woman with whom he has +had to deal, except his horrid wife, who makes him tremble. 'Tis all over +with the country when it has got into the clutches of such wretches as +these." + +Esmond's old kinswoman saluted the new powers in this way; but some good +fortune at least occurred to a family which stood in great need of it, by +the advancement of these famous personages who benefited humbler people +that had the luck of being in their favour. Before Mr. Esmond left England +in the month of August, and being then at Portsmouth, where he had joined +his regiment, and was busy at drill, learning the practice and mysteries +of the musket and pike, he heard that a pension on the Stamp Office had +been got for his late beloved mistress, and that the young Mistress +Beatrix was also to be taken into Court. So much good, at least, had come +of the poor widow's visit to London, not revenge upon her husband's +enemies, but reconcilement to old friends, who pitied, and seemed inclined +to serve her. As for the comrades in prison and the late misfortune; +Colonel Westbury was with the captain-general gone to Holland; Captain +Macartney was now at Portsmouth, with his regiment of Fusiliers and the +force under command of his grace the Duke of Ormonde, bound for Spain it +was said; my Lord Warwick was returned home; and Lord Mohun, so far from +being punished for the homicide which had brought so much grief and change +into the Esmond family, was gone in company of my Lord Macclesfield's +splendid embassy to the Elector of Hanover, carrying the Garter to his +highness, and a complimentary letter from the queen. + + + +Chapter IV. Recapitulations + + +From such fitful lights as could be cast upon his dark history by the +broken narrative of his poor patron, torn by remorse and struggling in the +last pangs of dissolution, Mr. Esmond had been made to understand so far, +that his mother was long since dead; and so there could be no question as +regarded her or her honour, tarnished by her husband's desertion and +injury, to influence her son in any steps which he might take either for +prosecuting or relinquishing his own just claims. It appeared from my poor +lord's hurried confession, that he had been made acquainted with the real +facts of the case only two years since, when Mr. Holt visited him, and +would have implicated him in one of those many conspiracies by which the +secret leaders of King James's party in this country were ever +endeavouring to destroy the Prince of Orange's life or power; conspiracies +so like murder, so cowardly in the means used, so wicked in the end, that +our nation has sure done well in throwing off all allegiance and fidelity +to the unhappy family that could not vindicate its right except by such +treachery--by such dark intrigue and base agents. There were designs +against King William that were no more honourable than the ambushes of +cut-throats and footpads. 'Tis humiliating to think that a great prince, +possessor of a great and sacred right, and upholder of a great cause, +should have stooped to such baseness of assassination and treasons as are +proved by the unfortunate King James's own warrant and sign-manual given +to his supporters in this country. What he and they called levying war +was, in truth, no better than instigating murder. The noble Prince of +Orange burst magnanimously through those feeble meshes of conspiracy in +which his enemies tried to envelop him: it seemed as if their cowardly +daggers broke upon the breast of his undaunted resolution. After King +James's death, the queen and her people at St. Germains--priests and women +for the most part--continued their intrigues in behalf of the young prince, +James the Third, as he was called in France and by his party here (this +prince, or Chevalier de St. George, was born in the same year with +Esmond's young pupil Frank, my lord viscount's son): and the prince's +affairs, being in the hands of priests and women, were conducted as +priests and women will conduct them, artfully, cruelly, feebly, and to a +certain bad issue. The moral of the Jesuit's story I think as wholesome a +one as ever was writ: the artfullest, the wisest, the most toilsome, and +dexterous plot-builders in the world--there always comes a day when the +roused public indignation kicks their flimsy edifice down, and sends its +cowardly enemies a-flying. Mr. Swift hath finely described that passion +for intrigue, that love of secrecy, slander, and lying, which belongs to +weak people, hangers-on of weak courts. 'Tis the nature of such to hate +and envy the strong, and conspire their ruin; and the conspiracy succeeds +very well, and everything presages the satisfactory overthrow of the great +victim; until one day Gulliver rouses himself, shakes off the little +vermin of an enemy, and walks away unmolested. Ah! the Irish soldiers +might well say after the Boyne, "Change kings with us, and we will fight +it over again." Indeed, the fight was not fair between the two. 'Twas a +weak priest-ridden, woman-ridden man, with such puny allies and weapons as +his own poor nature led him to choose, contending against the schemes, the +generalship, the wisdom, and the heart of a hero. + +On one of these many coward's errands, then (for, as I view them now, I +can call them no less), Mr. Holt had come to my lord at Castlewood, +proposing some infallible plan for the Prince of Orange's destruction, in +which my lord viscount, loyalist as he was, had indignantly refused to +join. As far as Mr. Esmond could gather from his dying words, Holt came to +my lord with a plan of insurrection, and offer of the renewal, in his +person, of that marquis's title which King James had conferred on the +preceding viscount; and on refusal of this bribe, a threat was made, on +Holt's part, to upset my lord viscount's claim to his estate and title of +Castlewood altogether. To back this astounding piece of intelligence, of +which Henry Esmond's patron now had the first light, Holt came armed with +the late lord's dying declaration, after the affair of the Boyne, at Trim, +in Ireland, made both to the Irish priest and a French ecclesiastic of +Holt's order, that was with King James's army. Holt showed, or pretended +to show, the marriage certificate of the late Viscount Esmond with my +mother, in the city of Brussels, in the year 1677, when the viscount, then +Thomas Esmond, was serving with the English army in Flanders; he could +show, he said, that this Gertrude, deserted by her husband long since, was +alive, and a professed nun in the year 1685, at Brussels, in which year +Thomas Esmond married his uncle's daughter, Isabella, now called +Viscountess Dowager of Castlewood; and leaving him, for twelve hours, to +consider this astounding news (so the poor dying lord said), disappeared +with his papers in the mysterious way in which he came. Esmond knew how, +well enough: by that window from which he had seen the father issue:--but +there was no need to explain to my poor lord, only to gather from his +parting lips the words which he would soon be able to utter no more. + +Ere the twelve hours were over, Holt himself was a prisoner, implicated in +Sir John Fenwick's conspiracy, and locked up at Hexton first, whence he +was transferred to the Tower; leaving the poor lord viscount, who was not +aware of the others being taken, in daily apprehension of his return, when +(as my Lord Castlewood declared, calling God to witness, and with tears in +his dying eyes) it had been his intention at once to give up his estate +and his title to their proper owner, and to retire to his own house at +Walcote with his family. "And would to God I had done it," the poor lord +said; "I would not be here now, wounded to death, a miserable, stricken +man!" + +My lord waited day after day, and, as may be supposed, no messenger came; +but at a month's end Holt got means to convey to him a message out of the +Tower, which was to this effect: that he should consider all unsaid that +had been said, and that things were as they were. + +"I had a sore temptation," said my poor lord. "Since I had come into this +cursed title of Castlewood, which hath never prospered with me, I have +spent far more than the income of that estate and my paternal one, too. I +calculated all my means down to the last shilling, and found I never could +pay you back, my poor Harry, whose fortune I had had for twelve years. My +wife and children must have gone out of the house dishonoured, and +beggars. God knows, it hath been a miserable one for me and mine. Like a +coward, I clung to that respite which Holt gave me. I kept the truth from +Rachel and you. I tried to win money of Mohun, and only plunged deeper +into debt; I scarce dared look thee in the face when I saw thee. This +sword hath been hanging over my head these two years. I swear I felt happy +when Mohun's blade entered my side." + +After lying ten months in the Tower, Holt, against whom nothing could be +found except that he was a Jesuit priest, known to be in King James's +interest, was put on shipboard by the incorrigible forgiveness of King +William, who promised him, however, a hanging if ever he should again set +foot on English shore. More than once, whilst he was in prison himself, +Esmond had thought where those papers could be, which the Jesuit had shown +to his patron, and which had such an interest for himself. They were not +found on Mr. Holt's person when that father was apprehended, for had such +been the case my lords of the council had seen them, and this family +history had long since been made public. However, Esmond cared not to seek +the papers. His resolution being taken; his poor mother dead; what matter +to him that documents existed proving his right to a title which he was +determined not to claim, and of which he vowed never to deprive that +family which he loved best in the world? Perhaps he took a greater pride +out of his sacrifice than he would have had in those honours which he was +resolved to forgo. Again, as long as these titles were not forthcoming, +Esmond's kinsman, dear young Francis, was the honourable and undisputed +owner of the Castlewood estate and title. The mere word of a Jesuit could +not overset Frank's right of occupancy, and so Esmond's mind felt actually +at ease to think the papers were missing, and in their absence his dear +mistress and her son the lawful lady and lord of Castlewood. + +Very soon after his liberation, Mr. Esmond made it his business to ride to +that village of Ealing where he had passed his earliest years in this +country, and to see if his old guardians were still alive and inhabitants +of that place. But the only relic which he found of old Monsieur +Pastoureau was a stone in the churchyard, which told that Athanasius +Pastoureau, a native of Flanders, lay there buried, aged 87 years. The old +man's cottage, which Esmond perfectly recollected, and the garden (where +in his childhood he had passed many hours of play and reverie, and had +many a beating from his termagant of a foster-mother), were now in the +occupation of quite a different family; and it was with difficulty that he +could learn in the village what had come of Pastoureau's widow and +children. The clerk of the parish recollected her--the old man was scarce +altered in the fourteen years that had passed since last Esmond set eyes +on him. It appeared she had pretty soon consoled herself after the death +of her old husband, whom she ruled over, by taking a new one younger than +herself, who spent her money and ill-treated her and her children. The +girl died; one of the boys 'listed; the other had gone apprentice. Old Mr. +Rogers, the clerk, said he had heard that Mrs. Pastoureau was dead too. +She and her husband had left Ealing this seven year; and so Mr. Esmond's +hopes of gaining any information regarding his parentage from this family, +were brought to an end. He gave the old clerk a crown-piece for his news, +smiling to think of the time when he and his little playfellows had slunk +out of the churchyard, or hidden behind the gravestones, at the approach +of this awful authority. + +Who was his mother? What had her name been? When did she die? Esmond +longed to find some one who could answer these questions to him, and +thought even of putting them to his aunt the viscountess, who had +innocently taken the name which belonged of right to Henry's mother. But +she knew nothing, or chose to know nothing, on this subject, nor, indeed, +could Mr. Esmond press her much to speak on it. Father Holt was the only +man who could enlighten him, and Esmond felt he must wait until some fresh +chance or new intrigue might put him face to face with his old friend, or +bring that restless indefatigable spirit back to England again. + +The appointment to his ensigncy, and the preparations necessary for the +campaign, presently gave the young gentleman other matters to think of. +His new patroness treated him very kindly and liberally; she promised to +make interest and pay money, too, to get him a company speedily; she bade +him procure a handsome outfit, both of clothes and of arms, and was +pleased to admire him when he made his first appearance in his laced +scarlet coat, and to permit him to salute her on the occasion of this +interesting investiture. "Red," says she, tossing up her old head, "hath +always been the colour worn by the Esmonds." And so her ladyship wore it +on her own cheeks very faithfully to the last. She would have him be +dressed, she said, as became his father's son, and paid cheerfully for his +five-pound beaver, his black buckled periwig, and his fine holland shirts, +and his swords, and his pistols, mounted with silver. Since the day he was +born, poor Harry had never looked such a fine gentleman: his liberal +stepmother filled his purse with guineas, too, some of which Captain +Steele and a few choice spirits helped Harry to spend in an entertainment +which Dick ordered (and, indeed, would have paid for, but that he had no +money when the reckoning was called for; nor would the landlord give him +any more credit) at the "Garter", over against the gate of the Palace, in +Pall Mall. + +The old viscountess, indeed, if she had done Esmond any wrong formerly, +seemed inclined to repair it by the present kindness of her behaviour: she +embraced him copiously at parting, wept plentifully, bade him write by +every packet, and gave him an inestimable relic, which she besought him to +wear round his neck--a medal, blessed by I know not what Pope, and worn by +his late sacred Majesty King James. So Esmond arrived at his regiment with +a better equipage than most young officers could afford. He was older than +most of his seniors, and had a further advantage which belonged but to +very few of the army gentlemen in his day--many of whom could do little +more than write their names--that he had read much, both at home and at the +University, was master of two or three languages, and had that further +education which neither books nor years will give, but which some men get +from the silent teaching of adversity. She is a great schoolmistress, as +many a poor fellow knows, that hath held his hand out to her ferule, and +whimpered over his lesson before her awful chair. + + + +Chapter V. I Go On The Vigo Bay Expedition, Taste Salt Water And Smell +Powder + + +The first expedition in which Mr. Esmond had the honour to be engaged, +rather resembled one of the invasions projected by the redoubted Captain +Avory or Captain Kid, than a war between crowned heads, carried on by +generals of rank and honour. On the 1st day of July, 1702, a great fleet, +of a hundred and fifty sail, set sail from Spithead, under the command of +Admiral Shovell, having on board 12,000 troops, with his grace the Duke of +Ormond as the captain-general of the expedition. One of these 12,000 +heroes having never been to sea before, or, at least, only once in his +infancy, when he made the voyage to England from that unknown country +where he was born--one of those 12,000--the junior ensign of Colonel Quin's +regiment of Fusiliers--was in a quite unheroic state of corporal +prostration a few hours after sailing; and an enemy, had he boarded the +ship, would have had easy work of him. From Portsmouth we put into +Plymouth, and took in fresh reinforcements. We were off Finisterre on the +31st of July, so Esmond's table-book informs him; and on the 8th of August +made the rock of Lisbon. By this time the ensign was grown as bold as an +admiral, and a week afterwards had the fortune to be under fire for the +first time--and under water, too--his boat being swamped in the surf in +Toros Bay, where the troops landed. The ducking of his new coat was all +the harm the young soldier got in this expedition, for, indeed, the +Spaniards made no stand before our troops, and were not in strength to do +so. + +But the campaign, if not very glorious, was very pleasant. New sights of +nature, by sea and land--a life of action, beginning now for the first +time--occupied and excited the young man. The many accidents, and the +routine of ship-board--the military duty--the new acquaintances, both of his +comrades in arms, and of the officers of the fleet--served to cheer and +occupy his mind, and waken it out of that selfish depression into which +his late unhappy fortunes had plunged him. He felt as if the ocean +separated him from his past care, and welcomed the new era of life which +was dawning for him. Wounds heal rapidly in a heart of two-and-twenty; +hopes revive daily; and courage rallies, in spite of a man. Perhaps, as +Esmond thought of his late despondency and melancholy, and how +irremediable it had seemed to him, as he lay in his prison a few months +back, he was almost mortified in his secret mind at finding himself so +cheerful. + +To see with one's own eyes men and countries, is better than reading all +the books of travel in the world: and it was with extreme delight and +exultation that the young man found himself actually on his grand tour, +and in the view of people and cities which he had read about as a boy. He +beheld war for the first time--the pride, pomp, and circumstance of it, at +least, if not much of the danger. He saw actually, and with his own eyes, +those Spanish cavaliers and ladies whom he had beheld in imagination in +that immortal story of Cervantes, which had been the delight of his +youthful leisure. 'Tis forty years since Mr. Esmond witnessed those +scenes, but they remain as fresh in his memory as on the day when first he +saw them as a young man. A cloud, as of grief, that had lowered over him, +and had wrapped the last years of his life in gloom, seemed to clear away +from Esmond during this fortunate voyage and campaign. His energies seemed +to awaken and to expand, under a cheerful sense of freedom. Was his heart +secretly glad to have escaped from that fond but ignoble bondage at home? +Was it that the inferiority to which the idea of his base birth had +compelled him, vanished with the knowledge of that secret, which though, +perforce, kept to himself, was yet enough to cheer and console him? At any +rate, young Esmond of the army was quite a different being to the sad +little dependant of the kind Castlewood household, and the melancholy +student of Trinity Walks; discontented with his fate, and with the +vocation into which that drove him, and thinking, with a secret +indignation, that the cassock and bands, and the very sacred office with +which he had once proposed to invest himself, were, in fact, but marks of +a servitude which was to continue all his life long. For, disguise it as +he might to himself, he had all along felt that to be Castlewood's +chaplain was to be Castlewood's inferior still, and that his life was but +to be a long, hopeless servitude. So, indeed, he was far from grudging his +old friend Tom Tusher's good fortune (as Tom, no doubt, thought it). Had +it been a mitre and Lambeth which his friends offered him, and not a small +living and a country parsonage, he would have felt as much a slave in one +case as in the other, and was quite happy and thankful to be free. + +The bravest man I ever knew in the army, and who had been present in most +of King William's actions, as well as in the campaigns of the great Duke +of Marlborough, could never be got to tell us of any achievement of his, +except that once Prince Eugene ordered him up a tree to reconnoitre the +enemy, which feat he could not achieve on account of the horseman's boots +he wore; and on another day that he was very nearly taken prisoner because +of these jackboots, which prevented him from running away. The present +narrator shall imitate this laudable reserve, and doth not intend to dwell +upon his military exploits, which were in truth not very different from +those of a thousand other gentlemen. This first campaign of Mr. Esmond's +lasted but a few days; and as a score of books have been written +concerning it, it may be dismissed very briefly here. + +When our fleet came within view of Cadiz, our commander sent a boat with a +white flag and a couple of officers to the Governor of Cadiz, Don Scipio +de Brancaccio, with a letter from his grace, in which he hoped that as Don +Scipio had formerly served with the Austrians against the French in +England, 'twas to be hoped that his excellency would now declare himself +against the French king and for the Austrian in the war between King +Philip and King Charles. But his excellency, Don Scipio, prepared a reply, +in which he announced that, having served his former king with honour and +fidelity, he hoped to exhibit the same loyalty and devotion towards his +present sovereign, King Philip V; and by the time this letter was ready, +the officers who had been taken to see the town, and the Alameda, and the +theatre, where bull-fights are fought, and the convents, where the +admirable works of Don Bartholomew Murillo inspired one of them with a +great wonder and delight--such as he had never felt before--concerning this +divine art of painting; and these sights over, and a handsome refection +and chocolate being served to the English gentlemen, they were accompanied +back to their shallop with every courtesy, and were the only two officers +of the English army that saw at that time that famous city. + +The general tried the power of another proclamation on the Spaniards, in +which he announced that we only came in the interest of Spain and King +Charles, and for ourselves wanted to make no conquest nor settlement in +Spain at all. But all this eloquence was lost upon the Spaniards, it would +seem: the Captain-General of Andalusia would no more listen to us than the +Governor of Cadiz; and in reply to his grace's proclamation, the Marquis +of Villadarias fired off another, which those who knew the Spanish thought +rather the best of the two; and of this number was Harry Esmond, whose +kind Jesuit in old days had instructed him, and now had the honour of +translating for his grace these harmless documents of war. There was a +hard touch for his grace, and, indeed, for other generals in her Majesty's +service, in the concluding sentence of the Don: "That he and his council +had the generous example of their ancestors to follow, who had never yet +sought their elevation in the blood or in the flight of their kings. +'_Mori pro patria_' was his device, which the duke might communicate to +the princess who governed England." + +Whether the troops were angry at this repartee or no, 'tis certain +something put them in a fury; for, not being able to get possession of +Cadiz, our people seized upon Port St. Mary's and sacked it, burning down +the merchants' storehouses, getting drunk with the famous wines there, +pillaging and robbing quiet houses and convents, murdering and doing +worse. And the only blood which Mr. Esmond drew in this shameful campaign, +was the knocking down an English sentinel with a half-pike, who was +offering insult to a poor trembling nun. Is she going to turn out a +beauty? or a princess? or perhaps Esmond's mother that he had lost and +never seen? Alas no, it was but a poor wheezy old dropsical woman, with a +wart on her nose. But having been early taught a part of the Roman +religion, he never had the horror of it that some Protestants have shown, +and seem to think to be a part of ours. + +After the pillage and plunder of St. Mary's, and an assault upon a fort or +two, the troops all took shipping, and finished their expedition, at any +rate, more brilliantly than it had begun. Hearing that the French fleet +with a great treasure was in Vigo Bay, our admirals, Rooke and Hopson, +pursued the enemy thither; the troops landed and carried the forts that +protected the bay, Hopson passing the boom first on board his ship the +_Torbay_, and the rest of the ships, English and Dutch, following him. +Twenty ships were burned or taken in the port of Redondilla, and a vast +deal more plunder than was ever accounted for; but poor men before that +expedition were rich afterwards, and so often was it found and remarked +that the Vigo officers came home with pockets full of money, that the +notorious Jack Shafto, who made such a figure at the coffee-houses and +gaming-tables in London, and gave out that he had been a soldier at Vigo, +owned, when he was about to be hanged, that Bagshot Heath had been his +Vigo, and that he only spoke of La Redondilla to turn away people's eyes +from the real place where the booty lay. Indeed, Hounslow or Vigo--which +matters much? The latter was a bad business, though Mr. Addison did sing +its praises in Latin. That honest gentleman's muse had an eye to the main +chance; and I doubt whether she saw much inspiration in the losing side. + +But though Esmond, for his part, got no share of this fabulous booty, one +great prize which he had out of the campaign was, that excitement of +action and change of scene, which shook off a great deal of his previous +melancholy. He learnt at any rate to bear his fate cheerfully. He brought +back a browned face, a heart resolute enough, and a little pleasant store +of knowledge and observation, from that expedition, which was over with +the autumn, when the troops were back in England again; and Esmond giving +up his post of secretary to General Lumley, whose command was over, and +parting with that officer with many kind expressions of goodwill on the +general's side, had leave to go to London, to see if he could push his +fortunes any way further, and found himself once more in his dowager +aunt's comfortable quarters at Chelsey, and in greater favour than ever +with the old lady. He propitiated her with a present of a comb, a fan, and +a black mantle, such as the ladies of Cadiz wear, and which my lady +viscountess pronounced became her style of beauty mightily. And she was +greatly edified at hearing of that story of his rescue of the nun, and +felt very little doubt but that her King James's relic, which he had +always dutifully worn in his desk, had kept him out of danger, and averted +the shot of the enemy. My lady made feasts for him, introduced him to more +company, and pushed his fortunes with such enthusiasm and success, that +she got a promise of a company for him through the Lady Marlborough's +interest, who was graciously pleased to accept of a diamond worth a couple +of hundred guineas, which Mr. Esmond was enabled to present to her +ladyship through his aunt's bounty, and who promised that she would take +charge of Esmond's fortune. He had the honour to make his appearance at +the queen's drawing-room occasionally, and to frequent my Lord +Marlborough's levees. That great man received the young one with very +especial favour, so Esmond's comrades said, and deigned to say that he had +received the best reports of Mr. Esmond, both for courage and ability, +whereon you may be sure the young gentleman made a profound bow, and +expressed himself eager to serve under the most distinguished captain in +the world. + +Whilst his business was going on thus prosperously, Esmond had his share +of pleasure, too, and made his appearance along with other young gentlemen +at the coffee-houses, the theatres, and the Mall. He longed to hear of his +dear mistress and her family: many a time, in the midst of the gaieties +and pleasures of the town, his heart fondly reverted to them; and often as +the young fellows of his society were making merry at the tavern, and +calling toasts (as the fashion of that day was) over their wine, Esmond +thought of persons--of two fair women, whom he had been used to adore +almost, and emptied his glass with a sigh. + +By this time the elder viscountess had grown tired again of the younger, +and whenever she spoke of my lord's widow, 'twas in terms by no means +complimentary towards that poor lady: the younger woman not needing her +protection any longer, the elder abused her. Most of the family quarrels +that I have seen in life (saving always those arising from money disputes, +when a division of twopence-halfpenny will often drive the dearest +relatives into war and estrangement), spring out of jealousy and envy. +Jack and Tom, born of the same family and to the same fortune, live very +cordially together, not until Jack is ruined when Tom deserts him, but +until Tom makes a sudden rise in prosperity, which Jack can't forgive. Ten +times to one 'tis the unprosperous man that is angry, not the other who is +in fault. 'Tis Mrs. Jack, who can only afford a chair that sickens at Mrs. +Tom's new coach-and-six, cries out against her sister's airs, and sets her +husband against his brother. 'Tis Jack who sees his brother shaking hands +with a lord (with whom Jack would like to exchange snuff-boxes himself), +that goes home and tells his wife how poor Tom is spoiled, he fears, and +no better than a sneak, parasite, and beggar on horseback. I remember how +furious the coffee-house wits were with Dick Steele when he set up his +coach, and fine house in Bloomsbury: they began to forgive him when the +bailiffs were after him, and abused Mr. Addison for selling Dick's +country-house. And yet Dick in the spunging-house, or Dick in the Park, +with his four mares and plated harness, was exactly the same gentle, +kindly, improvident, jovial Dick Steele: and yet Mr. Addison was perfectly +right in getting the money which was his, and not giving up the amount of +his just claim, to be spent by Dick upon champagne and fiddlers, laced +clothes, fine furniture, and parasites, Jew and Christian, male and +female, who clung to him. As, according to the famous maxim of Monsieur de +Rochefoucault, "in our friends' misfortunes there's something secretly +pleasant to us"; so, on the other hand, their good fortune is +disagreeable. If 'tis hard for a man to bear his own good luck, 'tis +harder still for his friends to bear it for him; and but few of them +ordinarily can stand that trial: whereas one of the "precious uses" of +adversity is, that it is a great reconciler; that it brings back averted +kindness, disarms animosity, and causes yesterday's enemy to fling his +hatred aside, and hold out a hand to the fallen friend of old days. +There's pity and love, as well as envy, in the same heart and towards the +same person. The rivalry stops when the competitor tumbles; and, as I view +it, we should look at these agreeable and disagreeable qualities of our +humanity humbly alike. They are consequent and natural, and our kindness +and meanness both manly. + +So you may either read the sentence, that the elder of Esmond's two +kinswomen pardoned the younger her beauty, when that had lost somewhat of +its freshness, perhaps; and forgot most her grievances against the other, +when the subject of them was no longer prosperous and enviable; or we may +say more benevolently (but the sum comes to the same figures, worked +either way), that Isabella repented of her unkindness towards Rachel, when +Rachel was unhappy; and, bestirring herself in behalf of the poor widow +and her children, gave them shelter and friendship. The ladies were quite +good friends as long as the weaker one needed a protector. Before Esmond +went away on his first campaign, his mistress was still on terms of +friendship (though a poor little chit, a woman that had evidently no +spirit in her, &c.) with the elder Lady Castlewood; and Mistress Beatrix +was allowed to be a beauty. + +But between the first year of Queen Anne's reign, and the second, sad +changes for the worse had taken place in the two younger ladies, at least +in the elder's description of them. Rachel, Viscountess Castlewood, had no +more face than a dumpling, and Mrs. Beatrix was grown quite coarse, and +was losing all her beauty. Little Lord Blandford (she never would call him +Lord Blandford; his father was Lord Churchill--the king, whom he betrayed, +had made him Lord Churchill, and he was Lord Churchill still)--might be +making eyes at her; but his mother, that vixen of a Sarah Jennings, would +never hear of such a folly. Lady Marlborough had got her to be a maid of +honour at Court to the princess, but she would repent of it. The widow +Francis (she was but Mrs. Francis Esmond) was a scheming, artful, +heartless hussy. She was spoiling her brat of a boy, and she would end by +marrying her chaplain. + +"What, Tusher?" cried Mr. Esmond, feeling a strange pang of rage and +astonishment. + +"Yes--Tusher, my maid's son; and who has got all the qualities of his +father, the lackey in black, and his accomplished mamma, the +waiting-woman," cries my lady. "What, do you suppose that a sentimental +widow, who will live down in that dingy dungeon of a Castlewood, where she +spoils her boy, kills the poor with her drugs, has prayers twice a day and +sees nobody but the chaplain--what do you suppose she can do, _mon cousin_, +but let the horrid parson, with his great square toes, and hideous little +green eyes, make love to her? _Cela c'est vu, mon cousin._ When I was a +girl at Castlewood, all the chaplains fell in love with me--they've nothing +else to do." + +My lady went on with more talk of this kind, though, in truth, Esmond had +no idea of what she said further, so entirely did her first words occupy +his thought. Were they true? Not all, nor half, nor a tenth part of what +the garrulous old woman said, was true. Could this be so? No ear had +Esmond for anything else, though his patroness chattered on for an hour. + +Some young gentlemen of the town, with whom Esmond had made acquaintance, +had promised to present him to that most charming of actresses, and lively +and agreeable of women, Mrs. Bracegirdle, about whom Harry's old adversary +Mohun had drawn swords, a few years before my poor lord and he fell out. +The famous Mr. Congreve had stamped with his high approval, to the which +there was no gainsaying, this delightful person: and she was acting in +Dick Steele's comedies, and finally, and for twenty-four hours after +beholding her, Mr. Esmond felt himself, or thought himself, to be as +violently enamoured of this lovely brunette, as were a thousand other +young fellows about the city. To have once seen her was to long to behold +her again; and to be offered the delightful privilege of her acquaintance, +was a pleasure the very idea of which set the young lieutenant's heart on +fire. A man cannot live with comrades under the tents without finding out +that he too is five-and-twenty. A young fellow cannot be cast down by +grief and misfortune ever so severe but some night he begins to sleep +sound, and some day when dinner-time comes to feel hungry for a beefsteak. +Time, youth, and good health, new scenes and the excitement of action and +a campaign, had pretty well brought Esmond's mourning to an end; and his +comrades said that Don Dismal, as they called him, was Don Dismal no more. +So when a party was made to dine at the "Rose", and go to the playhouse +afterward, Esmond was as pleased as another to take his share of the +bottle and the play. + +How was it that the old aunt's news, or it might be scandal, about Tom +Tusher, caused such a strange and sudden excitement in Tom's old +playfellow? Hadn't he sworn a thousand times in his own mind that the lady +of Castlewood, who had treated him with such kindness once, and then had +left him so cruelly, was, and was to remain henceforth, indifferent to him +for ever? Had his pride and his sense of justice not long since helped him +to cure the pain of that desertion--was it even a pain to him now? Why, but +last night as he walked across the fields and meadows to Chelsey from Pall +Mall, had he not composed two or three stanzas of a song, celebrating +Bracegirdle's brown eyes, and declaring them a thousand times more +beautiful than the brightest blue ones that ever languished under the +lashes of an insipid fair beauty! But Tom Tusher! Tom Tusher, the +waiting-woman's son, raising up his little eyes to his mistress! Tom +Tusher presuming to think of Castlewood's widow! Rage and contempt filled +Mr. Harry's heart at the very notion; the honour of the family, of which +he was the chief, made it his duty to prevent so monstrous an alliance, +and to chastise the upstart who could dare to think of such an insult to +their house. 'Tis true Mr. Esmond often boasted of republican principles, +and could remember many fine speeches he had made at college and +elsewhere, with _worth_ and not _birth_ for a text: but Tom Tusher to take +the place of the noble Castlewood--faugh! 'twas as monstrous as King +Hamlet's widow taking off her weeds for Claudius. Esmond laughed at all +widows, all wives, all women; and were the banns about to be published, as +no doubt they were, that very next Sunday at Walcote Church, Esmond swore +that he would be present to shout No! in the face of the congregation, and +to take a private revenge upon the ears of the bridegroom. + +Instead of going to dinner then at the "Rose" that night, Mr. Esmond bade +his servant pack a portmanteau and get horses, and was at Farnham, +half-way on the road to Walcote, thirty miles off, before his comrades had +got to their supper after the play. He bade his man give no hint to my +lady dowager's household of the expedition on which he was going: and as +Chelsey was distant from London, the roads bad, and infested by footpads, +and Esmond often in the habit, when engaged in a party of pleasure, of +lying at a friend's lodging in town, there was no need that his old aunt +should be disturbed at his absence--indeed, nothing more delighted the old +lady than to fancy that _mon cousin_, the incorrigible young sinner, was +abroad boxing the watch, or scouring St. Giles's. When she was not at her +books of devotion, she thought Etheridge and Sedley very good reading. She +had a hundred pretty stories about Rochester, Harry Jermyn, and Hamilton; +and if Esmond would but have run away with the wife even of a citizen, +'tis my belief she would have pawned her diamonds (the best of them went +to our Lady of Chaillot) to pay his damages. + +My lord's little house of Walcote, which he inhabited before he took his +title and occupied the house of Castlewood--lies about a mile from +Winchester, and his widow had returned to Walcote after my lord's death as +a place always dear to her, and where her earliest and happiest days had +been spent, cheerfuller than Castlewood, which was too large for her +straitened means, and giving her, too, the protection of the ex-dean, her +father. The young viscount had a year's schooling at the famous college +there, with Mr. Tusher as his governor. So much news of them Mr. Esmond +had had during the past year from the old viscountess, his own father's +widow; from the young one there had never been a word. + +Twice or thrice in his benefactor's lifetime, Esmond had been to Walcote; +and now, taking but a couple of hours' rest only at the inn on the road, +he was up again long before daybreak, and made such good speed that he was +at Walcote by two o'clock of the day. He rid to the inn of the village, +where he alighted and sent a man thence to Mr. Tusher, with a message that +a gentleman from London would speak with him on urgent business. The +messenger came back to say the doctor was in town, most likely at prayers +in the cathedral. My lady viscountess was there too; she always went to +cathedral prayers every day. + +The horses belonged to the post-house at Winchester. Esmond mounted again, +and rode on to the "George"; whence he walked, leaving his grumbling +domestic at last happy with a dinner, straight to the cathedral. The organ +was playing: the winter's day was already growing grey: as he passed under +the street-arch into the cathedral-yard, and made his way into the ancient +solemn edifice. + + + +Chapter VI. The 29th December + + +There was scarce a score of persons in the Cathedral besides the dean and +some of his clergy, and the choristers, young and old, that performed the +beautiful evening prayer. But Dr. Tusher was one of the officiants, and +read from the eagle, in an authoritative voice, and a great black periwig; +and in the stalls, still in her black widow's hood, sat Esmond's dear +mistress, her son by her side, very much grown, and indeed a noble-looking +youth, with his mother's eyes, and his father's curling brown hair, that +fell over his _point de Venise_--a pretty picture such as Vandyke might +have painted. Monsieur Rigaud's portrait of my lord viscount, done at +Paris afterwards, gives but a French version of his manly, frank, English +face. When he looked up there were two sapphire beams out of his eyes, +such as no painter's palette has the colour to match, I think. On this day +there was not much chance of seeing that particular beauty of my young +lord's countenance; for the truth is, he kept his eyes shut for the most +part, and, the anthem being rather long, was asleep. + +But the music ceasing, my lord woke up, looking about him, and his eyes +lighting on Mr. Esmond, who was sitting opposite him, gazing with no small +tenderness and melancholy upon two persons who had had so much of his +heart for so many years; Lord Castlewood, with a start, pulled at his +mother's sleeve (her face had scarce been lifted from her book), and said, +"Look, mother!" so loud, that Esmond could hear on the other side of the +church, and the old dean on his throned stall. Lady Castlewood looked for +an instant as her son bade her, and held up a warning finger to Frank; +Esmond felt his whole face flush, and his heart throbbing, as that dear +lady beheld him once more. The rest of the prayers were speedily over: Mr. +Esmond did not hear them; nor did his mistress, very likely, whose hood +went more closely over her face, and who never lifted her head again until +the service was over, the blessing given, and Mr. Dean, and his procession +of ecclesiastics, out of the inner chapel. + +Young Castlewood came clambering over the stalls before the clergy were +fairly gone, and, running up to Esmond, eagerly embraced him. "My dear, +dearest old Harry," he said, "are you come back? Have you been to the +wars? You'll take me with you when you go again? Why didn't you write to +us? Come to mother." + +Mr. Esmond could hardly say more than a "God bless you, my boy", for his +heart was very full and grateful at all this tenderness on the lad's part; +and he was as much moved at seeing Frank, as he was fearful about that +other interview which was now to take place; for he knew not if the widow +would reject him as she had done so cruelly a year ago. + +"It was kind of you to come back to us, Henry," Lady Esmond said, "I +thought you might come." + +"We read of the fleet coming to Portsmouth. Why did you not come from +Portsmouth?" Frank asked, or my lord viscount, as he now must be called. + +Esmond had thought of that too. He would have given one of his eyes so +that he might see his dear friends again once more; but believing that his +mistress had forbidden him her house, he had obeyed her, and remained at a +distance. + +"You had but to ask, and you knew I would be here," he said. + +She gave him her hand, her little fair hand: there was only her marriage +ring on it. The quarrel was all over. The year of grief and estrangement +was passed. They never had been separated. His mistress had never been out +of his mind all that time. No, not once. No, not in the prison; nor in the +camp; nor on shore before the enemy; nor at sea under the stars of solemn +midnight, nor as he watched the glorious rising of the dawn: not even at +the table, where he sat carousing with friends, or at the theatre yonder, +where he tried to fancy that other eyes were brighter than hers. Brighter +eyes there might be, and faces more beautiful, but none so dear--no voice +so sweet as that of his beloved mistress, who had been sister, mother, +goddess to him during his youth--goddess now no more, for he knew of her +weaknesses; and by thought, by suffering, and that experience it brings, +was older now than she; but more fondly cherished as woman perhaps than +ever she had been adored as divinity. + +What is it? Where lies it? the secret which makes one little hand the +dearest of all? Whoever can unriddle that mystery? Here she was, her son +by his side, his dear boy. Here she was, weeping and happy. She took his +hand in both hers; he felt her tears. It was a rapture of reconciliation. + +"Here comes Squaretoes," says Frank. "Here's Tusher." + +Tusher, indeed, now appeared, creaking on his great heels. Mr. Tom had +divested himself of his alb or surplice, and came forward habited in his +cassock and great black periwig. How had Harry Esmond ever been for a +moment jealous of this fellow? + +"Give us thy hand, Tom Tusher," he said. The chaplain made him a very low +and stately bow. "I am charmed to see Captain Esmond," says he. "My lord +and I have read the _Reddas incolumem precor_, and applied it, I am sure, +to you. You come back with Gaditanian laurels: when I heard you were bound +thither, I wished, I am sure, I was another Septimius. My lord viscount, +your lordship remembers _Septimi, Gades aditure mecum?_" + +"There's an angle of earth that I love better than Gades, Tusher," says +Mr. Esmond. "'Tis that one where your reverence hath a parsonage, and +where our youth was brought up." + +"A house that has so many sacred recollections to me," says Mr. Tusher +(and Harry remembered how Tom's father used to flog him there)--"a house +near to that of my respected patron, my most honoured patroness, must ever +be a dear abode to me. But, madam, the verger waits to close the gates on +your ladyship." + +"And Harry's coming home to supper. Huzzay! huzzay!" cries my lord. +"Mother, shall I run home and bid Beatrix put her ribbons on? Beatrix is a +maid of honour, Harry. Such a fine set-up minx!" + +"Your heart was never in the Church, Harry," the widow said, in her sweet +low tone, as they walked away together. (Now, it seemed they had never +been parted, and again, as if they had been ages asunder.) "I always +thought you had no vocation that way; and that 'twas a pity to shut you +out from the world. You would but have pined and chafed at Castlewood: and +'tis better you should make a name for yourself. I often said so to my +dear lord. How he loved you! 'Twas my lord that made you stay with us." + +"I asked no better than to stay near you always," said Mr. Esmond. + +"But to go was best, Harry. When the world cannot give peace, you will +know where to find it; but one of your strong imagination and eager +desires must try the world first before he tires of it. 'Twas not to be +thought of, or if it once was, it was only by my selfishness that you +should remain as chaplain to a country gentleman and tutor to a little +boy. You are of the blood of the Esmonds, kinsman; and that was always +wild in youth. Look at Francis. He is but fifteen, and I scarce can keep +him in my nest. His talk is all of war and pleasure, and he longs to serve +in the next campaign. Perhaps he and the young Lord Churchill shall go the +next. Lord Marlborough has been good to us. You know how kind they were in +my misfortune. And so was your--your father's widow. No one knows how good +the world is, till grief comes to try us. 'Tis through my Lady +Marlborough's goodness that Beatrix hath her place at Court; and Frank is +under my Lord Chamberlain. And the dowager lady, your father's widow, has +promised to provide for you--has she not?" + +Esmond said, "Yes. As far as present favour went, Lady Castlewood was very +good to him. And should her mind change," he added gaily, "as ladies' +minds will, I am strong enough to bear my own burden, and make my way +somehow. Not by the sword very likely. Thousands have a better genius for +that than I, but there are many ways in which a young man of good parts +and education can get on in the world; and I am pretty sure, one way or +other, of promotion!" Indeed, he had found patrons already in the army, +and amongst persons very able to serve him, too; and told his mistress of +the flattering aspect of fortune. They walked as though they had never +been parted, slowly, with the grey twilight closing round them. + +"And now we are drawing near to home," she continued. "I knew you would +come, Harry, if--if it was but to forgive me for having spoken unjustly to +you after that horrid--horrid misfortune. I was half frantic with grief +then when I saw you. And I know now--they have told me. That wretch, whose +name I can never mention, even has said it: how you tried to avert the +quarrel, and would have taken it on yourself, my poor child: but it was +God's will that I should be punished, and that my dear lord should fall." + +"He gave me his blessing on his death-bed," Esmond said. "Thank God for +that legacy!" + +"Amen, amen! dear Henry," says the lady, pressing his arm. "I knew it. Mr. +Atterbury, of St. Bride's, who was called to him, told me so. And I +thanked God, too, and in my prayers ever since remembered it." + +"You had spared me many a bitter night, had you told me sooner," Mr. +Esmond said. + +"I know it, I know it," she answered, in a tone of such sweet humility, as +made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared to reproach her. "I know +how wicked my heart has been; and I have suffered too, my dear. I +confessed to Mr. Atterbury--I must not tell any more. He--I said I would not +write to you or go to you--and it was better even that, having parted, we +should part. But I knew you would come back--I own that. That is no one's +fault. And to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang it, 'When the Lord +turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream', I thought, +yes, like them that dream--them that dream. And then it went, 'They that +sow in tears shall reap in joy; and he that goeth forth and weepeth, shall +doubtless come home again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him'; +I looked up from the book, and saw you. I was not surprised when I saw +you. I knew you would come, my dear, and saw the gold sunshine round your +head." + +She smiled an almost wild smile as she looked up at him. The moon was up +by this time, glittering keen in the frosty sky. He could see, for the +first time now clearly, her sweet careworn face. + +"Do you know what day it is?" she continued. "It is the 29th of +December--it is your birthday! But last year we did not drink it--no, no. My +lord was cold, and my Harry was likely to die; and my brain was in a +fever; and we had no wine. But now--now you are come again, bringing your +sheaves with you, my dear." She burst into a wild flood of weeping as she +spoke; she laughed and sobbed on the young man's heart, crying out wildly, +"bringing your sheaves with you--your sheaves with you!" + +As he had sometimes felt, gazing up from the deck at midnight into the +boundless starlit depths overhead, in a rapture of devout wonder at that +endless brightness and beauty--in some such a way as now, the depth of this +pure devotion (which was, for the first time, revealed to him quite) smote +upon him, and filled his heart with thanksgiving. Gracious God, who was +he, weak and friendless creature, that such a love should be poured out +upon him? Not in vain, not in vain has he lived--hard and thankless should +he be to think so--that has such a treasure given him. What is ambition +compared to that? but selfish vanity. To be rich, to be famous? What do +these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when +you lie hidden away under the ground, along with the idle titles engraven +on your coffin? But only true love lives after you--follows your memory +with secret blessing--or precedes you, and intercedes for you. _Non omnis +moriar_--if dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and +hopeless living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me. + +"If--if 'tis so, dear lady," Mr. Esmond said, "why should I ever leave you? +If God hath given me this great boon--and near or far from me, as I know +now--the heart of my dearest mistress follows me; let me have that blessing +near me, nor ever part with it till life separate us. Come away--leave this +Europe, this place which has so many sad recollections for you. Begin a +new life in a new world. My good lord often talked of visiting that land +in Virginia which King Charles gave us--gave his ancestor. Frank will give +us that. No man there will ask if there is a blot on my name, or inquire +in the woods what my title is." + +"And my children--and my duty--and my good father?--Henry," she broke out. +"He has none but me now; for soon my sister will leave him, and the old +man will be alone. He has conformed since the new queen's reign; and here +in Winchester, where they love him, they have found a church for him. When +the children leave me, I will stay with him. I cannot follow them into the +great world, where their way lies--it scares me. They will come and visit +me; and you will, sometimes, Henry--yes, sometimes, as now, in the holy +Advent season, when I have seen and blessed you once more." + +"I would leave all to follow you," said Mr. Esmond; "and can you not be as +generous for me, dear lady?" + +"Hush, boy!" she said, and it was with a mother's sweet plaintive tone and +look that she spoke. "The world is beginning for you. For me, I have been +so weak and sinful that I must leave it, and pray out an expiation, dear +Henry. Had we houses of religion as there were once, and many divines of +our Church would have them again, I often think I would retire to one and +pass my life in penance. But I would love you still--yes, there is no sin +in such a love as mine now; and my dear lord in heaven may see my heart; +and knows the tears that have washed my sin away--and now--now my duty is +here, by my children whilst they need me, and by my poor old father, +and----" + +"And not by me?" Henry said. + +"Hush!" she said again, and raised her hand up to his lip. "I have been +your nurse. You could not see me, Harry, when you were in the small-pox, +and I came and sat by you. Ah! I prayed that I might die, but it would +have been in sin, Henry. Oh, it is horrid to look back to that time. It is +over now and past, and it has been forgiven me. When you need me again I +will come ever so far. When your heart is wounded, then come to me, my +dear. Be silent! let me say all. You never loved me, dear Henry--no, you do +not now, and I thank Heaven for it. I used to watch you, and knew by a +thousand signs that it was so. Do you remember how glad you were to go +away to college? 'Twas I sent you. I told my papa that, and Mr. Atterbury +too, when I spoke to him in London. And they both gave me +absolution--both--and they are godly men, having authority to bind and to +loose. And they forgave me, as my dear lord forgave me before he went to +heaven." + +"I think the angels are not all in heaven," Mr. Esmond said. And as a +brother folds a sister to his heart; and as a mother cleaves to her son's +breast--so for a few moments Esmond's beloved mistress came to him and +blessed him. + + + +Chapter VII. I Am Made Welcome At Walcote + + +As they came up to the house at Walcote, the windows from within were +lighted up with friendly welcome; the supper-table was spread in the +oak-parlour; it seemed as if forgiveness and love were awaiting the +returning prodigal. Two or three familiar faces of domestics were on the +lookout at the porch--the old housekeeper was there, and young Lockwood +from Castlewood in my lord's livery of tawny and blue. His dear mistress +pressed his arm as they passed into the hall. Her eyes beamed out on him +with affection indescribable. "Welcome," was all she said: as she looked +up, putting back her fair curls and black hood. A sweet rosy smile blushed +on her face: Harry thought he had never seen her look so charming. Her +face was lighted with a joy that was brighter than beauty--she took a hand +of her son who was in the hall waiting his mother--she did not quit +Esmond's arm. + +"Welcome, Harry!" my young lord echoed after her. "Here, we are all come +to say so. Here's old Pincot, hasn't she grown handsome?" and Pincot, who +was older, and no handsomer than usual, made a curtsy to the captain, as +she called Esmond, and told my lord to "Have done, now." + +"And here's Jack Lockwood. He'll make a famous grenadier, Jack; and so +shall I; we'll both 'list under you, cousin. As soon as I am seventeen, I +go to the army--every gentleman goes to the army. Look! who comes here--ho, +ho!" he burst into a laugh. "'Tis Mistress Trix, with a new ribbon; I knew +she would put one on as soon as she heard a captain was coming to supper." + +This laughing colloquy took place in the hall of Walcote House: in the +midst of which is a staircase that leads from an open gallery, where are +the doors of the sleeping-chambers: and from one of these, a wax candle in +her hand, and illuminating her, came Mistress Beatrix--the light falling +indeed upon the scarlet ribbon which she wore, and upon the most brilliant +white neck in the world. + +Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown beyond the common height; +and arrived at such a dazzling completeness of beauty, that his eyes might +well show surprise and delight at beholding her. In hers there was a +brightness so lustrous and melting, that I have seen a whole assembly +follow her as if by an attraction irresistible: and that night the great +duke was at the playhouse after Ramillies, every soul turned and looked +(she chanced to enter at the opposite side of the theatre at the same +moment) at her, and not at him. She was a brown beauty: that is, her eyes, +hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes, were dark: her hair curling with rich +undulations, and waving over her shoulders; but her complexion was as +dazzling white as snow in sunshine; except her cheeks, which were a bright +red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper crimson. Her mouth and +chin, they said, were too large and full, and so they might be for a +goddess in marble, but not for a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look +was love, whose voice was the sweetest low song, whose shape was perfect +symmetry, health, decision, activity, whose foot as it planted itself on +the ground, was firm but flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or +slow, was always perfect grace--agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen--now +melting, now imperious, now sarcastic, there was no single movement of +hers but was beautiful. As he thinks of her, he who writes feels young +again, and remembers a paragon. + +So she came holding her dress with one fair rounded arm, and her taper +before her, tripping down the stair to greet Esmond. + +"She hath put on her scarlet stockings and white shoes," says my lord, +still laughing. "Oh, my fine mistress! is this the way you set your cap at +the captain!" She approached, shining smiles upon Esmond, who could look +at nothing but her eyes. She advanced holding forward her head, as if she +would have him kiss her as he used to do when she was a child. + +"Stop," she said, "I am grown too big! Welcome, cousin Harry," and she +made him an arch curtsy, sweeping down to the ground almost, with the most +gracious bend, looking up the while with the brightest eyes and sweetest +smile. Love seemed to radiate from her. Harry eyed her with such a rapture +as the first lover is described as having by Milton. + +"_N'est-ce pas?_" says my lady, in a low, sweet voice, still hanging on +his arm. + +Esmond turned round with a start and a blush, as he met his mistress's +clear eyes. He had forgotten her, wrapt in admiration of the _filia +pulcrior_. + +"Right foot forward, toe turned out, so: now drop the curtsy, and show the +red stockings, Trix. They've silver clocks, Harry. The dowager sent 'em. +She went to put 'em on," cries my lord. + +"Hush, you stupid child!" says miss, smothering her brother with kisses; +and then she must come and kiss her mamma, looking all the while at Harry, +over his mistress's shoulder. And if she did not kiss him, she gave him +both her hands, and then took one of his in both hands, and said, "Oh, +Harry, we're so, _so_ glad you're come!" + +"There are woodcocks for supper," says my lord: "huzzay! It was such a +hungry sermon." + +"And it is the 29th of December; and our Harry has come home." + +"Huzzay, old Pincot!" again says my lord; and my dear lady's lips looked +as if they were trembling with a prayer. She would have Harry lead in +Beatrix to the supper-room, going herself with my young lord viscount; and +to this party came Tom Tusher directly, whom four at least out of the +company of five wished away. Away he went, however, as soon as the +sweetmeats were put down, and then, by the great crackling fire, his +mistress or Beatrix, with her blushing graces, filling his glass for him, +Harry told the story of his campaign, and passed the most delightful night +his life had ever known. The sun was up long ere he was, so deep, sweet, +and refreshing was his slumber. He woke as if angels had been watching at +his bed all night. I dare say one that was as pure and loving as an angel +had blest his sleep with her prayers. + +Next morning the chaplain read prayers to the little household at Walcote, +as the custom was; Esmond thought Mistress Beatrix did not listen to +Tusher's exhortation much: her eyes were wandering everywhere during the +service, at least whenever he looked up he met them. Perhaps he also was +not very attentive to his reverence the chaplain. "This might have been my +life," he was thinking; "this might have been my duty from now till old +age. Well, were it not a pleasant one to be with these dear friends and +part from 'em no more? Until--until the destined lover comes and takes away +pretty Beatrix"--and the best part of Tom Tusher's exposition, which may +have been very learned and eloquent, was quite lost to poor Harry by this +vision of the destined lover, who put the preacher out. + +All the while of the prayers, Beatrix knelt a little way before Harry +Esmond. The red stockings were changed for a pair of grey, and black +shoes, in which her feet looked to the full as pretty. All the roses of +spring could not vie with the brightness of her complexion; Esmond thought +he had never seen anything like the sunny lustre of her eyes. My lady +viscountess looked fatigued, as if with watching, and her face was pale. + +Miss Beatrix remarked these signs of indisposition in her mother, and +deplored them. "I am an old woman," says my lady, with a kind smile; "I +cannot hope to look as young as you do, my dear." + +"She'll never look as good as you do if she lives till she's a hundred," +says my lord, taking his mother by the waist, and kissing her hand. + +"Do I look very wicked, cousin?" says Beatrix, turning full round on +Esmond, with her pretty face so close under his chin, that the soft +perfumed hair touched it. She laid her finger-tips on his sleeve as she +spoke; and he put his other hand over hers. + +"I'm like your looking-glass," says he, "and that can't flatter you." + +"He means that you are always looking at him, my dear," says her mother, +archly. Beatrix ran away from Esmond at this, and flew to her mamma, whom +she kissed, stopping my lady's mouth with her pretty hand. + +"And Harry is very good to look at," says my lady, with her fond eyes +regarding the young man. + +"If 'tis good to see a happy face," says he, "you see that." My lady said +"Amen", with a sigh; and Harry thought the memory of her dead lord rose up +and rebuked her back again into sadness; for her face lost the smile, and +resumed its look of melancholy. + +"Why, Harry, how fine we look in our scarlet and silver, and our black +periwig," cries my lord. "Mother, I am tired of my own hair. When shall I +have a peruke? Where did you get your steenkirk, Harry?" + +"It's some of my lady dowager's lace," says Harry; "she gave me this and a +number of other fine things." + +"My lady dowager isn't such a bad woman," my lord continued. + +"She's not so--so red as she's painted," says Miss Beatrix. + +Her brother broke into a laugh. "I'll tell her you said so; by the lord, +Trix, I will," he cries out. + +"She'll know that you hadn't the wit to say it, my lord," says Miss +Beatrix. + +"We won't quarrel the first day Harry's here, will we, mother?" said the +young lord. "We'll see if we can get on to the new year without a fight. +Have some of this Christmas pie? and here comes the tankard; no, it's +Pincot with the tea." + +"Will the captain choose a dish?" asks Mistress Beatrix. + +"I say, Harry," my lord goes on, "I'll show thee my horses after +breakfast; and we'll go a bird-netting to-night, and on Monday there's a +cock-match at Winchester--do you love cock-fighting, Harry?--between the +gentlemen of Sussex and the gentlemen of Hampshire, at ten pound the +battle, and fifty pound the odd battle to show one-and-twenty cocks." + +"And what will you do, Beatrix, to amuse our kinsman?" asks my lady. + +"I'll listen to him," says Beatrix; "I am sure he has a hundred things to +tell us. And I'm jealous already of the Spanish ladies. Was that a +beautiful nun at Cadiz that you rescued from the soldiers? Your man talked +of it last night in the kitchen, and Mrs. Betty told me this morning as +she combed my hair. And he says you must be in love, for you sat on deck +all night, and scribbled verses all day in your table-book." Harry thought +if he had wanted a subject for verses yesterday, to-day he had found one: +and not all the Lindamiras and Ardelias of the poets were half so +beautiful as this young creature; but he did not say so, though some one +did for him. + +This was his dear lady who, after the meal was over, and the young people +were gone, began talking of her children with Mr. Esmond, and of the +characters of one and the other, and of her hopes and fears for both of +them. "'Tis not while they are at home," she said, "and in their mother's +nest, I fear for them--'tis when they are gone into the world, whither I +shall not be able to follow them. Beatrix will begin her service next +year. You may have heard a rumour about--about my Lord Blandford. They were +both children; and it is but idle talk. I know my kinswoman would never +let him make such a poor marriage as our Beatrix would be. There's scarce +a princess in Europe that she thinks is good enough for him or for her +ambition." + +"There's not a princess in Europe to compare with her," says Esmond. + +"In beauty? No, perhaps not," answered my lady. "She is most beautiful, +isn't she? 'Tis not a mother's partiality that deceives me. I marked you +yesterday when she came down the stair: and read it in your face. We look +when you don't fancy us looking, and see better than you think, dear +Harry: and just now when they spoke about your poems--you writ pretty lines +when you were but a boy--you thought Beatrix was a pretty subject for +verse, did not you, Harry?" (The gentleman could only blush for a reply.) +"And so she is--nor are you the first her pretty face has captivated. 'Tis +quickly done. Such a pair of bright eyes as hers learn their power very +soon, and use it very early." And, looking at him keenly with hers, the +fair widow left him. + +And so it is--a pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue +a man; to enslave him, and inflame him; to make him even forget; they +dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so +prizes them that he would give all his life to possess 'em. What is the +fond love of dearest friends compared to this treasure? Is memory as +strong as expectancy? fruition, as hunger? gratitude, as desire? I have +looked at royal diamonds in the jewel-rooms in Europe, and thought how +wars have been made about 'em: Mogul sovereigns deposed and strangled for +them, or ransomed with them: millions expended to buy them; and daring +lives lost in digging out the little shining toys that I value no more +than the button in my hat. And so there are other glittering baubles (of +rare water too) for which men have been set to kill and quarrel ever since +mankind began; and which last but for a score of years, when their sparkle +is over. Where are those jewels now that beamed under Cleopatra's +forehead, or shone in the sockets of Helen? + +The second day after Esmond's coming to Walcote, Tom Tusher had leave to +take a holiday, and went off in his very best gown and bands to court the +young woman whom his reverence desired to marry, and who was not a +viscount's widow, as it turned out, but a brewer's relict at Southampton, +with a couple of thousand pounds to her fortune: for honest Tom's heart +was under such excellent control, that Venus herself without a portion +would never have caused it to flutter. So he rode away on his heavy-paced +gelding to pursue his jog-trot loves, leaving Esmond to the society of his +dear mistress and her daughter, and with his young lord for a companion, +who was charmed not only to see an old friend, but to have the tutor and +his Latin books put out of the way. + +The boy talked of things and people, and not a little about himself, in +his frank artless way. 'Twas easy to see that he and his sister had the +better of their fond mother, for the first place in whose affections, +though they fought constantly, and though the kind lady persisted that she +loved both equally, 'twas not difficult to understand that Frank was his +mother's darling and favourite. He ruled the whole household (always +excepting rebellious Beatrix) not less now than when he was a child +marshalling the village boys in playing at soldiers, and caning them +lustily too, like the sturdiest corporal. As for Tom Tusher, his reverence +treated the young lord with that politeness and deference which he always +showed for a great man, whatever his age or his stature was. Indeed, with +respect to this young one, it was impossible not to love him, so frank and +winning were his manners, his beauty, his gaiety, the ring of his +laughter, and the delightful tone of his voice. Wherever he went, he +charmed and domineered. I think his old grandfather, the dean, and the +grim old housekeeper, Mrs. Pincot, were as much his slaves as his mother +was: and as for Esmond, he found himself presently submitting to a certain +fascination the boy had, and slaving it like the rest of the family. The +pleasure which he had in Frank's mere company and converse exceeded that +which he ever enjoyed in the society of any other man, however delightful +in talk, or famous for wit. His presence brought sunshine into a room, his +laugh, his prattle, his noble beauty and brightness of look cheered and +charmed indescribably. At the least tale of sorrow, his hands were in his +purse, and he was eager with sympathy and bounty. The way in which women +loved and petted him, when, a year or two afterwards, he came upon the +world, yet a mere boy, and the follies which they did for him (as indeed +he for them), recalled the career of Rochester, and outdid the successes +of Grammont. His very creditors loved him; and the hardest usurers, and +some of the rigid prudes of the other sex too, could deny him nothing. He +was no more witty than another man, but what he said, he said and looked +as no man else could say or look it. I have seen the women at the comedy +at Bruxelles crowd round him in the lobby: and as he sat on the stage more +people looked at him than at the actors, and watched him; and I remember +at Ramillies, when he was hit and fell, a great big red-haired Scotch +sergeant flung his halbert down, burst out a-crying like a woman, seizing +him up as if he had been an infant, and carrying him out of the fire. This +brother and sister were the most beautiful couple ever seen; though after +he winged away from the maternal nest this pair were seldom together. + +Sitting at dinner two days after Esmond's arrival (it was the last day of +the year), and so happy a one to Harry Esmond, that to enjoy it was quite +worth all the previous pain which he had endured and forgot: my young +lord, filling a bumper, and bidding Harry take another, drank to his +sister, saluting her under the title of "marchioness". + +"Marchioness!" says Harry, not without a pang of wonder, for he was +curious and jealous already. + +"Nonsense, my lord," says Beatrix, with a toss of her head. My lady +viscountess looked up for a moment at Esmond, and cast her eyes down. + +"The Marchioness of Blandford," says Frank, "don't you know--hath not Rouge +Dragon told you?" (My lord used to call the dowager at Chelsey by this and +other names.) "Blandford has a lock of her hair: the duchess found him on +his knees to Mistress 'Trix, and boxed his ears, and said Dr. Hare should +whip him." + +"I wish Mr. Tusher would whip you too," says Beatrix. + +My lady only said: "I hope you will tell none of these silly stories +elsewhere than at home, Francis." + +"'Tis true, on my word," continues Frank: "look at Harry scowling, mother, +and see how Beatrix blushes as red as the silver-clocked stockings." + +"I think we had best leave the gentlemen to their wine and their talk," +says Mistress Beatrix, rising up with the air of a young queen, tossing +her rustling, flowing draperies about her, and quitting the room, followed +by her mother. + +Lady Castlewood again looked at Esmond, as she stooped down and kissed +Frank. "Do not tell those silly stories, child," she said: "do not drink +much wine, sir; Harry never loved to drink wine." And she went away, too, +in her black robes, looking back on the young man with her fair, fond +face. + +"Egad! it's true," says Frank, sipping his wine with the air of a lord. +"What think you of this Lisbon--real Collares? 'Tis better than your heady +port: we got it out of one of the Spanish ships that came from Vigo last +year: my mother bought it at Southampton, as the ship was lying there--the +_Rose_, Captain Hawkins." + +"Why, I came home in that ship," says Harry. + +"And it brought home a good fellow and good wine," says my lord. "I say, +Harry, I wish thou hadst not that cursed bar sinister." + +"And why not the bar sinister?" asks the other. + +"Suppose I go to the army and am killed--every gentleman goes to the +army--who is to take care of the women? 'Trix will never stop at home; +mother's in love with you,--yes, I think mother's in love with you. She was +always praising you, and always talking about you; and when she went to +Southampton, to see the ship, I found her out. But you see it is +impossible: we are of the oldest blood in England; we came in with the +Conqueror; we were only baronets,--but what then? we were forced into that. +James the First forced our great-grandfather. We are above titles; we old +English gentry don't want 'em; the queen can make a duke any day. Look at +Blandford's father, Duke Churchill, and Duchess Jennings, what were they, +Harry? Damn it, sir, what are they, to turn up their noses at us? Where +were they, when our ancestor rode with King Henry at Agincourt, and filled +up the French king's cup after Poictiers? 'Fore George, sir, why shouldn't +Blandford marry Beatrix? By G----! he _shall_ marry Beatrix, or tell me the +reason why. We'll marry with the best blood of England, and none but the +best blood of England. You are an Esmond, and you can't help your birth, +my boy. Let's have another bottle. What! no more? I've drunk three parts +of this myself. I had many a night with my father; you stood to him like a +man, Harry. You backed your blood; you can't help your misfortune, you +know,--no man can help that." + +The elder said he would go in to his mistress's tea-table. The young lad, +with a heightened colour and voice, began singing a snatch of a song, and +marched out of the room. Esmond heard him presently calling his dogs about +him, and cheering and talking to them; and by a hundred of his looks and +gestures, tricks of voice and gait, was reminded of the dead lord, Frank's +father. + +And so, the Sylvester Night passed away; the family parted long before +midnight, Lady Castlewood remembering, no doubt, former New-Year's Eves, +when healths were drunk, and laughter went round in the company of him to +whom years, past, and present, and future, were to be as one; and so cared +not to sit with her children and hear the cathedral bells ringing the +birth of the year 1703. Esmond heard the chimes as he sat in his own +chamber, ruminating by the blazing fire there, and listened to the last +notes of them, looking out from his window towards the city, and the great +grey towers of the cathedral lying under the frosty sky, with the keen +stars shining above. + +The sight of these brilliant orbs no doubt made him think of other +luminaries. "And so her eyes have already done execution," thought +Esmond--"on whom?--who can tell me?" Luckily his kinsman was by, and Esmond +knew he would have no difficulty in finding out Mistress Beatrix's history +from the simple talk of the boy. + + + +Chapter VIII. Family Talk + + +What Harry admired and submitted to in the pretty lad, his kinsman, was +(for why should he resist it?) the calmness of patronage which my young +lord assumed, as if to command was his undoubted right, and all the world +(below his degree) ought to bow down to Viscount Castlewood. + +"I know my place, Harry," he said. "I'm not proud--the boys at Winchester +College say I'm proud: but I'm not proud. I am simply Francis James +Viscount Castlewood in the peerage of Ireland. I might have been (do you +know that?) Francis James Marquis and Earl of Esmond in that of England. +The late lord refused the title which was offered to him by my godfather, +his late Majesty. You should know that--you are of our family, you know--you +cannot help your bar sinister, Harry, my dear fellow; and you belong to +one of the best families in England, in spite of that; and you stood by my +father, and by G----! I'll stand by you. You shall never want a friend, +Harry, while Francis James Viscount Castlewood has a shilling. It's now +1703--I shall come of age in 1709. I shall go back to Castlewood; I shall +live at Castlewood; I shall build up the house. My property will be pretty +well restored by then. The late viscount mismanaged my property, and left +it in a very bad state. My mother is living close, as you see, and keeps +me in a way hardly befitting a peer of these realms; for I have but a pair +of horses, a governor, and a man that is valet and groom. But when I am of +age, these things will be set right, Harry. Our house will be as it should +be. You'll always come to Castlewood, won't you? You shall always have +your two rooms in the court kept for you; and if anybody slights you, d---- +them! let them have a care of _me_. I shall marry early--'Trix will be a +duchess by that time, most likely; for a cannon-ball may knock over his +grace any day, you know." + +"How?" says Harry. + +"Hush, my dear!" says my lord viscount. "You are of the family--you are +faithful to us, by George, and I tell you everything. Blandford will marry +her--or ----" and here he put his little hand on his sword--"you understand +the rest. Blandford knows which of us two is the best weapon. At +small-sword, or back-sword, or sword and dagger, if he likes: I can beat +him. I have tried him, Harry; and begad, he knows I am a man not to be +trifled with." + +"But you do not mean," says Harry, concealing his laughter, but not his +wonder, "that you can force my Lord Blandford, the son of the first man of +this kingdom, to marry your sister at sword's point?" + +"I mean to say that we are cousins by the mother's side, though that's +nothing to boast of. I mean to say that an Esmond is as good as a +Churchill; and when the king comes back, the Marquis of Esmond's sister +may be a match for any nobleman's daughter in the kingdom. There are but +two marquises in all England, William Herbert, Marquis of Powis, and +Francis James, Marquis of Esmond; and hark you, Harry, now swear you'll +never mention this. Give me your honour as a gentleman, for you _are_ a +gentleman, though you are a----" + +"Well, well," says Harry, a little impatient. + +"Well, then, when after my late viscount's misfortune, my mother went up +with us to London, to ask for justice against you all (as for Mohun, I'll +have his blood, as sure as my name is Francis Viscount Esmond), we went to +stay with our cousin my Lady Marlborough, with whom we had quarrelled for +ever so long. But when misfortune came, she stood by her blood:--so did the +dowager viscountess stand by her blood,--so did you. Well, sir, whilst my +mother was petitioning the late Prince of Orange--for I will never call him +king--and while you were in prison, we lived at my Lord Marlborough's +house, who was only a little there, being away with the army in Holland. +And then ... I say, Harry, you won't tell, now?" + +Harry again made a vow of secrecy. + +"Well, there used to be all sorts of fun, you know: my Lady Marlborough +was very fond of us, and she said I was to be her page; and she got 'Trix +to be a maid of honour, and while she was up in her room crying, we used +to be always having fun, you know; and the duchess used to kiss me, and so +did her daughters, and Blandford fell tremendous in love with 'Trix, and +she liked him; and one day he--he kissed her behind a door--he did +though,--and the duchess caught him, and she banged such a box of the ear +both to 'Trix and Blandford--you should have seen it! And then she said +that we must leave directly, and abused my mamma, who was cognizant of the +business; but she wasn't--never thinking about anything but father. And so +we came down to Walcote. Blandford being locked up, and not allowed to see +'Trix. But _I_ got at him. I climbed along the gutter, and in through the +window, where he was crying. + +" 'Marquis,' says I, when he had opened it and helped me in, 'you know I +wear a sword,' for I had brought it. + +" 'Oh, viscount,' says he--'oh, my dearest Frank!' and he threw himself +into my arms and burst out a-crying. 'I do love Mistress Beatrix so, that +I shall die if I don't have her.' + +" 'My dear Blandford,' says I, 'you are young to think of marrying;' for +he was but fifteen, and a young fellow of that age can scarce do so, you +know. + +" 'But I'll wait twenty years, if she'll have me,' says he. 'I'll never +marry--no never, never, never, marry anybody but her. No, not a princess, +though they would have me do it ever so. If Beatrix will wait for me, her +Blandford swears he will be faithful.' And he wrote a paper (it wasn't +spelt right, for he wrote: 'I'm ready to _sine with my blode_', which you +know, Harry, isn't the way of spelling it), and vowing that he would marry +none other but the Honourable Mistress Gertrude Beatrix Esmond, only +sister of his dearest friend Francis James, fourth Viscount Esmond. And so +I gave him a locket of her hair." + +"A locket of her hair!" cries Esmond. + +"Yes. 'Trix gave me one after the fight with the duchess that very day. I +am sure I didn't want it; and so I gave it him, and we kissed at parting, +and said--'Good-bye, brother.' And I got back through the gutter; and we +set off home that very evening. And he went to King's College, in +Cambridge, and _I'm_ going to Cambridge soon; and if he doesn't stand to +his promise (for he's only wrote once),--he knows I wear a sword, Harry. +Come along, and let's go see the cocking-match at Winchester. + +"....But I say," he added laughing, after a pause, "I don't think 'Trix +will break her heart about him. Law bless you! Whenever she sees a man, +she makes eyes at him; and young Sir Wilmot Crawley of Queen's Crawley, +and Anthony Henley of Alresford, were at swords drawn about her, at the +Winchester Assembly, a month ago." + +That night Mr. Harry's sleep was by no means so pleasant or sweet as it +had been on the first two evenings after his arrival at Walcote. "So the +bright eyes have been already shining on another," thought he, "and the +pretty lips, or the cheeks at any rate, have begun the work which they +were made for. Here's a girl not sixteen, and one young gentleman is +already whimpering over a lock of her hair, and two country squires are +ready to cut each other's throats that they may have the honour of a dance +with her. What a fool am I to be dallying about this passion, and singeing +my wings in this foolish flame. Wings!--why not say crutches? There is but +eight years' difference between us, to be sure; but in life I am thirty +years older. How could I ever hope to please such a sweet creature as +that, with my rough ways and glum face? Say that I have merit ever so +much, and won myself a name, could she ever listen to me? She must be my +lady marchioness, and I remain a nameless bastard. O my master, my +master!" (here he fell to thinking with a passionate grief of the vow +which he had made to his poor dying lord); "O my mistress, dearest and +kindest, will you be contented with the sacrifice which the poor orphan +makes for you, whom you love, and who so loves you?" + +And then came a fiercer pang of temptation. "A word from me," Harry +thought, "a syllable of explanation, and all this might be changed; but +no, I swore it over the dying bed of my benefactor. For the sake of him +and his; for the sacred love and kindness of old days; I gave my promise +to him, and may kind Heaven enable me to keep my vow!" + +The next day, although Esmond gave no sign of what was going on in his +mind, but strove to be more than ordinarily gay and cheerful when he met +his friends at the morning meal, his dear mistress, whose clear eyes it +seemed no emotion of his could escape, perceived that something troubled +him, for she looked anxiously towards him more than once during the +breakfast, and when he went up to his chamber afterwards she presently +followed him, and knocked at his door. + +As she entered, no doubt the whole story was clear to her at once, for she +found our young gentleman packing his valise, pursuant to the resolution +which he had come to over-night of making a brisk retreat out of this +temptation. + +She closed the door very carefully behind her, and then leant against it, +very pale, her hands folded before her, looking at the young man, who was +kneeling over his work of packing. "Are you going so soon?" she said. + +He rose up from his knees, blushing, perhaps, to be so discovered, in the +very act, as it were, and took one of her fair little hands--it was that +which had her marriage ring on--and kissed it. + +"It is best that it should be so, dearest lady," he said. + +"I knew you were going, at breakfast. I--I thought you might stay. What has +happened? Why can't you remain longer with us? What has Frank told you--you +were talking together late last night?" + +"I had but three days' leave from Chelsea," Esmond said, as gaily as he +could. "My aunt--she lets me call her aunt--is my mistress now; I owe her my +lieutenancy and my laced coat. She has taken me into high favour; and my +new general is to dine at Chelsea to-morrow--General Lumley, madam--who has +appointed me his aide de camp, and on whom I must have the honour of +waiting. See, here is a letter from the dowager; the post brought it last +night; and I would not speak of it, for fear of disturbing our last merry +meeting." + +My lady glanced at the letter, and put it down with a smile that was +somewhat contemptuous. "I have no need to read the letter," says +she--(indeed, 'twas as well she did not; for the Chelsea missive, in the +poor dowager's usual French jargon, permitted him a longer holiday than he +said. "_Je vous donne_," quoth her ladyship, "_oui jour, pour vous fatigay +parfaictement de vos parens fatigans_")--"I have no need to read the +letter," says she. "What was it Frank told you last night?" + +"He told me little I did not know," Mr. Esmond answered. "But I have +thought of that little, and here's the result; I have no right to the name +I bear, dear lady; and it is only by your sufferance that I am allowed to +keep it. If I thought for an hour of what has perhaps crossed your mind +too----" + +"Yes, I did, Harry," said she; "I thought of it; and think of it. I would +sooner call you my son than the greatest prince in Europe--yes, than the +greatest prince. For who is there so good and so brave, and who would love +her as you would? But there are reasons a mother can't tell." + +"I know them," said Mr. Esmond, interrupting her with a smile.--"I know +there's Sir Wilmot Crawley of Queen's Crawley, and Mr. Anthony Henley of +the Grange, and my Lord Marquis of Blandford, that seems to be the +favoured suitor. You shall ask me to wear my lady marchioness's favours +and to dance at her ladyship's wedding." + +"Oh, Harry, Harry, it is none of these follies that frighten me," cried +out Lady Castlewood. "Lord Churchill is but a child, his outbreak about +Beatrix was a mere boyish folly. His parents would rather see him buried +than married to one below him in rank. And do you think that I would stoop +to sue for a husband for Francis Esmond's daughter; or submit to have my +girl smuggled into that proud family to cause a quarrel between son and +parents, and to be treated only as an inferior? I would disdain such a +meanness. Beatrix would scorn it. Ah! Henry, 'tis not with you the fault +lies, 'tis with her. I know you both, and love you: need I be ashamed of +that love now? No, never, never, and 'tis not you, dear Harry, that is +unworthy. 'Tis for my poor Beatrix I tremble--whose headstrong will +frightens me; whose jealous temper (they say I was jealous too, but, pray +God, I am cured of that sin) and whose vanity no words or prayers of mine +can cure--only suffering, only experience, and remorse afterwards. Oh, +Henry, she will make no man happy who loves her. Go away, my son, leave +her: love us always, and think kindly of us: and for me, my dear, you know +that these walls contain all that I love in the world." + +In after-life, did Esmond find the words true which his fond mistress +spoke from her sad heart? Warning he had: but I doubt others had warning +before his time, and since: and he benefited by it as most men do. + +My young lord viscount was exceeding sorry when he heard that Harry could +not come to the cock-match with him, and must go to London, but no doubt +my lord consoled himself when the Hampshire cocks won the match; and he +saw every one of the battles, and crowed properly over the conquered +Sussex gentlemen. + +As Esmond rode towards town his servant, coming up to him, informed him +with a grin, that Mistress Beatrix had brought out a new gown and blue +stockings for that day's dinner, in which she intended to appear, and had +flown into a rage and given her maid a slap on the face soon after she +heard he was going away. Mistress Beatrix's woman, the fellow said, came +down to the servants' hall, crying, and with the mark of a blow still on +her cheek: but Esmond peremptorily ordered him to fall back and be silent, +and rode on with thoughts enough of his own to occupy him--some sad ones, +some inexpressibly dear and pleasant. + +His mistress, from whom he had been a year separated, was his dearest +mistress again. The family from which he had been parted, and which he +loved with the fondest devotion, was his family once more. If Beatrix's +beauty shone upon him, it was with a friendly lustre, and he could regard +it with much such a delight as he brought away after seeing the beautiful +pictures of the smiling Madonnas in the convent at Cadiz, when he was +dispatched thither with a flag: and as for his mistress, 'twas difficult +to say with what a feeling he regarded her. 'Twas happiness to have seen +her: 'twas no great pang to part; a filial tenderness, a love that was at +once respect and protection, filled his mind as he thought of her; and +near her or far from her, and from that day until now, and from now till +death is past, and beyond it, he prays that sacred flame may ever burn. + + + +Chapter IX. I Make The Campaign Of 1704 + + +Mr. Esmond rode up to London then, where, if the dowager had been angry at +the abrupt leave of absence he took, she was mightily pleased at his +speedy return. + +He went immediately and paid his court to his new general, General Lumley, +who received him graciously, having known his father, and also, he was +pleased to say, having had the very best accounts of Mr. Esmond from the +officer whose aide de camp he had been at Vigo. During this winter Mr. +Esmond was gazetted to a lieutenancy in Brigadier Webb's regiment of +Fusiliers, then with their colonel in Flanders; but being now attached to +the suite of Mr. Lumley, Esmond did not join his own regiment until more +than a year afterwards, and after his return from the campaign of +Blenheim, which was fought the next year. The campaign began very early, +our troops marching out of their quarters before the winter was almost +over, and investing the city of Bonn, on the Rhine, under the duke's +command. His grace joined the army in deep grief of mind, with crape on +his sleeve, and his household in mourning; and the very same packet which +brought the commander-in-chief over, brought letters to the forces which +preceded him, and one from his dear mistress to Esmond, which interested +him not a little. + +The young Marquis of Blandford, his grace's son, who had been entered in +King's College in Cambridge (whither my lord viscount had also gone, to +Trinity, with Mr. Tusher as his governor), had been seized with small-pox, +and was dead at sixteen years of age, and so poor Frank's schemes for his +sister's advancement were over, and that innocent childish passion nipped +in the birth. + +Esmond's mistress would have had him return, at least her letters hinted +as much; but in the presence of the enemy this was impossible, and our +young man took his humble share in the siege, which need not be described +here, and had the good luck to escape without a wound of any sort, and to +drink his general's health after the surrender. He was in constant +military duty this year, and did not think of asking for a leave of +absence, as one or two of his less fortunate friends did, who were cast +away in that tremendous storm which happened towards the close of +November, that "which of late o'er pale Britannia past" (as Mr. Addison +sang of it), and in which scores of our greatest ships and 15,000 of our +seamen went down. + +They said that our duke was quite heartbroken by the calamity which had +befallen his family; but his enemies found that he could subdue them, as +well as master his grief. Successful as had been this great general's +operations in the past year, they were far enhanced by the splendour of +his victory in the ensuing campaign. His grace the captain-general went to +England after Bonn, and our army fell back into Holland, where, in April, +1704, his grace again found the troops embarking from Harwich and landing +at Maesland Sluys: thence his grace came immediately to the Hague, where +he received the foreign ministers, general officers, and other people of +quality. The greatest honours were paid to his grace everywhere--at the +Hague, Utrecht, Ruremonde, and Maestricht; the civic authorities coming to +meet his coaches: salvos of cannon saluting him, canopies of state being +erected for him where he stopped, and feasts prepared for the numerous +gentlemen following in his suite. His grace reviewed the troops of the +States-General between Liege and Maestricht, and afterwards the English +forces, under the command of General Churchill, near Bois-le-Duc. Every +preparation was made for a long march; and the army heard, with no small +elation, that it was the commander-in-chief's intention to carry the war +out of the Low Countries, and to march on the Mozelle. Before leaving our +camp at Maestricht, we heard that the French, under the Marshal Villeroy, +were also bound towards the Mozelle. + +Towards the end of May, the army reached Coblentz; and next day, his +grace, and the generals accompanying him, went to visit the Elector of +Treves at his Castle of Ehrenbreitstein, the horse and dragoons passing +the Rhine whilst the duke was entertained at a grand feast by the Elector. +All as yet was novelty, festivity, and splendour--a brilliant march of a +great and glorious army through a friendly country, and sure through some +of the most beautiful scenes of nature which I ever witnessed. + +The foot and artillery, following after the horse as quick as possible, +crossed the Rhine under Ehrenbreitstein, and so to Castel, over against +Mayntz, in which city his grace, his generals, and his retinue were +received at the landing-place by the Elector's coaches, carried to his +highness's palace amidst the thunder of cannon, and then once more +magnificently entertained. Gidlingen, in Bavaria, was appointed as the +general rendezvous of the army, and thither, by different routes, the +whole forces of English, Dutch, Danes, and German auxiliaries took their +way. The foot and artillery under General Churchill passed the Neckar, at +Heidelberg; and Esmond had an opportunity of seeing that city and palace, +once so famous and beautiful (though shattered and battered by the French, +under Turenne, in the late war), where his grandsire had served the +beautiful and unfortunate Electress-Palatine, the first King Charles's +sister. + +At Mindelsheim, the famous Prince of Savoy came to visit our commander, +all of us crowding eagerly to get a sight of that brilliant and intrepid +warrior; and our troops were drawn up in battalia before the prince, who +was pleased to express his admiration of this noble English army. At +length we came in sight of the enemy between Dillingen and Lawingen, the +Brentz lying between the two armies. The Elector, judging that Donauwort +would be the point of his grace's attack, sent a strong detachment of his +best troops to Count Darcos, who was posted at Schellenberg, near that +place, where great entrenchments were thrown up, and thousands of pioneers +employed to strengthen the position. + +On the 2nd of July, his grace stormed the post, with what success on our +part need scarce be told. His grace advanced with six thousand foot, +English and Dutch, thirty squadrons and three regiments of Imperial +cuirassiers, the duke crossing the river at the head of the cavalry. +Although our troops made the attack with unparalleled courage and +fury--rushing up to the very guns of the enemy, and being slaughtered +before their works--we were driven back many times, and should not have +carried them, but that the Imperialists came up under the Prince of Baden, +when the enemy could make no head against us: we pursued him into the +trenches, making a terrible slaughter there, and into the very Danube, +where a great part of his troops, following the example of their generals, +Count Darcos and the Elector himself, tried to save themselves by +swimming. Our army entered Donauwort, which the Bavarians evacuated; and +where 'twas said the Elector purposed to have given us a warm reception, +by burning us in our beds; the cellars of the houses, when we took +possession of them, being found stuffed with straw. But though the links +were there, the link-boys had run away. The townsmen saved their houses, +and our general took possession of the enemy's ammunition in the arsenals, +his stores, and magazines. Five days afterwards a great _Te Deum_ was sung +in Prince Lewis's army, and a solemn day of thanksgiving held in our own; +the Prince of Savoy's compliments coming to his grace the captain-general +during the day's religious ceremony, and concluding, as it were, with an +amen. + +And now, having seen a great military march through a friendly country; +the pomps and festivities of more than one German court; the severe +struggle of a hotly-contested battle, and the triumph of victory; Mr. +Esmond beheld another part of military duty; our troops entering the +enemy's territory, and putting all around them to fire and sword; burning +farms, wasted fields, shrieking women, slaughtered sons and fathers, and +drunken soldiery, cursing and carousing in the midst of tears, terror, and +murder. Why does the stately Muse of History, that delights in describing +the valour of heroes and the grandeur of conquest, leave out these scenes, +so brutal, mean, and degrading, that yet form by far the greater part of +the drama of war? You, gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease, and +compliment yourselves in the songs of triumph with which our chieftains +are bepraised--you pretty maidens, that come tumbling down the stairs when +the fife and drum call you, and huzzah for the British Grenadiers--do you +take account that these items go to make up the amount of the triumph you +admire, and form part of the duties of the heroes you fondle? Our chief, +whom England and all Europe, saving only the Frenchmen, worshipped almost, +had this of the godlike in him, that he was impassible before victory, +before danger, before defeat. Before the greatest obstacle or the most +trivial ceremony; before a hundred thousand men drawn in battalia, or a +peasant slaughtered at the door of his burning hovel; before a carouse of +drunken German lords, or a monarch's court, or a cottage-table, where his +plans were laid, or an enemy's battery, vomiting flame and death, and +strewing corpses round about him;--he was always cold, calm, resolute, like +fate. He performed a treason or a court-bow, he told a falsehood as black +as Styx, as easily as he paid a compliment or spoke about the weather. He +took a mistress, and left her; he betrayed his benefactor, and supported +him, or would have murdered him, with the same calmness always, and having +no more remorse than Clotho when she weaves the thread, or Lachesis when +she cuts it. In the hour of battle I have heard the Prince of Savoy's +officers say, the prince became possessed with a sort of warlike fury; his +eyes lighted up; he rushed hither and thither, raging; he shrieked curses +and encouragement, yelling and harking his bloody war-dogs on, and himself +always at the first of the hunt. Our duke was as calm at the mouth of the +cannon as at the door of a drawing-room. Perhaps he could not have been +the great man he was, had he had a heart either for love or hatred, or +pity or fear, or regret, or remorse. He achieved the highest deed of +daring, or deepest calculation of thought, as he performed the very +meanest action of which a man is capable; told a lie, or cheated a fond +woman, or robbed a poor beggar of a halfpenny, with a like awful serenity +and equal capacity of the highest and lowest acts of our nature. + +His qualities were pretty well known in the army, where there were parties +of all politics, and of plenty of shrewdness and wit; but there existed +such a perfect confidence in him, as the first captain of the world, and +such a faith and admiration in his prodigious genius and fortune, that the +very men whom he notoriously cheated of their pay, the chiefs whom he used +and injured--(for he used all men, great and small, that came near him, as +his instruments alike, and took something of theirs, either some quality +or some property--the blood of a soldier, it might be, or a jewelled hat, +or a hundred thousand crowns from a king, or a portion out of a starving +sentinel's three farthings; or (when he was young) a kiss from a woman, +and the gold chain off her neck, taking all he could from woman or man, +and having, as I have said, this of the godlike in him, that he could see +a hero perish or a sparrow fall, with the same amount of sympathy for +either. Not that he had no tears; he could always order up this reserve at +the proper moment to battle; he could draw upon tears or smiles alike, and +whenever need was for using this cheap coin. He would cringe to a +shoeblack, as he would flatter a minister or a monarch; be haughty, be +humble, threaten, repent, weep, grasp your hand, or stab you whenever he +saw occasion)--But yet those of the army, who knew him best and had +suffered most from him, admired him most of all: and as he rode along the +lines to battle or galloped up in the nick of time to a battalion reeling +from before the enemy's charge or shot, the fainting men and officers got +new courage as they saw the splendid calm of his face, and felt that his +will made them irresistible. + +After the great victory of Blenheim the enthusiasm of the army for the +duke, even of his bitterest personal enemies in it, amounted to a sort of +rage--nay, the very officers who cursed him in their hearts, were among the +most frantic to cheer him. Who could refuse his meed of admiration to such +a victory and such a victor? Not he who writes: a man may profess to be +ever so much a philosopher; but he who fought on that day must feel a +thrill of pride as he recalls it. + +The French right was posted near to the village of Blenheim, on the +Danube, where the Marshal Tallard's quarters were; their line extending +through, it may be a league and a half, before Lutzingen and up to a woody +hill, round the base of which, and acting against the Prince of Savoy, +were forty of his squadrons. Here was a village that the Frenchmen had +burned, the wood being, in fact, a better shelter and easier of guard than +any village. + +Before these two villages and the French lines ran a little stream, not +more than two foot broad, through a marsh (that was mostly dried up from +the heats of the weather), and this stream was the only separation between +the two armies--ours coming up and ranging themselves in line of battle +before the French, at six o'clock in the morning; so that our line was +quite visible to theirs; and the whole of this great plain was black and +swarming with troops for hours before the cannonading began. + +On one side and the other this cannonading lasted many hours. The French +guns being in position in front of their line, and doing severe damage +among our horse especially, and on our right wing of Imperialists under +the Prince of Savoy, who could neither advance his artillery nor his +lines, the ground before him being cut up by ditches, morasses, and very +difficult of passage for the guns. + +It was past midday when the attack began on our left, where Lord Cutts +commanded, the bravest and most beloved officer in the English army. And +now, as if to make his experience in war complete, our young aide de camp +having seen two great armies facing each other in line of battle, and had +the honour of riding with orders from one end to other of the line, came +in for a not uncommon accompaniment of military glory, and was knocked on +the head, along with many hundred of brave fellows, almost at the very +commencement of this famous day of Blenheim. A little after noon, the +disposition for attack being completed with much delay and difficulty, and +under a severe fire from the enemy's guns, that were better posted and +more numerous than ours, a body of English and Hessians, with +Major-General Wilkes commanding at the extreme left of our line, marched +upon Blenheim, advancing with great gallantry, the major-general on foot, +with his officers, at the head of the column, and marching, with his hat +off, intrepidly in the face of the enemy, who was pouring in a tremendous +fire from his guns and musketry, to which our people were instructed not +to reply, except with pike and bayonet when they reached the French +palisades. To these Wilkes walked intrepidly, and struck the woodwork with +his sword before our people charged it. He was shot down at the instant, +with his colonel, major, and several officers; and our troops cheering and +huzzaing, and coming on, as they did, with immense resolution and +gallantry, were nevertheless stopped by the murderous fire from behind the +enemy's defences, and then attacked in flank by a furious charge of French +horse which swept out of Blenheim, and cut down our men in great numbers. +Three fierce and desperate assaults of our foot were made and repulsed by +the enemy; so that our columns of foot were quite shattered, and fell +back, scrambling over the little rivulet, which we had crossed so +resolutely an hour before, and pursued by the French cavalry, slaughtering +us and cutting us down. + +And now the conquerors were met by a furious charge of English horse under +Esmond's general, General Lumley, behind whose squadrons the flying foot +found refuge, and formed again, whilst Lumley drove back the French horse, +charging up to the village of Blenheim and the palisades where Wilkes, and +many hundred more gallant Englishmen, lay in slaughtered heaps. Beyond +this moment, and of this famous victory, Mr. Esmond knows nothing; for a +shot brought down his horse and our young gentleman on it, who fell +crushed and stunned under the animal; and came to his senses he knows not +how long after, only to lose them again from pain and loss of blood. A dim +sense, as of people groaning round about him, a wild incoherent thought or +two for her who occupied so much of his heart now, and that here his +career, and his hopes, and misfortunes were ended, he remembers in the +course of these hours. When he woke up it was with a pang of extreme pain, +his breast-plate was taken off, his servant was holding his head up, the +good and faithful lad of Hampshire(9) was blubbering over his master, whom +he found and had thought dead, and a surgeon was probing a wound in the +shoulder, which he must have got at the same moment when his horse was +shot and fell over him. The battle was over at this end of the field, by +this time: the village was in possession of the English, its brave +defenders prisoners, or fled, or drowned, many of them, in the +neighbouring waters of the Donau. But for honest Lockwood's faithful +search after his master, there had no doubt been an end of Esmond here, +and of this his story. The marauders were out rifling the bodies as they +lay on the field, and Jack had brained one of these gentry with the +club-end of his musket, who had eased Esmond of his hat and periwig, his +purse, and fine silver-mounted pistols which the dowager gave him, and was +fumbling in his pockets for further treasure, when Jack Lockwood came up +and put an end to the scoundrel's triumph. + +Hospitals for our wounded were established at Blenheim, and here for +several weeks Esmond lay in very great danger of his life; the wound was +not very great from which he suffered, and the ball extracted by the +surgeon on the spot where our young gentleman received it; but a fever set +in next day, as he was lying in hospital, and that almost carried him +away. Jack Lockwood said he talked in the wildest manner during his +delirium; that he called himself the Marquis of Esmond, and seizing one of +the surgeon's assistants who came to dress his wounds, swore that he was +Madam Beatrix, and that he would make her a duchess if she would but say +yes. He was passing the days in these crazy fancies, and _vana somnia_, +whilst the army was singing _Te Deum_ for the victory, and those famous +festivities were taking place at which our duke, now made a Prince of the +Empire, was entertained by the King of the Romans and his nobility. His +grace went home by Berlin and Hanover, and Esmond lost the festivities +which took place at those cities, and which his general shared in company +of the other general officers who travelled with our great captain. When +he could move it was by the Duke of Wirtemburg's city of Stuttgard that he +made his way homewards, revisiting Heidelberg again, whence he went to +Manheim, and hence had a tedious but easy water journey down the river of +Rhine, which he had thought a delightful and beautiful voyage indeed, but +that his heart was longing for home, and something far more beautiful and +delightful. + +As bright and welcome as the eyes almost of his mistress shone the lights +of Harwich, as the packet came in from Holland. It was not many hours ere +he, Esmond, was in London, of that you may be sure, and received with open +arms by the old dowager of Chelsea, who vowed, in her jargon of French and +English, that he had the _air noble_, that his pallor embellished him, +that he was an Amadis and deserved a Gloriana; and, O flames and darts! +what was his joy at hearing that his mistress was come into waiting, and +was now with her Majesty at Kensington! Although Mr. Esmond had told Jack +Lockwood to get horses and they would ride for Winchester that night; when +he heard this news he countermanded the horses at once; his business lay +no longer in Hants; all his hope and desire lay within a couple of miles +of him in Kensington Park wall. Poor Harry had never looked in the glass +before so eagerly to see whether he had the _bel air_, and his paleness +really did become him; he never took such pains about the curl of his +periwig, and the taste of his embroidery and point-lace, as now, before +Mr. Amadis presented himself to Madam Gloriana. Was the fire of the French +lines half so murderous as the killing glances from her ladyship's eyes? O +darts and raptures, how beautiful were they! + +And as, before the blazing sun of morning, the moon fades away in the sky +almost invisible; Esmond thought, with a blush perhaps, of another sweet +pale face, sad and faint, and fading out of sight, with its sweet fond +gaze of affection; such a last look it seemed to cast as Eurydice might +have given, yearning after her lover, when Fate and Pluto summoned her, +and she passed away into the shades. + + + +Chapter X. An Old Story About A Fool And A Woman + + +Any taste for pleasure which Esmond had (and he liked to _desipere in +loco_, neither more nor less than most young men of his age) he could now +gratify to the utmost extent, and in the best company which the town +afforded. When the army went into winter quarters abroad, those of the +officers who had interest or money easily got leave of absence, and found +it much pleasanter to spend their time in Pall Mall and Hyde Park, than to +pass the winter away behind the fortifications of the dreary old Flanders +towns, where the English troops were gathered. Yatches and packets passed +daily between the Dutch and Flemish ports and Harwich; the roads thence to +London and the great inns were crowded with army gentlemen; the taverns +and ordinaries of the town swarmed with red-coats; and our great duke's +levees at St. James's were as thronged as they had been at Ghent and +Brussels, where we treated him, and he us, with the grandeur and ceremony +of a sovereign. Though Esmond had been appointed to a lieutenancy in the +Fusilier regiment, of which that celebrated officer, Brigadier John +Richmond Webb, was colonel, he had never joined the regiment, nor been +introduced to its excellent commander, though they had made the same +campaign together, and been engaged in the same battle. But being aide de +camp to General Lumley, who commanded the division of horse, and the army +marching to its point of destination on the Danube by different routes, +Esmond had not fallen in, as yet, with his commander and future comrades +of the fort; and it was in London, in Golden Square, where Major-General +Webb lodged, that Captain Esmond had the honour of first paying his +respects to his friend, patron, and commander of after-days. + +Those who remember this brilliant and accomplished gentleman may recollect +his character, upon which he prided himself, I think, not a little, of +being the handsomest man in the army; a poet who writ a dull copy of +verses upon the battle of Oudenarde three years after, describing Webb, +says:-- + + + To noble danger Webb conducts the way, + His great example all his troops obey; + Before the front the general sternly rides, + With such an air as Mars to battle strides: + Propitious Heaven must sure a hero save, + Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave. + + +Mr. Webb thought these verses quite as fine as Mr. Addison's on the +Blenheim campaign, and, indeed, to be Hector _a la mode de Paris_, was +part of this gallant gentleman's ambition. It would have been difficult to +find an officer in the whole army, or amongst the splendid courtiers and +cavaliers of the Maison-du-Roy, that fought under Vendosme and Villeroy in +the army opposed to ours, who was a more accomplished soldier and perfect +gentleman, and either braver or better-looking. And, if Mr. Webb believed +of himself what the world said of him, and was deeply convinced of his own +indisputable genius, beauty, and valour, who has a right to quarrel with +him very much? This self-content of his kept him in general good humour, +of which his friends and dependants got the benefit. + +He came of a very ancient Wiltshire family, which he respected above all +families in the world: he could prove a lineal descent from King Edward +the First, and his first ancestor, Roaldus de Richmond, rode by William +the Conqueror's side on Hastings field. "We were gentlemen, Esmond," he +used to say, "when the Churchills were horseboys." He was a very tall man, +standing in his pumps six feet three inches (in his great jack-boots, with +his tall, fair periwig, and hat and feather, he could not have been less +than eight feet high). "I am taller than Churchill," he would say, +surveying himself in the glass, "and I am a better made man; and if the +women won't like a man that hasn't a wart on his nose, faith, I can't help +myself, and Churchill has the better of me there." Indeed, he was always +measuring himself with the duke, and always asking his friends to measure +them. And talking in this frank way, as he would do, over his cups, wags +would laugh and encourage him; friends would be sorry for him; schemers +and flatterers would egg him on, and tale-bearers carry the stories to +head quarters, and widen the difference which already existed there +between the great captain and one of the ablest and bravest lieutenants he +ever had. + +His rancour against the duke was so apparent, that one saw it in the first +half-hour's conversation with General Webb; and his lady, who adored her +general, and thought him a hundred times taller, handsomer, and braver +than a prodigal nature had made him, hated the great duke with such an +intensity as it becomes faithful wives to feel against their husbands' +enemies. Not that my lord duke was so yet; Mr. Webb had said a thousand +things against him, which his superior had pardoned; and his grace, whose +spies were everywhere, had heard a thousand things more that Webb had +never said. But it cost this great man no pains to pardon; and he passed +over an injury or a benefit alike easily. + +Should any child of mine take the pains to read these, his ancestor's +memoirs, I would not have him judge of the great duke(10) by what a +contemporary has written of him. No man hath been so immensely lauded and +decried as this great statesman and warrior; as, indeed, no man ever +deserved better the very greatest praise and the strongest censure. If the +present writer joins with the latter faction, very likely a private pique +of his own may be the cause of his ill-feeling. + +On presenting himself at the commander-in-chief's levee, his grace had not +the least remembrance of General Lumley's aide de camp, and though he knew +Esmond's family perfectly well, having served with both lords (my Lord +Francis and the viscount, Esmond's father) in Flanders, and in the Duke of +York's Guard, the Duke of Marlborough, who was friendly and serviceable to +the (so-styled) legitimate representatives of the Viscount Castlewood, +took no sort of notice of the poor lieutenant who bore their name. A word +of kindness or acknowledgement, or a single glance of approbation, might +have changed Esmond's opinion of the great man; and instead of a satire, +which his pen cannot help writing, who knows but that the humble historian +might have taken the other side of panegyric? We have but to change the +point of view, and the greatest action looks mean; as we turn the +perspective-glass, and a giant appears a pigmy. You may describe, but who +can tell whether your sight is clear or not, or your means of information +accurate? Had the great man said but a word of kindness to the small one +(as he would have stepped out of his gilt chariot to shake hands with +Lazarus in rags and sores, if he thought Lazarus could have been of any +service to him), no doubt Esmond would have fought for him with pen and +sword to the utmost of his might; but my lord the lion did not want master +mouse at this moment, and so Muscipulus went off and nibbled in +opposition. + +So it was, however, that a young gentleman, who, in the eyes of his +family, and in his own, doubtless, was looked upon as a consummate hero, +found that the great hero of the day took no more notice of him than of +the smallest drummer in his grace's army. The dowager at Chelsea was +furious against this neglect of her family, and had a great battle with +Lady Marlborough (as Lady Castlewood insisted on calling the duchess). Her +grace was now mistress of the robes to her Majesty, and one of the +greatest personages in this kingdom, as her husband was in all Europe, and +the battle between the two ladies took place in the queen's drawing-room. + +The duchess, in reply to my aunt's eager clamour, said haughtily, that she +had done her best for the legitimate branch of the Esmonds, and could not +be expected to provide for the bastard brats of the family. + +"Bastards," says the viscountess, in a fury, "there are bastards amongst +the Churchills, as your grace knows, and the Duke of Berwick is provided +for well enough." + +"Madam," says the duchess, "you know whose fault it is that there are no +such dukes in the Esmond family too, and how that little scheme of a +certain lady miscarried." + +Esmond's friend, Dick Steele, who was in waiting on the prince, heard the +controversy between the ladies at Court, "And faith," says Dick, "I think, +Harry, thy kinswoman had the worst of it." + +He could not keep the story quiet; 'twas all over the coffee-houses ere +night; it was printed in a News Letter before a month was over, and "The +Reply of her Grace the Duchess of M-rlb-r-gh, to a Popish Lady of the +Court, once a favourite of the late K-- J-m-s," was printed in half a dozen +places, with a note stating that this duchess, when the head of this +lady's family came by his death lately in a fatal duel, never rested until +she got a pension for the orphan heir, and widow, from her Majesty's +bounty. The squabble did not advance poor Esmond's promotion much, and +indeed made him so ashamed of himself that he dared not show his face at +the commander-in-chief's levees again. + + ------------------------------------- + +During those eighteen months which had passed since Esmond saw his dear +mistress, her good father, the old dean, quitted this life, firm in his +principles to the very last, and enjoining his family always to remember +that the queen's brother, King James the Third, was their rightful +sovereign. He made a very edifying end, as his daughter told Esmond, and, +not a little to her surprise, after his death (for he had lived always +very poorly) my lady found that her father had left no less a sum than +3,000_l._ behind him, which he bequeathed to her. + +With this little fortune Lady Castlewood was enabled, when her daughter's +turn at Court came, to come to London, where she took a small genteel +house at Kensington, in the neighbourhood of the Court, bringing her +children with her, and here it was that Esmond found his friends. + +As for the young lord, his University career had ended rather abruptly. +Honest Tusher, his governor, had found my young gentleman quite +ungovernable. My lord worried his life away with tricks; and broke out, as +home-bred lads will, into a hundred youthful extravagances, so that Dr. +Bentley, the new master of Trinity, thought fit to write to the +Viscountess Castlewood, my lord's mother, and beg her to remove the young +nobleman from a college where he declined to learn, and where he only did +harm by his riotous example. Indeed, I believe he nearly set fire to +Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir +Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor's man that +wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner party on the +Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and +the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine, +having toasted King James's health with open windows, and sung cavalier +songs, and shouted, "God save the King!" in the great court, so that the +master came out of his lodge at midnight, and dissipated the riotous +assembly. + +This was my lord's crowning freak, and the Rev. Thomas Tusher, domestic +chaplain to the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Castlewood, finding his +prayers and sermons of no earthly avail to his lordship, gave up his +duties of governor; went and married his brewer's widow at Southampton, +and took her and her money to his parsonage-house at Castlewood. + +My lady could not be angry with her son for drinking King James's health, +being herself a loyal Tory, as all the Castlewood family were, and +acquiesced with a sigh, knowing, perhaps, that her refusal would be of no +avail to the young lord's desire for a military life. She would have liked +him to be in Mr. Esmond's regiment, hoping that Harry might act as +guardian and adviser to his wayward young kinsman; but my young lord would +hear of nothing but the Guards, and a commission was got for him in the +Duke of Ormonde's regiment; so Esmond found my lord, ensign and +lieutenant, when he returned from Germany after the Blenheim campaign. + +The effect produced by both Lady Castlewood's children when they appeared +in public was extraordinary, and the whole town speedily rang with their +fame; such a beautiful couple, it was declared, never had been seen; the +young maid of honour was toasted at every table and tavern, and as for my +young lord, his good looks were even more admired than his sister's. A +hundred songs were written about the pair, and as the fashion of that day +was, my young lord was praised in these Anacreontics as warmly as +Bathyllus. You may be sure that he accepted very complacently the town's +opinion of him, and acquiesced with that frankness and charming good +humour he always showed in the idea that he was the prettiest fellow in +all London. + +The old dowager at Chelsea, though she could never be got to acknowledge +that Mrs. Beatrix was any beauty at all (in which opinion, as it may be +imagined, a vast number of the ladies agreed with her), yet, on the very +first sight of young Castlewood, she owned she fell in love with him; and +Henry Esmond, on his return to Chelsea, found himself quite superseded in +her favour by her younger kinsman. That feat of drinking the king's health +at Cambridge would have won her heart, she said, if nothing else did. "How +had the dear young fellow got such beauty?" she asked. "Not from his +father--certainly not from his mother. How had he come by such noble +manners, and the perfect _bel air_? That countrified Walcote widow could +never have taught him." Esmond had his own opinion about the countrified +Walcote widow, who had a quiet grace, and serene kindness, that had always +seemed to him the perfection of good breeding, though he did not try to +argue this point with his aunt. But he could agree in most of the praises +which the enraptured old dowager bestowed on my lord viscount, than whom +he never beheld a more fascinating and charming gentleman. Castlewood had +not wit so much as enjoyment. "The lad looks good things," Mr. Steele used +to say; "and his laugh lights up a conversation as much as ten repartees +from Mr. Congreve. I would as soon sit over a bottle with him as with Mr. +Addison; and rather listen to his talk than hear Nicolini. Was ever man so +gracefully drunk as my Lord Castlewood? I would give anything to carry my +wine (though, indeed, Dick bore his very kindly, and plenty of it, too) +like this incomparable young man. When he is sober he is delightful; and +when tipsy, perfectly irresistible." And referring to his favourite, +Shakespeare (who was quite out of fashion until Steele brought him back +into the mode), Dick compared Lord Castlewood to Prince Hal, and was +pleased to dub Esmond as ancient Pistol. + +The mistress of the robes, the greatest lady in England after the queen, +or even before her Majesty, as the world said, though she never could be +got to say a civil word to Beatrix, whom she had promoted to her place as +maid of honour, took her brother into instant favour. When young +Castlewood, in his new uniform, and looking like a prince out of a +fairy-tale, went to pay his duty to her grace, she looked at him for a +minute in silence, the young man blushing and in confusion before her, +then fairly burst out a-crying, and kissed him before her daughters and +company. "He was my boy's friend," she said, through her sobs. "My +Blandford might have been like him." And everybody saw, after this mark of +the duchess's favour, that my young lord's promotion was secure, and +people crowded round the favourite's favourite, who became vainer and +gayer, and more good-humoured than ever. + +Meanwhile Madam Beatrix was making her conquests on her own side, and +amongst them was one poor gentleman, who had been shot by her young eyes +two years before, and had never been quite cured of that wound; he knew, +to be sure, how hopeless any passion might be, directed in that quarter, +and had taken that best, though ignoble, _remedium amoris_, a speedy +retreat from before the charmer, and a long absence from her; and not +being dangerously smitten in the first instance, Esmond pretty soon got +the better of his complaint, and if he had it still, did not know he had +it, and bore it easily. But when he returned after Blenheim, the young +lady of sixteen, who had appeared the most beautiful object his eyes had +ever looked on two years back, was now advanced to a perfect ripeness and +perfection of beauty, such as instantly enthralled the poor devil, who had +already been a fugitive from her charms. Then he had seen her but for two +days, and fled; now he beheld her day after day, and when she was at +Court, watched after her; when she was at home, made one of the family +party; when she went abroad, rode after her mother's chariot; when she +appeared in public places, was in the box near her, or in the pit looking +at her; when she went to church was sure to be there, though he might not +listen to the sermon, and be ready to hand her to her chair if she deigned +to accept of his services, and select him from a score of young men who +were always hanging round about her. When she went away, accompanying her +Majesty to Hampton Court, a darkness fell over London. Gods, what nights +has Esmond passed, thinking of her, rhyming about her, talking about her! +His friend Dick Steele was at this time courting the young lady, Mrs. +Scurlock, whom he married; she had a lodging in Kensington Square, hard by +my Lady Castlewood's house there. Dick and Harry, being on the same +errand, used to meet constantly at Kensington. They were always prowling +about that place, or dismally walking thence, or eagerly running thither. +They emptied scores of bottles at the "King's Arms", each man prating of +his love, and allowing the other to talk on condition that he might have +his own turn as a listener. Hence arose an intimacy between them, though +to all the rest of their friends they must have been insufferable. +Esmond's verses to "Gloriana at the Harpsichord", to "Gloriana's Nosegay", +to "Gloriana at Court", appeared this year in the _Observator_.--Have you +never read them? They were thought pretty poems, and attributed by some to +Mr. Prior. + +This passion did not escape--how should it?--the clear eyes of Esmond's +mistress: he told her all; what will a man not do when frantic with love? +To what baseness will he not demean himself? What pangs will he not make +others suffer, so that he may ease his selfish heart of a part of its own +pain? Day after day he would seek his dear mistress, pour insane hopes, +supplications, rhapsodies, raptures, into her ear. She listened, smiled, +consoled, with untiring pity and sweetness. Esmond was the eldest of her +children, so she was pleased to say; and as for her kindness, who ever had +or would look for aught else from one who was an angel of goodness and +pity? After what has been said, 'tis needless almost to add that poor +Esmond's suit was unsuccessful. What was a nameless, penniless lieutenant +to do, when some of the greatest in the land were in the field? Esmond +never so much as thought of asking permission to hope so far above his +reach as he knew this prize was--and passed his foolish, useless life in +mere abject sighs and impotent longing. What nights of rage, what days of +torment, of passionate unfulfilled desire, of sickening jealousy, can he +recall! Beatrix thought no more of him than of the lackey that followed +her chair. His complaints did not touch her in the least; his raptures +rather fatigued her; she cared for his verses no more than for Dan +Chaucer's, who's dead these ever so many hundred years; she did not hate +him; she rather despised him, and just suffered him. + +One day, after talking to Beatrix's mother, his dear, fond, constant +mistress--for hours--for all day long--pouring out his flame and his passion, +his despair and rage, returning again and again to the theme, pacing the +room, tearing up the flowers on the table, twisting and breaking into bits +the wax out of the standish, and performing a hundred mad freaks of +passionate folly; seeing his mistress at last quite pale and tired out +with sheer weariness of compassion, and watching over his fever for the +hundredth time, Esmond seized up his hat, and took his leave. As he got +into Kensington Square, a sense of remorse came over him for the wearisome +pain he had been inflicting upon the dearest and kindest friend ever man +had. He went back to the house, where the servant still stood at the open +door, ran up the stairs, and found his mistress where he had left her in +the embrasure of the window, looking over the fields towards Chelsea. She +laughed, wiping away at the same time the tears which were in her kind +eyes; he flung himself down on his knees, and buried his head in her lap. +She had in her hand the stalk of one of the flowers, a pink, that he had +torn to pieces. "Oh, pardon me, pardon me, my dearest and kindest," he +said; "I am in hell, and you are the angel that brings me a drop of +water." + +"I am your mother, you are my son, and I love you always," she said, +holding her hands over him; and he went away comforted and humbled in +mind, as he thought of that amazing and constant love and tenderness with +which this sweet lady ever blessed and pursued him. + + + +Chapter XI. The Famous Mr. Joseph Addison + + +The gentlemen ushers had a table at Kensington, and the Guard a very +splendid dinner daily at St. James's, at either of which ordinaries Esmond +was free to dine. Dick Steele liked the Guard-table better than his own at +the gentleman ushers', where there was less wine and more ceremony; and +Esmond had many a jolly afternoon in company of his friend, and a hundred +times at least saw Dick into his chair. If there is verity in wine, +according to the old adage, what an amiable-natured character Dick's must +have been! In proportion as he took in wine he overflowed with kindness. +His talk was not witty so much as charming. He never said a word that +could anger anybody, and only became the more benevolent the more tipsy he +grew. Many of the wags derided the poor fellow in his cups, and chose him +as a butt for their satire; but there was a kindness about him, and a +sweet playful fancy, that seemed to Esmond far more charming than the +pointed talk of the brightest wits, with their elaborate repartees and +affected severities. I think Steele shone rather than sparkled. Those +famous _beaux-esprits_ of the coffee-houses (Mr. William Congreve, for +instance, when his gout and his grandeur permitted him to come among us) +would make many brilliant hits--half a dozen in a night sometimes--but, like +sharpshooters, when they had fired their shot, they were obliged to retire +under cover till their pieces were loaded again, and wait till they got +another chance at their enemy; whereas Dick never thought that his +bottle-companion was a butt to aim at--only a friend to shake by the hand. +The poor fellow had half the town in his confidence; everybody knew +everything about his loves and his debts, his creditors or his mistress's +obduracy. When Esmond first came on to the town, honest Dick was all +flames and raptures for a young lady, a West India fortune, whom he +married. In a couple of years the lady was dead, the fortune was all but +spent, and the honest widower was as eager in pursuit of a new paragon of +beauty as if he had never courted and married and buried the last one. + +Quitting the Guard-table on one sunny afternoon, when by chance Dick had a +sober fit upon him, he and his friend were making their way down Germain +Street, and Dick all of a sudden left his companion's arm, and ran after a +gentleman who was poring over a folio volume at the book-shop near to St. +James's Church. He was a fair, tall man, in a snuff-coloured suit, with a +plain sword, very sober, and almost shabby in appearance--at least when +compared to Captain Steele, who loved to adorn his jolly round person with +the finest of clothes, and shone in scarlet and gold lace. The captain +rushed up, then, to the student of the bookstall, took him in his arms, +hugged him, and would have kissed him--for Dick was always hugging and +bussing his friends--but the other stepped back with a flush on his pale +face, seeming to decline this public manifestation of Steele's regard. + +"My dearest Joe, where hast thou hidden thyself this age?" cries the +captain, still holding both his friend's hands; "I have been languishing +for thee this fortnight." + +"A fortnight is not an age, Dick," says the other, very good-humouredly. +(He had light blue eyes, extraordinary bright, and a face perfectly +regular and handsome, like a tinted statue.) "And I have been hiding +myself--where do you think?" + +"What! not across the water, my dear Joe?" says Steele, with a look of +great alarm: "thou knowest I have always----" + +"No," says his friend, interrupting him with a smile: "we are not come to +such straits as that, Dick. I have been hiding, sir, at a place where +people never think of finding you--at my own lodgings, whither I am going +to smoke a pipe now and drink a glass of sack; will your honour come?" + +"Harry Esmond, come hither," cries out Dick. "Thou hast heard me talk over +and over again at my dearest Joe, my guardian angel." + +"Indeed," says Mr. Esmond, with a bow, "it is not from you only that I +have learnt to admire Mr. Addison. We loved good poetry at Cambridge, as +well as at Oxford; and I have some of yours by heart, though I have put on +a red-coat ... '_O qui canoro blandius Orpheo vocale ducis carmen_'; shall +I go on, sir?" says Mr. Esmond, who indeed had read and loved the charming +Latin poems of Mr. Addison, as every scholar of that time knew and admired +them. + +"This is Captain Esmond who was at Blenheim," says Steele. + +"Lieutenant Esmond," says the other, with a low bow; "at Mr. Addison's +service." + +"I have heard of you," says Mr. Addison, with a smile; as, indeed, +everybody about town had heard that unlucky story about Esmond's dowager +aunt and the duchess. + +"We were going to the 'George', to take a bottle before the play," says +Steele; "wilt thou be one, Joe?" + +Mr. Addison said his own lodgings were hard by, where he was still rich +enough to give a good bottle of wine to his friends; and invited the two +gentlemen to his apartment in the Haymarket, whither we accordingly went. + +"I shall get credit with my landlady," says he, with a smile, "when she +sees two such fine gentlemen as you come up my stair." And he politely +made his visitors welcome to his apartment, which was indeed but a shabby +one, though no grandee of the land could receive his guests with a more +perfect and courtly grace than this gentleman. A frugal dinner, consisting +of a slice of meat and a penny loaf, was awaiting the owner of the +lodgings. "My wine is better than my meat," says Mr. Addison; "my Lord +Halifax sent me the burgundy." And he set a bottle and glasses before his +friends, and eat his simple dinner in a very few minutes, after which the +three fell to, and began to drink. "You see," says Mr. Addison, pointing +to his writing-table, whereon was a map of the action at Hochstedt, and +several other gazettes and pamphlets relating to the battle, "that I, too, +am busy about your affairs, captain. I am engaged as a poetical gazetteer, +to say truth, and am writing a poem on the campaign." + +So Esmond, at the request of his host, told him what he knew about the +famous battle, drew the river on the table, _aliquo mero_, and with the +aid of some bits of tobacco-pipe, showed the advance of the left wing, +where he had been engaged. + +A sheet or two of the verses lay already on the table beside our bottles +and glasses, and Dick having plentifully refreshed himself from the +latter, took up the pages of manuscript, writ out with scarce a blot or +correction, in the author's slim, neat handwriting, and began to read +therefrom with great emphasis and volubility. At pauses of the verse the +enthusiastic reader stopped and fired off a great salvo of applause. + +Esmond smiled at the enthusiasm of Addison's friend. + +"You are like the German burghers," says he, "and the princes on the +Mozelle; when our army came to a halt, they always sent a deputation to +compliment the chief, and fired a salute with all their artillery from +their walls." + +"And drunk the great chief's health afterward, did not they?" says Captain +Steele, gaily filling up a bumper;--he never was tardy at that sort of +acknowledgement of a friend's merit. + +"And the duke, since you will have me act his grace's part," says Mr. +Addison, with a smile and something of a blush, "pledged his friends in +return. Most serene Elector of Covent Garden, I drink to your highness's +health," and he filled himself a glass. Joseph required scarce more +pressing than Dick to that sort of amusement; but the wine never seemed at +all to fluster Mr. Addison's brains; it only unloosed his tongue, whereas +Captain Steele's head and speech were quite overcome by a single bottle. + +No matter what the verses were, and, to say truth, Mr. Esmond found some +of them more than indifferent, Dick's enthusiasm for his chief never +faltered, and in every line from Addison's pen, Steele found a +master-stroke. By the time Dick had come to that part of the poem, wherein +the bard describes as blandly as though he were recording a dance at the +Opera, or a harmless bout of bucolic cudgelling at a village fair, that +bloody and ruthless part of our campaign, with the remembrance whereof +every soldier who bore a part in it must sicken with shame--when we were +ordered to ravage and lay waste the Elector's country; and with fire and +murder, slaughter and crime, a great part of his dominions was overrun: +when Dick came to the lines-- + + + In vengeance roused the soldier fills his hand + With sword and fire, and ravages the land. + In crackling flames a thousand harvests burn, + A thousand villages to ashes turn. + To the thick woods the woolly flocks retreat, + And mixed with bellowing herds confusedly bleat. + Their trembling lords the common shade partake, + And cries of infants found in every brake. + The listening soldier fixed in sorrow stands, + Loath to obey his leader's just commands. + The leader grieves, by generous pity swayed, + To see his just commands so well obeyed: + + +by this time wine and friendship had brought poor Dick to a perfectly +maudlin state, and he hiccuped out the last line with a tenderness that +set one of his auditors a-laughing. + +"I admire the licence of you poets," says Esmond to Mr. Addison. (Dick, +after reading of the verses, was fain to go off, insisting on kissing his +two dear friends before his departure, and reeling away with his periwig +over his eyes.) "I admire your art: the murder of the campaign is done to +military music, like a battle at the Opera, and the virgins shriek in +harmony, as our victorious grenadiers march into their villages. Do you +know what a scene it was" (by this time, perhaps, the wine had warmed Mr. +Esmond's head too),--"what a triumph you are celebrating? what scenes of +shame and horror were enacted, over which the commander's genius presided, +as calm as though he didn't belong to our sphere? You talk of the +'listening soldier fixed in sorrow', the 'leader's grief swayed by +generous pity'; to my belief the leader cared no more for bleating flocks +than he did for infants' cries, and many of our ruffians butchered one or +the other with equal alacrity. I was ashamed of my trade when I saw those +horrors perpetrated, which came under every man's eyes. You hew out of +your polished verses a stately image of smiling victory; I tell you 'tis +an uncouth, distorted, savage idol; hideous, bloody, and barbarous. The +rites performed before it are shocking to think of. You great poets should +show it as it is--ugly and horrible, not beautiful and serene. Oh, sir, had +you made the campaign, believe me, you never would have sung it so." + +During this little outbreak, Mr. Addison was listening, smoking out of his +long pipe, and smiling very placidly. "What would you have?" says he. "In +our polished days, and according to the rules of art, 'tis impossible that +the Muse should depict tortures or begrime her hands with the horrors of +war. These are indicated rather than described; as in the Greek tragedies, +that, I dare say, you have read (and sure there can be no more elegant +specimens of composition); Agamemnon is slain, or Medea's children +destroyed, away from the scene;--the chorus occupying the stage and singing +of the action to pathetic music. Something of this I attempt, my dear sir, +in my humble way: 'tis a panegyric I mean to write, and not a satire. Were +I to sing as you would have me, the town would tear the poet in pieces, +and burn his book by the hands of the common hangman. Do you not use +tobacco? Of all the weeds grown on earth, sure the nicotian is the most +soothing and salutary. We must paint our great duke," Mr. Addison went on, +"not as a man, which no doubt he is, with weaknesses like the rest of us, +but as a hero. 'Tis in a triumph, not a battle, that your humble servant +is riding his sleek Pegasus. We college-poets trot, you know, on very easy +nags; it hath been, time out of mind, part of the poet's profession to +celebrate the actions of heroes in verse, and to sing the deeds which you +men of war perform. I must follow the rules of my art, and the composition +of such a strain as this must be harmonious and majestic, not familiar, or +too near the vulgar truth. _Si parva licet_: if Virgil could invoke the +divine Augustus, a humbler poet from the banks of the Isis may celebrate a +victory and a conqueror of our own nation, in whose triumphs every Briton +has a share, and whose glory and genius contributes to every citizen's +individual honour. When hath there been, since our Henrys' and Edwards' +days, such a great feat of arms as that from which you yourself have +brought away marks of distinction? If 'tis in my power to sing that song +worthily, I will do so, and be thankful to my Muse. If I fail as a poet, +as a Briton at least I will show my loyalty and fling up my cap and huzzah +for the conqueror: + + + --------"Rheni pacator et Istri + Omnis in hoc uno variis discordia cessit + Ordinibus; laetatur eques, plauditque senator, + Votaque patricio certant plebeia favori." + + +"There were as brave men on that field," says Mr. Esmond (who never could +be made to love the Duke of Marlborough, nor to forget those stories which +he used to hear in his youth regarding that great chief's selfishness and +treachery)--"there were men at Blenheim as good as the leader, whom neither +knights nor senators applauded, nor voices plebeian or patrician favoured, +and who lie there forgotten, under the clods. What poet is there to sing +them?" + +"To sing the gallant souls of heroes sent to Hades!" says Mr. Addison, +with a smile: "would you celebrate them all? If I may venture to question +anything in such an admirable work, the catalogue of the ships in Homer +hath always appeared to me as somewhat wearisome; what had the poem been, +supposing the writer had chronicled the names of captains, lieutenants, +rank and file? One of the greatest of a great man's qualities is success; +'tis the result of all the others; 'tis a latent power in him which +compels the favour of the gods, and subjugates fortune. Of all his gifts I +admire that one in the great Marlborough. To be brave? every man is brave. +But in being victorious, as he is, I fancy there is something divine. In +presence of the occasion, the great soul of the leader shines out, and the +god is confessed. Death itself respects him, and passes by him to lay +others low. War and carnage flee before him to ravage other parts of the +field, as Hector from before the divine Achilles. You say he hath no pity; +no more have the gods, who are above it, and superhuman. The fainting +battle gathers strength at his aspect; and, wherever he rides, victory +charges with him." + +A couple of days after, when Mr. Esmond revisited his poetic friend, he +found this thought, struck out in the fervour of conversation, improved +and shaped into those famous lines, which are in truth the noblest in the +poem of the _Campaign_. As the two gentlemen sat engaged in talk, Mr. +Addison solacing himself with his customary pipe; the little maidservant +that waited on his lodging came up, preceding a gentleman in fine laced +clothes, that had evidently been figuring at Court or a great man's levee. +The courtier coughed a little at the smoke of the pipe, and looked round +the room curiously, which was shabby enough, as was the owner in his worn +snuff-coloured suit and plain tie-wig. + +"How goes on the _magnum opus_, Mr. Addison?" says the Court gentleman on +looking down at the papers that were on the table. + +"We were but now over it," says Addison (the greatest courtier in the land +could not have a more splendid politeness, or greater dignity of manner); +"here is the plan," says he, "on the table; _hac ibat Simois_, here ran +the little river Nebel: _hic est Sigeia tellus_, here are Tallard's +quarters, at the bowl of this pipe, at the attack of which Captain Esmond +was present. I have the honour to introduce him to Mr. Boyle; and Mr. +Esmond was but now depicting _aliquo praelia mixta mero_, when you came +in." In truth the two gentlemen had been so engaged when the visitor +arrived, and Addison, in his smiling way, speaking of Mr. Webb, colonel of +Esmond's regiment (who commanded a brigade in the action, and greatly +distinguished himself there), was lamenting that he could find never a +suitable rhyme for Webb, otherwise the brigade should have had a place in +the poet's verses. "And for you, you are but a lieutenant," says Addison, +"and the Muse can't occupy herself with any gentleman under the rank of a +field-officer." + +Mr. Boyle was all impatient to hear, saying that my Lord Treasurer and my +Lord Halifax were equally anxious; and Addison, blushing, began reading of +his verses, and, I suspect, knew their weak parts as well as the most +critical hearer. When he came to the lines describing the angel, that + + + Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, + And taught the doubtful battle where to rage, + + +he read with great animation, looking at Esmond, as much as to say, "You +know where that simile came from--from our talk, and our bottle of +burgundy, the other day." + +The poet's two hearers were caught with enthusiasm, and applauded the +verses with all their might. The gentleman of the Court sprang up in great +delight. "Not a word more, my dear sir," says he. "Trust me with the +papers--I'll defend them with my life. Let me read them over to my Lord +Treasurer, whom I am appointed to see in half an hour. I venture to +promise, the verses shall lose nothing by my reading, and then, sir, we +shall see whether Lord Halifax has a right to complain that his friend's +pension is no longer paid." And without more ado, the courtier in lace +seized the manuscript pages, placed them in his breast with his ruffled +hand over his heart, executed a most gracious wave of the hat with the +disengaged hand, and smiled and bowed out of the room, leaving an odour of +pomander behind him. + +"Does not the chamber look quite dark," says Addison, surveying it, "after +the glorious appearance and disappearance of that gracious messenger? Why, +he illuminated the whole room. Your scarlet, Mr. Esmond, will bear any +light; but this threadbare old coat of mine, how very worn it looked under +the glare of that splendour! I wonder whether they will do anything for +me," he continued. "When I came out of Oxford into the world, my patrons +promised me great things; and you see where their promises have landed me, +in a lodging up two pair of stairs, with a sixpenny dinner from the cook's +shop. Well, I suppose this promise will go after the others, and fortune +will jilt me, as the jade has been doing any time these seven years. 'I +puff the prostitute away,' " says he, smiling, and blowing a cloud out of +his pipe. "There is no hardship in poverty, Esmond, that is not bearable; +no hardship even in honest dependence that an honest man may not put up +with. I came out of the lap of Alma Mater, puffed up with her praises of +me, and thinking to make a figure in the world with the parts and learning +which had got me no small name in our college. The world is the ocean, and +Isis and Charwell are but little drops, of which the sea takes no account. +My reputation ended a mile beyond Maudlin Tower; no one took note of me; +and I learned this, at least, to bear up against evil fortune with a +cheerful heart. Friend Dick hath made a figure in the world, and has +passed me in the race long ago. What matters a little name or a little +fortune? There is no fortune that a philosopher cannot endure. I have been +not unknown as a scholar, and yet forced to live by turning bear-leader, +and teaching a boy to spell. What then? The life was not pleasant, but +possible--the bear was bearable. Should this venture fail, I will go back +to Oxford; and some day, when you are a general, you shall find me a +curate in a cassock and bands, and I shall welcome your honour to my +cottage in the country, and to a mug of penny ale. 'Tis not poverty that's +the hardest to bear, or the least happy lot in life," says Mr. Addison, +shaking the ash out of his pipe. "See, my pipe is smoked out. Shall we +have another bottle? I have still a couple in the cupboard, and of the +right sort. No more?--let us go abroad and take a turn on the Mall, or look +in at the theatre and see Dick's comedy. 'Tis not a masterpiece of wit; +but Dick is a good fellow, though he doth not set the Thames on fire." + +Within a month after this day, Mr. Addison's ticket had come up a +prodigious prize in the lottery of life. All the town was in an uproar of +admiration of his poem, the _Campaign_, which Dick Steele was spouting at +every coffee-house in Whitehall and Covent Garden. The wits on the other +side of Temple Bar saluted him at once as the greatest poet the world had +seen for ages; the people huzza'ed for Marlborough and for Addison, and, +more than this, the party in power provided for the meritorious poet, and +Mr. Addison got the appointment of Commissioner of Excise, which the +famous Mr. Locke vacated, and rose from this place to other dignities and +honours; his prosperity from henceforth to the end of his life being +scarce ever interrupted. But I doubt whether he was not happier in his +garret in the Haymarket, than ever he was in his splendid palace at +Kensington; and I believe the fortune that came to him in the shape of the +countess his wife, was no better than a shrew and a vixen. + + ------------------------------------- + +Gay as the town was, 'twas but a dreary place for Mr. Esmond, whether his +charmer was in it or out of it, and he was glad when his general gave him +notice that he was going back to his division of the army which lay in +winter quarters at Bois-le-Duc. His dear mistress bade him farewell with a +cheerful face; her blessing he knew he had always, and wheresoever fate +carried him. Mrs. Beatrix was away in attendance on her Majesty at Hampton +Court, and kissed her fair finger-tips to him, by way of adieu, when he +rode thither to take his leave. She received her kinsman in a waiting-room +where there were half a dozen more ladies of the Court, so that his +high-flown speeches, had he intended to make any (and very likely he did), +were impossible; and she announced to her friends that her cousin was +going to the army, in as easy a manner as she would have said he was going +to a chocolate-house. He asked with a rather rueful face, if she had any +orders for the army? and she was pleased to say that she would like a +mantle of Mechlin lace. She made him a saucy curtsy in reply to his own +dismal bow. She deigned to kiss her finger-tips from the window, where she +stood laughing with the other ladies, and chanced to see him as he made +his way to the "Toy". The dowager at Chelsea was not sorry to part with +him this time. "_Mon cher, vous etes triste comme un sermon_," she did him +the honour to say to him; indeed, gentlemen in his condition are by no +means amusing companions, and besides, the fickle old woman had now found +a much more amiable favourite, and _raffole_'d for her darling lieutenant +of the Guard. Frank remained behind for a while, and did not join the army +till later, in the suite of his grace the commander-in-chief. His dear +mother, on the last day before Esmond went away, and when the three dined +together, made Esmond promise to befriend her boy, and besought Frank to +take the example of his kinsman as of a loyal gentleman and brave soldier, +so she was pleased to say; and at parting, betrayed not the least sign of +faltering or weakness, though, God knows, that fond heart was fearful +enough when others were concerned, though so resolute in bearing its own +pain. + +Esmond's general embarked at Harwich. 'Twas a grand sight to see Mr. Webb +dressed in scarlet on the deck, waving his hat as our yacht put off, and +the guns saluted from the shore. Harry did not see his viscount again, +until three months after, at Bois-le-Duc, when his grace the duke came to +take the command, and Frank brought a budget of news from home: how he had +supped with this actress, and got tired of that; how he had got the better +of Mr. St. John, both over the bottle, and with Mrs. Mountford, of the +Haymarket Theatre (a veteran charmer of fifty, with whom the young +scapegrace chose to fancy himself in love); how his sister was always at +her tricks, and had jilted a young baron for an old earl. "I can't make +out Beatrix," he said; "she cares for none of us--she only thinks about +herself; she is never happy unless she is quarrelling; but as for my +mother--my mother, Harry, is an angel." Harry tried to impress on the young +fellow the necessity of doing everything in his power to please that +angel; not to drink too much; not to go into debt; not to run after the +pretty Flemish girls, and so forth, as became a senior speaking to a lad. +"But Lord bless thee!" the boy said; "I may do what I like, and I know she +will love me all the same;" and so, indeed, he did what he liked. +Everybody spoiled him, and his grave kinsman as much as the rest. + + + +Chapter XII. I Get A Company In The Campaign Of 1706 + + +On Whit Sunday, the famous 23rd of May, 1706, my young lord first came +under the fire of the enemy, whom we found posted in order of battle, +their lines extending three miles or more, over the high ground behind the +little Gheet river, and having on his left the little village of Anderkirk +or Autre-eglise, and on his right Ramillies, which has given its name to +one of the most brilliant and disastrous days of battle that history ever +hath recorded. + +Our duke here once more met his old enemy of Blenheim, the Bavarian +Elector and the Mareschal Villeroy, over whom the Prince of Savoy had +gained the famous victory of Chiari. What Englishman or Frenchman doth not +know the issue of that day? Having chosen his own ground, having a force +superior to the English, and besides the excellent Spanish and Bavarian +troops, the whole Maison-du-Roy with him, the most splendid body of horse +in the world,--in an hour (and in spite of the prodigious gallantry of the +French Royal Household, who charged through the centre of our line and +broke it), this magnificent army of Villeroy was utterly routed by troops +that had been marching for twelve hours, and by the intrepid skill of a +commander, who did, indeed, seem in the presence of the enemy to be the +very Genius of Victory. + +I think it was more from conviction than policy, though that policy was +surely the most prudent in the world, that the great duke always spoke of +his victories with an extraordinary modesty, and as if it was not so much +his own admirable genius and courage which achieved these amazing +successes, but as if he was a special and fatal instrument in the hands of +Providence, that willed irresistibly the enemy's overthrow. Before his +actions he always had the church service read solemnly, and professed an +undoubting belief that our queen's arms were blessed and our victory sure. +All the letters which he writ after his battles show awe rather than +exultation; and he attributes the glory of these achievements, about which +I have heard mere petty officers and men bragging with a pardonable +vainglory, in no wise to his own bravery or skill, but to the +superintending protection of Heaven, which he ever seemed to think was our +especial ally. And our army got to believe so, and the enemy learnt to +think so too; for we never entered into a battle without a perfect +confidence that it was to end in a victory; nor did the French, after the +issue of Blenheim, and that astonishing triumph of Ramillies, ever meet us +without feeling that the game was lost before it was begun to be played, +and that our general's fortune was irresistible. Here, as at Blenheim, the +duke's charger was shot, and 'twas thought for a moment he was dead. As he +mounted another, Binfield, his master of the horse, kneeling to hold his +grace's stirrup, had his head shot away by a cannon-ball. A French +gentleman of the Royal Household, that was a prisoner with us, told the +writer that at the time of the charge of the Household, when their horse +and ours were mingled, an Irish officer recognized the Prince-Duke, and +calling out--"Marlborough, Marlborough!" fired his pistol at him _a bout +portant_, and that a score more carbines and pistols were discharged at +him. Not one touched him: he rode through the French Cuirassiers sword in +hand, and entirely unhurt, and calm and smiling rallied the German horse, +that was reeling before the enemy, brought these and twenty squadrons of +Orkney's back upon them, and drove the French across the river +again--leading the charge himself, and defeating the only dangerous move +the French made that day. + +Major-General Webb commanded on the left of our line, and had his own +regiment under the orders of their beloved colonel. Neither he nor they +belied their character for gallantry on this occasion; but it was about +his dear young lord that Esmond was anxious, never having sight of him +save once, in the whole course of the day, when he brought an order from +the commander-in-chief to Mr. Webb. When our horse, having charged round +the right flank of the enemy by Overkirk, had thrown him into entire +confusion, a general advance was made, and our whole line of foot, +crossing the little river and the morass, ascended the high ground where +the French were posted, cheering as they went, the enemy retreating before +them. 'Twas a service of more glory than danger, the French battalions +never waiting to exchange push of pike or bayonet with ours; and the +gunners flying from their pieces which our line left behind us as they +advanced, and the French fell back. + +At first it was a retreat orderly enough; but presently the retreat became +a rout, and a frightful slaughter of the French ensued on this panic; so +that an army of sixty thousand men was utterly crushed and destroyed in +the course of a couple of hours. It was as if a hurricane had seized a +compact and numerous fleet, flung it all to the winds, shattered, sunk, +and annihilated it; _afflavit Deus, et dissipati sunt_. The French army of +Flanders was gone, their artillery, their standards, their treasure, +provisions, and ammunition were all left behind them: the poor devils had +even fled without their soup-kettles, which are as much the palladia of +the French infantry as of the Grand Signor's Janizaries, and round which +they rally even more than round their lilies. + +The pursuit, and a dreadful carnage which ensued (for the dregs of a +battle, however brilliant, are ever a base residue of rapine, cruelty, and +drunken plunder), was carried far beyond the field of Ramillies. + +Honest Lockwood, Esmond's servant, no doubt wanted to be among the +marauders himself and take his share of the booty; for when, the action +over, and the troops got to their ground for the night, the captain bade +Lockwood get a horse, he asked, with a very rueful countenance, whether +his honour would have him come too; but his honour only bade him go about +his own business, and Jack hopped away quite delighted as soon as he saw +his master mounted. Esmond made his way, and not without danger and +difficulty, to his grace's head quarters, and found for himself very +quickly where the aides de camp's quarters were, in an outbuilding of a +farm, where several of these gentlemen were seated, drinking and singing, +and at supper. If he had any anxiety about his boy, 'twas relieved at +once. One of the gentlemen was singing a song to a tune that Mr. Farquhar +and Mr. Gay both had used in their admirable comedies, and very popular in +the army of that day; after the song came a chorus, "Over the hills and +far away"; and Esmond heard Frank's fresh voice soaring, as it were, over +the songs of the rest of the young men--a voice that had always a certain +artless, indescribable pathos with it, and indeed which caused Mr. +Esmond's eyes to fill with tears now, out of thankfulness to God the child +was safe and still alive to laugh and sing. + +When the song was over Esmond entered the room, where he knew several of +the gentlemen present, and there sat my young lord, having taken off his +cuirass, his waistcoat open, his face flushed, his long yellow hair +hanging over his shoulders, drinking with the rest; the youngest, gayest, +handsomest there. As soon as he saw Esmond, he clapped down his glass, and +running towards his friend, put both his arms round him and embraced him. +The other's voice trembled with joy as he greeted the lad; he had thought +but now as he stood in the courtyard under the clear-shining moonlight: +"Great God! what a scene of murder is here within a mile of us; what +hundreds and thousands have faced danger to-day; and here are these lads +singing over their cups, and the same moon that is shining over yonder +horrid field is looking down on Walcote very likely, while my lady sits +and thinks about her boy that is at the war." As Esmond embraced his young +pupil now, 'twas with the feeling of quite religious thankfulness, and an +almost paternal pleasure that he beheld him. + +Round his neck was a star with a striped ribbon, that was made of small +brilliants and might be worth a hundred crowns. "Look," says he, "won't +that be a pretty present for mother?" + +"Who gave you the Order?" says Harry, saluting the gentleman: "did you win +it in battle?" + +"I won it," cried the other, "with my sword and my spear. There was a +mousquetaire that had it round his neck--such a big mousquetaire, as big as +General Webb. I called out to him to surrender, and that I'd give him +quarter: he called me a _petit polisson_, and fired his pistol at me, and +then sent it at my head with a curse. I rode at him, sir, drove my sword +right under his arm-hole, and broke it in the rascal's body. I found a +purse in his holster with sixty-five louis in it, and a bundle of +love-letters, and a flask of Hungary-water. _Vive la guerre!_ there are +the ten pieces you lent me. I should like to have a fight every day;" and +he pulled at his little moustache and bade a servant bring a supper to +Captain Esmond. + +Harry fell to with a very good appetite; he had tasted nothing since +twenty hours ago, at early dawn. Master Grandson, who read this, do you +look for the history of battles and sieges? Go, find them in the proper +books; this is only the story of your grandfather and his family. Far more +pleasant to him than the victory, though for that too he may say +_meminisse juvat_, it was to find that the day was over, and his dear +young Castlewood was unhurt. + +And would you, sirrah, wish to know how it was that a sedate captain of +foot, a studious and rather solitary bachelor of eight or nine and twenty +years of age, who did not care very much for the jollities which his +comrades engaged in, and was never known to lose his heart in any garrison +town--should you wish to know why such a man had so prodigious a +tenderness, and tended so fondly a boy of eighteen, wait, my good friend, +until thou art in love with thy schoolfellow's sister, and then see how +mighty tender thou wilt be towards him. Esmond's general and his grace the +prince-duke were notoriously at variance, and the former's friendship was +in no wise likely to advance any man's promotion, of whose services Webb +spoke well; but rather likely to injure him, so the army said, in the +favour of the greater man. However, Mr. Esmond had the good fortune to be +mentioned very advantageously by Major-General Webb in his report after +the action; and the major of his regiment and two of the captains having +been killed upon the day of Ramillies, Esmond, who was second of the +lieutenants, got his company, and had the honour of serving as Captain +Esmond in the next campaign. + +My lord went home in the winter, but Esmond was afraid to follow him. His +dear mistress wrote him letters more than once, thanking him, as mothers +know how to thank, for his care and protection of her boy, extolling +Esmond's own merits with a great deal more praise than they deserved; for +he did his duty no better than any other officer; and speaking sometimes, +though gently and cautiously, of Beatrix. News came from home of at least +half a dozen grand matches that the beautiful maid of honour was about to +make. She was engaged to an earl, our gentlemen of St. James's said, and +then jilted him for a duke, who, in his turn, had drawn off. Earl or duke +it might be who should win this Helen, Esmond knew she would never bestow +herself on a poor captain. Her conduct, it was clear, was little +satisfactory to her mother, who scarcely mentioned her, or else the kind +lady thought it was best to say nothing, and leave time to work out its +cure. At any rate, Harry was best away from the fatal object which always +wrought him so much mischief; and so he never asked for leave to go home, +but remained with his regiment that was garrisoned in Brussels, which city +fell into our hands when the victory of Ramillies drove the French out of +Flanders. + + + +Chapter XIII. I Meet An Old Acquaintance In Flanders, And Find My Mother's +Grave And My Own Cradle There + + +Being one day in the Church of St. Gudule, at Brussels, admiring the +antique splendour of the architecture (and always entertaining a great +tenderness and reverence for the Mother Church, that hath been as wickedly +persecuted in England as ever she herself persecuted in the days of her +prosperity), Esmond saw kneeling at a side altar, an officer in a green +uniform coat, very deeply engaged in devotion. Something familiar in the +figure and posture of the kneeling man struck Captain Esmond, even before +he saw the officer's face. As he rose up, putting away into his pocket a +little black breviary, such as priests use, Esmond beheld a countenance so +like that of his friend and tutor of early days, Father Holt, that he +broke out into an exclamation of astonishment and advanced a step towards +the gentleman, who was making his way out of church. The German officer +too looked surprised when he saw Esmond, and his face from being pale grew +suddenly red. By this mark of recognition, the Englishman knew that he +could not be mistaken; and though the other did not stop, but on the +contrary rather hastily walked away towards the door, Esmond pursued him +and faced him once more, as the officer helping himself to holy water, +turned mechanically towards the altar to bow to it ere he quitted the +sacred edifice. + +"My father!" says Esmond in English. + +"Silence! I do not understand. I do not speak English," says the other in +Latin. + +Esmond smiled at this sign of confusion, and replied in the same language. +"I should know my father in any garment, black or white, shaven or +bearded," for the Austrian officer was habited quite in the military +manner, and had as warlike a moustachio as any Pandour. + +He laughed--we were on the church steps by this time, passing through the +crowd of beggars that usually is there holding up little trinkets for sale +and whining for alms. "You speak Latin," says he, "in the English way, +Harry Esmond; you have forsaken the old true Roman tongue you once knew." +His tone was very frank, and friendly quite; the kind voice of fifteen +years back; he gave Esmond his hand as he spoke. + +"Others have changed their coats too, my father," says Esmond, glancing at +his friend's military decoration. + +"Hush! I am Mr. or Captain von Holtz, in the Bavarian Elector's service, +and on a mission to his highness the Prince of Savoy. You can keep a +secret I know from old times." + +"Captain von Holtz," says Esmond, "I am your very humble servant." + +"And you, too, have changed your coat," continues the other, in his +laughing way; "I have heard of you at Cambridge and afterwards: we have +friends everywhere; and I am told that Mr. Esmond at Cambridge was as good +a fencer as he was a bad theologian." (So, thinks Esmond, my old _maitre +d'armes_ was a Jesuit as they said.) + +"Perhaps you are right," says the other, reading his thoughts quite as he +used to do in old days: "you were all but killed at Hochstedt of a wound +in the left side. You were before that at Vigo, aide de camp to the Duke +of Ormonde. You got your company the other day after Ramillies; your +general and the prince-duke are not friends; he is of the Webbs of Lydiard +Tregoze, in the county of York, a relation of my Lord St. John. Your +cousin, Monsieur de Castlewood, served his first campaign this year in the +Guard; yes, I do know a few things as you see." + +Captain Esmond laughed in his turn. "You have indeed a curious knowledge," +he says. A foible of Mr. Holt's, who did know more about books and men +than, perhaps, almost any person Esmond had ever met, was omniscience; +thus in every point he here professed to know, he was nearly right, but +not quite. Esmond's wound was in the right side, not the left, his first +general was General Lumley; Mr. Webb came out of Wiltshire, not out of +Yorkshire; and so forth. Esmond did not think fit to correct his old +master in these trifling blunders, but they served to give him a knowledge +of the other's character, and he smiled to think that this was his oracle +of early days; only now no longer infallible or divine. + +"Yes," continues Father Holt, or Captain von Holtz, "for a man who has not +been in England these eight years, I know what goes on in London very +well. The old dean is dead, my Lady Castlewood's father. Do you know that +your recusant bishops wanted to consecrate him Bishop of Southampton, and +that Collier is Bishop of Thetford by the same imposition? The Princess +Anne has the gout and eats too much; when the king returns, Collier will +be an archbishop." + +"Amen!" says Esmond, laughing; "and I hope to see your eminence no longer +in jack-boots, but red stockings, at Whitehall." + +"You are always with us--I know that--I heard of that when you were at +Cambridge; so was the late lord; so is the young viscount." + +"And so was my father before me," said Mr. Esmond, looking calmly at the +other, who did not, however, show the least sign of intelligence in his +impenetrable grey eyes--how well Harry remembered them and their look! only +crows' feet were wrinkled round them--marks of black old Time had settled +there. + +Esmond's face chose to show no more sign of meaning than the father's. +There may have been on the one side and the other just the faintest +glitter of recognition, as you see a bayonet shining out of an ambush; but +each party fell back, when everything was again dark. + +"And you, _mon capitaine_, where have you been?" says Esmond, turning away +the conversation from this dangerous ground, where neither chose to +engage. + +"I may have been in Pekin," says he, "or I may have been in Paraguay--who +knows where? I am now Captain von Holtz, in the service of his electoral +highness, come to negotiate exchange of prisoners with his highness of +Savoy." + +'Twas well known that very many officers in our army were well-affected +towards the young king at St. Germains, whose right to the throne was +undeniable, and whose accession to it, at the death of his sister, by far +the greater part of the English people would have preferred, to the having +a petty German prince for a sovereign, about whose cruelty, rapacity, +boorish manners, and odious foreign ways, a thousand stories were current. +It wounded our English pride to think, that a shabby High-Dutch duke, +whose revenues were not a tithe as great as those of many of the princes +of our ancient English nobility, who could not speak a word of our +language, and whom we chose to represent as a sort of German boor, feeding +on train-oil and sauerkraut, with a bevy of mistresses in a barn, should +come to reign over the proudest and most polished people in the world. +Were we, the conquerors of the Grand Monarch, to submit to that ignoble +domination? What did the Hanoverian's Protestantism matter to us? Was it +not notorious (we were told and led to believe so) that one of the +daughters of this Protestant hero was being bred up with no religion at +all, as yet, and ready to be made Lutheran or Roman, according as the +husband might be, whom her parents should find for her? This talk, very +idle and abusive much of it was, went on at a hundred mess-tables in the +army; there was scarce an ensign that did not hear it, or join in it, and +everybody knew, or affected to know, that the commander-in-chief himself +had relations with his nephew, the Duke of Berwick ('twas by an +Englishman, thank God, that we were beaten at Almanza), and that his grace +was most anxious to restore the royal race of his benefactors, and to +repair his former treason. + +This is certain, that for a considerable period no officer in the duke's +army lost favour with the commander-in-chief for entertaining or +proclaiming his loyalty towards the exiled family. When the Chevalier de +St. George, as the King of England called himself, came with the dukes of +the French blood royal, to join the French army under Vendosme, hundreds +of ours saw him and cheered him, and we all said he was like his father in +this, who, seeing the action of La Hogue fought between the French ships +and ours, was on the side of his native country during the battle. But +this, at least the chevalier knew, and every one knew, that, however well +our troops and their general might be inclined towards the prince +personally, in the face of the enemy there was no question at all. +Wherever my lord duke found a French army, he would fight and beat it, as +he did at Oudenarde, two years after Ramillies, where his grace achieved +another of his transcendent victories; and the noble young prince, who +charged gallantly along with the magnificent Maison-du-Roy, sent to +compliment his conquerors after the action. + +In this battle, where the young Electoral Prince of Hanover behaved +himself very gallantly, fighting on our side, Esmond's dear General Webb +distinguished himself prodigiously, exhibiting consummate skill and +coolness as a general, and fighting with the personal bravery of a common +soldier. Esmond's good luck again attended him; he escaped without a hurt, +although more than a third of his regiment was killed, had again the +honour to be favourably mentioned in his commander's report, and was +advanced to the rank of major. But of this action there is little need to +speak, as it hath been related in every _Gazette_, and talked of in every +hamlet in this country. To return from it to the writer's private affairs, +which here, in his old age, and at a distance, he narrates for his +children who come after him. Before Oudenarde, and after that chance +rencontre with Captain von Holtz at Brussels, a space of more than a year +elapsed, during which the captain of Jesuits and the captain of Webb's +Fusiliers were thrown very much together. Esmond had no difficulty in +finding out (indeed, the other made no secret of it to him, being assured +from old times of his pupil's fidelity), that the negotiator of prisoners +was an agent from St. Germains, and that he carried intelligence between +great personages in our camp and that of the French. "My business," said +he, "and I tell you, both because I can trust you, and your keen eyes have +already discovered it, is between the King of England and his subjects, +here engaged in fighting the French king. As between you and them, all the +Jesuits in the world will not prevent your quarrelling: fight it out, +gentlemen. St. George for England, I say--and you know who says so, +wherever he may be." + +I think Holt loved to make a parade of mystery, as it were, and would +appear and disappear at our quarters as suddenly as he used to return and +vanish in the old days at Castlewood. He had passes between both armies, +and seemed to know (but with that inaccuracy which belonged to the good +father's omniscience) equally well what passed in the French camp and in +ours. One day he would give Esmond news of a great _feste_ that took place +in the French quarters, of a supper of Monsieur de Rohan's, where there +was play and violins, and then dancing and masques: the king drove thither +in Marshal Villar's own guinguette. Another day he had the news of his +Majesty's ague, the king had not had a fit these ten days, and might be +said to be well. Captain Holtz made a visit to England during this time, +so eager was he about negotiating prisoners; and 'twas on returning from +this voyage that he began to open himself more to Esmond, and to make him, +as occasion served, at their various meetings, several of those +confidences which are here set down all together. + +The reason of his increased confidence was this: upon going to London, the +old director of Esmond's aunt, the dowager, paid her ladyship a visit at +Chelsey, and there learnt from her that Captain Esmond was acquainted with +the secret of his family, and was determined never to divulge it. The +knowledge of this fact raised Esmond in his old tutor's eyes, so Holt was +pleased to say, and he admired Harry very much for his abnegation. + +"The family at Castlewood have done far more for me than my own ever did," +Esmond said. "I would give my life for them. Why should I grudge the only +benefit that 'tis in my power to confer on them?" The good father's eyes +filled with tears at this speech, which to the other seemed very simple: +he embraced Esmond, and broke out into many admiring expressions; he said +he was a _noble coeur_, that he was proud of him, and fond of him as his +pupil and friend--regretted more than ever that he had lost him, and been +forced to leave him in those early times, when he might have had an +influence over him, have brought him into that only true Church to which +the father belonged, and enlisted him in the noblest army in which a man +ever engaged--meaning his own Society of Jesus, which numbers (says he) in +its troops the greatest heroes the world ever knew;--warriors, brave enough +to dare or endure anything, to encounter any odds, to die any +death;--soldiers that have won triumphs a thousand times more brilliant +than those of the greatest general; that have brought nations on their +knees to their sacred banner, the Cross; that have achieved glories and +palms incomparably brighter than those awarded to the most splendid +earthly conquerors--crowns of immortal light, and seats in the high places +of Heaven. + +Esmond was thankful for his old friend's good opinion, however little he +might share the Jesuit father's enthusiasm. "I have thought of that +question, too," says he, "dear father," and he took the other's +hand--"thought it out for myself, as all men must, and contrive to do the +right, and trust to Heaven as devoutly in my way as you in yours. Another +six months of you as a child, and I had desired no better. I used to weep +upon my pillow at Castlewood as I thought of you, and I might have been a +brother of your order; and who knows," Esmond added, with a smile, "a +priest in full orders, and with a pair of moustachios, and a Bavarian +uniform." + +"My son," says Father Holt, turning red, "in the cause of religion and +loyalty all disguises are fair." + +"Yes," broke in Esmond, "all disguises are fair, you say; and all +uniforms, say I, black or red,--a black cockade or a white one--or a laced +hat, or a sombrero, with a tonsure under it. I cannot believe that St. +Francis Xavier sailed over the sea in a cloak, or raised the dead--I tried; +and very nearly did once, but cannot. Suffer me to do the right, and to +hope for the best in my own way." + +Esmond wished to cut short the good father's theology, and succeeded; and +the other, sighing over his pupil's invincible ignorance, did not withdraw +his affection from him, but gave him his utmost confidence--as much, that +is to say, as a priest can give: more than most do; for he was naturally +garrulous, and too eager to speak. + +Holt's friendship encouraged Captain Esmond to ask, what he long wished to +know, and none could tell him, some history of the poor mother whom he had +often imagined in his dreams, and whom he never knew. He described to Holt +those circumstances which are already put down in the first part of this +story--the promise he had made to his dear lord, and that dying friend's +confession; and he besought Mr. Holt to tell him what he knew regarding +the poor woman from whom he had been taken. + +"She was of this very town," Holt said, and took Esmond to see the street +where her father lived, and where, as he believed, she was born. "In 1676, +when your father came hither in the retinue of the late king, then Duke of +York, and banished hither in disgrace, Captain Thomas Esmond became +acquainted with your mother, pursued her, and made a victim of her; he +hath told me in many subsequent conversations, which I felt bound to keep +private then, that she was a woman of great virtue and tenderness, and in +all respects a most fond, faithful creature. He called himself Captain +Thomas, having good reason to be ashamed of his conduct towards her, and +hath spoken to me many times with sincere remorse for that, as with fond +love for her many amiable qualities. He owned to having treated her very +ill; and that at this time his life was one of profligacy, gambling, and +poverty. She became with child of you; was cursed by her own parents at +that discovery; though she never upbraided, except by her involuntary +tears, and the misery depicted on her countenance, the author of her +wretchedness and ruin. + +"Thomas Esmond--Captain Thomas, as he was called--became engaged in a +gaming-house brawl, of which the consequence was a duel, and a wound so +severe that he never--his surgeon said--could outlive it. Thinking his death +certain, and touched with remorse, he sent for a priest of the very Church +of St. Gudule where I met you; and on the same day, after his making +submission to our Church, was married to your mother a few weeks before +you were born. My Lord Viscount Castlewood, Marquis of Esmond, by King +James's patent, which I myself took to your father, your lordship was +christened at St. Gudule by the same cure who married your parents, and by +the name of Henry Thomas, son of E. Thomas, officier Anglais, and Gertrude +Maes. You see you belong to us from your birth, and why I did not christen +you when you became my dear little pupil at Castlewood. + +"Your father's wound took a favourable turn--perhaps his conscience was +eased by the right he had done--and to the surprise of the doctors he +recovered. But as his health came back, his wicked nature, too, returned. +He was tired of the poor girl, whom he had ruined; and receiving some +remittance from his uncle, my lord the old viscount then in England, he +pretended business, promised return, and never saw your poor mother more. + +"He owned to me, in confession first, but afterwards in talk before your +aunt, his wife, else I never could have disclosed what I now tell you, +that on coming to London he writ a pretended confession to poor Gertrude +Maes--Gertrude Esmond--of his having been married in England previously, +before uniting himself with her; said that his name was not Thomas; that +he was about to quit Europe for the Virginia plantations, where, indeed, +your family had a grant of land from King Charles the First; sent her a +supply of money, the half of the last hundred guineas he had, entreated +her pardon, and bade her farewell. + +"Poor Gertrude never thought that the news in this letter might be untrue +as the rest of your father's conduct to her. But though a young man of her +own degree, who knew her history, and whom she liked before she saw the +English gentleman who was the cause of all her misery, offered to marry +her, and to adopt you as his own child, and give you his name, she refused +him. This refusal only angered her father, who had taken her home; she +never held up her head there, being the subject of constant unkindness +after her fall; and some devout ladies of her acquaintance offering to pay +a little pension for her, she went into a convent, and you were put out to +nurse. + +"A sister of the young fellow, who would have adopted you as his son, was +the person who took charge of you. Your mother and this person were +cousins. She had just lost a child of her own, which you replaced, your +own mother being too sick and feeble to feed you; and presently your nurse +grew so fond of you, that she even grudged letting you visit the convent +where your mother was, and where the nuns petted the little infant, as +they pitied and loved its unhappy parent. Her vocation became stronger +every day, and at the end of two years she was received as a sister of the +house. + +"Your nurse's family were silk-weavers out of France, whither they +returned to Arras in French Flanders, shortly before your mother took her +vows, carrying you with them, then a child of three years old. 'Twas a +town, before the late vigorous measures of the French king, full of +Protestants, and here your nurse's father, old Pastoureau, he with whom +you afterwards lived at Ealing, adopted the reformed doctrines, perverting +all his house with him. They were expelled thence by the edict of his most +Christian Majesty, and came to London, and set up their looms in +Spittlefields. The old man brought a little money with him, and carried on +his trade, but in a poor way. He was a widower; by this time his daughter, +a widow too, kept house for him, and his son and he laboured together at +their vocation. Meanwhile your father had publicly owned his conversion +just before King Charles's death (in whom our Church had much such another +convert), was reconciled to my Lord Viscount Castlewood, and married, as +you know, to his daughter. + +"It chanced that the younger Pastoureau, going with a piece of brocade to +the mercer, who employed him, on Ludgate Hill, met his old rival coming +out of an ordinary there. Pastoureau knew your father at once, seized him +by the collar, and upbraided him as a villain, who had seduced his +mistress, and afterwards deserted her and her son. Mr. Thomas Esmond also +recognized Pastoureau at once, besought him to calm his indignation, and +not to bring a crowd round about them; and bade him to enter into the +tavern, out of which he had just stepped, when he would give him any +explanation. Pastoureau entered, and heard the landlord order the drawer +to show Captain Thomas to a room; it was by his Christian name that your +father was familiarly called at his tavern haunts, which, to say the +truth, were none of the most reputable. + +"I must tell you that Captain Thomas, or my lord viscount afterwards, was +never at a loss for a story, and could cajole a woman or a dun with a +volubility, and an air of simplicity at the same time, of which many a +creditor of his has been the dupe. His tales used to gather verisimilitude +as he went on with them. He strung together fact after fact with a +wonderful rapidity and coherence. It required, saving your presence, a +very long habit of acquaintance with your father to know when his lordship +was l----,--telling the truth or no. + +"He told me with rueful remorse when he was ill--for the fear of death set +him instantly repenting, and with shrieks of laughter when he was well, +his lordship having a very great sense of humour--how in half an hour's +time, and before a bottle was drunk, he had completely succeeded in biting +poor Pastoureau. The seduction he owned too: that he could not help: he +was quite ready with tears at a moment's warning, and shed them profusely +to melt his credulous listener. He wept for your mother even more than +Pastoureau did, who cried very heartily, poor fellow, as my lord informed +me; he swore upon his honour that he had twice sent money to Brussels, and +mentioned the name of the merchant with whom it was lying for poor +Gertrude's use. He did not even know whether she had a child or no, or +whether she was alive or dead; but got these facts easily out of honest +Pastoureau's answers to him. When he heard that she was in a convent, he +said he hoped to end his days in one himself, should he survive his wife, +whom he hated, and had been forced by a cruel father to marry; and when he +was told that Gertrude's son was alive, and actually in London, 'I +started,' says he; 'for then, damme, my wife was expecting to lie-in, and +I thought should this old Put, my father-in-law, run rusty, here would be +a good chance to frighten him.' + +"He expressed the deepest gratitude to the Pastoureau family for their +care of the infant; you were now near six years old; and on Pastoureau +bluntly telling him, when he proposed to go that instant and see the +darling child, that they never wished to see his ill-omened face again +within their doors; that he might have the boy, though they should all be +very sorry to lose him; and that they would take his money, they being +poor, if he gave it; or bring him up, by God's help, as they had hitherto +done, without: he acquiesced in this at once, with a sigh, said, 'Well, +'twas better that the dear child should remain with friends who had been +so admirably kind to him'; and in his talk to me afterwards, honestly +praised and admired the weaver's conduct and spirit; owned that the +Frenchman was a right fellow, and he, the Lord have mercy upon him, a sad +villain. + +"Your father," Mr. Holt went on to say, "was good-natured with his money +when he had it; and having that day received a supply from his uncle, gave +the weaver ten pieces with perfect freedom, and promised him further +remittances. He took down eagerly Pastoureau's name and place of abode in +his table-book, and when the other asked him for his own, gave, with the +utmost readiness, his name as Captain Thomas, New Lodge, Penzance, +Cornwall; he said he was in London for a few days only on business +connected with his wife's property; described her as a shrew, though a +woman of kind disposition; and depicted his father as a Cornish squire, in +an infirm state of health, at whose death he hoped for something handsome, +when he promised richly to reward the admirable protector of his child, +and to provide for the boy. 'And by Gad, sir,' he said to me in his +strange laughing way, 'I ordered a piece of brocade of the very same +pattern as that which the fellow was carrying, and presented it to my wife +for a morning wrapper, to receive company after she lay-in of our little +boy.' + +"Your little pension was paid regularly enough; and when your father +became Viscount Castlewood on his uncle's demise, I was employed to keep a +watch over you, and 'twas at my instance that you were brought home. Your +foster-mother was dead; her father made acquaintance with a woman whom he +married, who quarrelled with his son. The faithful creature came back to +Brussels to be near the woman he loved, and died, too, a few months before +her. Will you see her cross in the convent cemetery? The superior is an +old penitent of mine, and remembers Soeur Marie Madeleine fondly still." + + ------------------------------------- + +Esmond came to this spot in one sunny evening of spring, and saw, amidst a +thousand black crosses, casting their shadows across the grassy mounds, +that particular one which marked his mother's resting-place. Many more of +those poor creatures that lay there had adopted that same name, with which +sorrow had rebaptized her, and which fondly seemed to hint their +individual story of love and grief. He fancied her in tears and darkness, +kneeling at the foot of her cross, under which her cares were buried. + +Surely he knelt down, and said his own prayer there, not in sorrow so much +as in awe (for even his memory had no recollection of her), and in pity +for the pangs which the gentle soul in life had been made to suffer. To +this cross she brought them; for this heavenly bridegroom she exchanged +the husband who had wooed her, the traitor who had left her. A thousand +such hillocks lay round about, the gentle daisies springing out of the +grass over them, and each bearing its cross and requiescat. A nun, veiled +in black, was kneeling hard by, at a sleeping sister's bedside (so fresh +made, that the spring had scarce had time to spin a coverlid for it); +beyond the cemetery walls you had glimpses of life and the world, and the +spires and gables of the city. A bird came down from a roof opposite, and +lit first on a cross, and then on the grass below it, whence it flew away +presently with a leaf in its mouth: then came a sound as of chanting, from +the chapel of the sisters hard by; others had long since filled the place, +which poor Mary Magdalene once had there, were kneeling at the same stall, +and hearing the same hymns and prayers in which her stricken heart had +found consolation. Might she sleep in peace--might she sleep in peace; and +we, too, when our struggles and pains are over! But the earth is the +Lord's as the heaven is; we are alike His creatures here and yonder. I +took a little flower off the hillock, and kissed it, and went my way, like +the bird that had just lighted on the cross by me, back into the world +again. Silent receptacle of death! tranquil depth of calm, out of reach of +tempest and trouble! I felt as one who had been walking below the sea, and +treading amidst the bones of shipwrecks. + + + +Chapter XIV. The Campaign Of 1707, 1708 + + +During the whole of the year which succeeded that in which the glorious +battle of Ramillies had been fought, our army made no movement of +importance, much to the disgust of very many of our officers remaining +inactive in Flanders, who said that his grace the captain-general had had +fighting enough, and was all for money now, and the enjoyment of his five +thousand a year and his splendid palace at Woodstock, which was now being +built. And his grace had sufficient occupation fighting his enemies at +home this year, where it begun to be whispered that his favour was +decreasing, and his duchess losing her hold on the queen, who was +transferring her royal affections to the famous Mrs. Masham, and Mrs. +Masham's humble servant, Mr. Harley. Against their intrigues, our duke +passed a great part of his time intriguing. Mr. Harley was got out of +office, and his grace, in so far, had a victory. But her Majesty, +convinced against her will, was of that opinion still, of which the poet +says people are when so convinced, and Mr. Harley before long had his +revenge. + +Meanwhile the business of fighting did not go on any way to the +satisfaction of Marlborough's gallant lieutenants. During all 1707, with +the French before us, we had never so much as a battle; our army in Spain +was utterly routed at Almanza by the gallant Duke of Berwick; and we of +Webb's, which regiment the young duke had commanded before his father's +abdication, were a little proud to think that it was our colonel who had +achieved this victory. "I think if I had had Galway's place, and my +Fusiliers," says our general, "we would not have laid down our arms, even +to our old colonel, as Galway did; and Webb's officers swore if we had had +Webb, at least we would not have been taken prisoners." Our dear old +general talked incautiously of himself and of others; a braver or a more +brilliant soldier never lived than he; but he blew his honest trumpet +rather more loudly than became a commander of his station, and, mighty man +of valour as he was, shook his great spear, and blustered before the army +too fiercely. + +Mysterious Mr. Holtz went off on a secret expedition in the early part of +1708, with great elation of spirits, and a prophecy to Esmond that a +wonderful something was about to take place. This secret came out on my +friend's return to the army, whither he brought a most rueful and dejected +countenance, and owned that the great something he had been engaged upon +had failed utterly. He had been indeed with that luckless expedition of +the Chevalier de St. George, who was sent by the French king with ships +and an army from Dunkirk, and was to have invaded and conquered Scotland. +But that ill wind which ever opposed all the projects upon which the +prince ever embarked, prevented the Chevalier's invasion of Scotland, as +'tis known, and blew poor Monsieur von Holtz back into our camp again, to +scheme and foretell, and to pry about as usual. The Chevalier (the King of +England, as some of us held him) went from Dunkirk to the French army to +make the campaign against us. The Duke of Burgundy had the command this +year, having the Duke of Berry with him, and the famous Mareschal Vendosme +and the Duke of Matignon to aid him in the campaign. Holtz, who knew +everything that was passing in Flanders and France (and the Indies for +what I know), insisted that there would be no more fighting in 1708 than +there had been in the previous year, and that our commander had reasons +for keeping him quiet. Indeed, Esmond's general, who was known as a +grumbler, and to have a hearty mistrust of the great duke, and hundreds +more officers besides, did not scruple to say that these private reasons +came to the duke in the shape of crown-pieces from the French king, by +whom the generalissimo was bribed to avoid a battle. There were plenty of +men in our lines, quidnuncs, to whom Mr. Webb listened only too willingly, +who could specify the exact sums the duke got, how much fell to Cadogan's +share, and what was the precise fee given to Doctor Hare. + +And the successes with which the French began the campaign of 1708, served +to give strength to these reports of treason, which were in everybody's +mouth. Our general allowed the enemy to get between us and Ghent, and +declined to attack him, though for eight-and-forty hours the armies were +in presence of each other. Ghent was taken, and on the same day Monsieur +de la Mothe summoned Bruges; and these two great cities fell into the +hands of the French without firing a shot. A few days afterwards La Mothe +seized upon the fort of Plashendall: and it began to be supposed that all +Spanish Flanders, as well as Brabant, would fall into the hands of the +French troops; when the Prince Eugene arrived from the Mozelle, and then +there was no more shilly-shallying. + +The Prince of Savoy always signalized his arrival at the army by a great +feast (my lord duke's entertainments were both seldom and shabby): and I +remember our general returning from this dinner with the two +commanders-in-chief; his honest head a little excited by wine, which was +dealt out much more liberally by the Austrian than by the English +commander:--"Now," says my general, slapping the table, with an oath, "he +must fight; and when he is forced to it, d---- it, no man in Europe can +stand up against Jack Churchill." Within a week the battle of Oudenarde +was fought, when, hate each other as they might, Esmond's general and the +commander-in-chief were forced to admire each other, so splendid was the +gallantry of each upon this day. + +The brigade commanded by Major-General Webb gave and received about as +hard knocks as any that were delivered in that action, in which Mr. Esmond +had the fortune to serve at the head of his own company in his regiment, +under the command of their own colonel as major-general; and it was his +good luck to bring the regiment out of action as commander of it, the four +senior officers above him being killed in the prodigious slaughter which +happened on that day. I like to think that Jack Haythorn, who sneered at +me for being a bastard and a parasite of Webb's, as he chose to call me, +and with whom I had had words, shook hands with me the day before the +battle begun. Three days before, poor Brace, our lieutenant-colonel, had +heard of his elder brother's death, and was heir to a baronetcy in +Norfolk, and four thousand a year. Fate, that had left him harmless +through a dozen campaigns, seized on him just as the world was worth +living for, and he went into action, knowing, as he said, that the luck +was going to turn against him. The major had just joined us--a creature of +Lord Marlborough, put in much to the dislike of the other officers, and to +be a spy upon us, as it was said. I know not whether the truth was so, nor +who took the tattle of our mess to head quarters, but Webb's regiment, as +its colonel, was known to be in the commander-in-chief's black books: "And +if he did not dare to break it up at home," our gallant old chief used to +say, "he was determined to destroy it before the enemy;" so that poor +Major Proudfoot was put into a post of danger. + +Esmond's dear young viscount, serving as aide de camp to my lord duke, +received a wound, and won an honourable name for himself in the _Gazette_; +and Captain Esmond's name was sent in for promotion by his general, too, +whose favourite he was. It made his heart beat to think that certain eyes +at home, the brightest in the world, might read the page on which his +humble services were recorded; but his mind was made up steadily to keep +out of their dangerous influence, and to let time and absence conquer that +passion he had still lurking about him. Away from Beatrix, it did not +trouble him; but he knew as certain that if he returned home, his fever +would break out again, and avoided Walcote as a Lincolnshire man avoids +returning to his fens, where he is sure that the ague is lying in wait for +him. + +We of the English party in the army, who were inclined to sneer at +everything that came out of Hanover, and to treat as little better than +boors and savages the Elector's court and family, were yet forced to +confess that, on the day of Oudenarde, the young electoral prince, then +making his first campaign, conducted himself with the spirit and courage +of an approved soldier. On this occasion his electoral highness had better +luck than the King of England, who was with his cousins in the enemy's +camp, and had to run with them at the ignominious end of the day. With the +most consummate generals in the world before them, and an admirable +commander on their own side, they chose to neglect the councils, and to +rush into a combat with the former, which would have ended in the utter +annihilation of their army but for the great skill and bravery of the Duke +of Vendosme, who remedied, as far as courage and genius might, the +disasters occasioned by the squabbles and follies of his kinsmen, the +legitimate princes of the blood royal. + +"If the Duke of Berwick had but been in the army, the fate of the day +would have been very different," was all that poor Mr. von Holtz could +say; "and you would have seen that the hero of Almanza was fit to measure +swords with the conqueror of Blenheim." + +The business relative to the exchange of prisoners was always going on, +and was at least that ostensible one which kept Mr. Holtz perpetually on +the move between the forces of the French and the Allies. I can answer for +it, that he was once very near hanged as a spy by Major-General Wayne, +when he was released and sent on to head quarters by a special order of +the commander-in-chief. He came and went, always favoured, wherever he +was, by some high though occult protection. He carried messages between +the Duke of Berwick and his uncle, our duke. He seemed to know as well +what was taking place in the prince's quarter as our own: he brought the +compliments of the King of England to some of our officers, the gentlemen +of Webb's among the rest, for their behaviour on that great day; and after +Wynendael, when our general was chafing at the neglect of our +commander-in-chief, he said he knew how that action was regarded by the +chiefs of the French army, and that the stand made before Wynendael wood +was the passage by which the Allies entered Lille. + +"Ah!" says Holtz (and some folks were very willing to listen to him), "if +the king came by his own, how changed the conduct of affairs would be! His +Majesty's very exile has this advantage, that he is enabled to read +England impartially, and to judge honestly of all the eminent men. His +sister is always in the hand of one greedy favourite or another, through +whose eyes she sees, and to whose flattery or dependants she gives away +everything. Do you suppose that his Majesty, knowing England so well as he +does, would neglect such a man as General Webb? He ought to be in the +House of Peers as Lord Lydiard. The enemy and all Europe know his merit; +it is that very reputation which certain great people, who hate all +equality and independence, can never pardon." It was intended that these +conversations should be carried to Mr. Webb. They were welcome to him, for +great as his services were, no man could value them more than John +Richmond Webb did himself, and the differences between him and Marlborough +being notorious, his grace's enemies in the army and at home began to +court Webb, and set him up against the all-grasping domineering chief. And +soon after the victory of Oudenarde, a glorious opportunity fell into +General Webb's way, which that gallant warrior did not neglect, and which +gave him the means of immensely increasing his reputation at home. + +After Oudenarde, and against the counsels of Marlborough, it was said, the +Prince of Savoy sat down before Lille, the capital of French Flanders, and +commenced that siege, the most celebrated of our time, and almost as +famous as the siege of Troy itself, for the feats of valour performed in +the assault and the defence. The enmity of that Prince of Savoy against +the French king was a furious personal hate, quite unlike the calm +hostility of our great English general, who was no more moved by the game +of war than that of billiards, and pushed forward his squadrons, and drove +his red battalions hither and thither as calmly as he would combine a +stroke or make a cannon with the balls. The game over (and he played it so +as to be pretty sure to win it), not the least animosity against the other +party remained in the breast of this consummate tactician. Whereas between +the Prince of Savoy and the French it was _guerre a mort_. Beaten off in +one quarter, as he had been at Toulon in the last year, he was back again +on another frontier of France, assailing it with his indefatigable fury. +When the prince came to the army, the smouldering fires of war were +lighted up and burst out into a flame. Our phlegmatic Dutch allies were +made to advance at a quick march--our calm duke forced into action. The +prince was an army in himself against the French; the energy of his hatred +prodigious, indefatigable--infectious over hundreds of thousands of men. +The emperor's general was repaying, and with a vengeance, the slight the +French king had put upon the fiery little Abbe of Savoy. Brilliant and +famous as a leader himself, and beyond all measure daring and intrepid, +and enabled to cope with almost the best of those famous men of war who +commanded the armies of the French king, Eugene had a weapon, the equal of +which could not be found in France, since the cannon-shot of Sasbach laid +low the noble Turenne, and could hurl Marlborough at the heads of the +French host, and crush them as with a rock, under which all the gathered +strength of their strongest captains must go down. + +The English duke took little part in that vast siege of Lille, which the +Imperial generalissimo pursued with all his force and vigour, further than +to cover the besieging lines from the Duke of Burgundy's army, between +which and the Imperialists our duke lay. Once, when Prince Eugene was +wounded, our duke took his highness's place in the trenches; but the siege +was with the Imperialists, not with us. A division under Webb and Rantzau +was detached into Artois and Picardy upon the most painful and odious +service that Mr. Esmond ever saw in the course of his military life. The +wretched towns of the defenceless provinces, whose young men had been +drafted away into the French armies, which year after year the insatiable +war devoured, were left at our mercy; and our orders were to show them +none. We found places garrisoned by invalids, and children and women: poor +as they were, and as the costs of this miserable war had made them, our +commission was to rob these almost starving wretches--to tear the food out +of their granaries, and strip them of their rags. 'Twas an expedition of +rapine and murder we were sent on: our soldiers did deeds such as an +honest man must blush to remember. We brought back money and provisions in +quantity to the duke's camp; there had been no one to resist us, and yet +who dares to tell with what murder and violence, with what brutal cruelty, +outrage, insult, that ignoble booty had been ravished from the innocent +and miserable victims of the war? + +Meanwhile, gallantly as the operations before Lille had been conducted, +the Allies had made but little progress, and 'twas said when we returned +to the Duke of Marlborough's camp, that the siege would never be brought +to a satisfactory end, and that the Prince of Savoy would be forced to +raise it. My Lord Marlborough gave this as his opinion openly; those who +mistrusted him, and Mr. Esmond owns himself to be of the number, hinted +that the duke had his reasons why Lille should not be taken, and that he +was paid to that end by the French king. If this was so, and I believe it, +General Webb had now a remarkable opportunity of gratifying his hatred of +the commander-in-chief, of balking that shameful avarice, which was one of +the basest and most notorious qualities of the famous duke, and of showing +his own consummate skill as a commander. And when I consider all the +circumstances preceding the event which will now be related, that my lord +duke was actually offered certain millions of crowns provided that the +siege of Lille should be raised; that the Imperial army before it was +without provisions and ammunition, and must have decamped but for the +supplies that they received; that the march of the convoy destined to +relieve the siege was accurately known to the French; and that the force +covering it was shamefully inadequate to that end, and by six times +inferior to Count de la Mothe's army, which was sent to intercept the +convoy; when 'tis certain that the Duke of Berwick, de la Mothe's chief, +was in constant correspondence with his uncle, the English generalissimo: +I believe on my conscience that 'twas my Lord Marlborough's intention to +prevent those supplies, of which the Prince of Savoy stood in absolute +need, from ever reaching his highness; that he meant to sacrifice the +little army which covered this convoy, and to betray it as he had betrayed +Tollemache at Brest; as he betrayed every friend he had, to further his +own schemes of avarice or ambition. But for the miraculous victory which +Esmond's general won over an army six or seven times greater than his own, +the siege of Lille must have been raised; and it must be remembered that +our gallant little force was under the command of a general whom +Marlborough hated, that he was furious with the conqueror, and tried by +the most open and shameless injustice afterwards to rob him of the credit +of his victory. + + + +Chapter XV. General Webb Wins The Battle Of Wynendael + + +By the besiegers and besieged of Lille, some of the most brilliant feats +of valour were performed that ever illustrated any war. On the French side +(whose gallantry was prodigious, the skill and bravery of Marshal +Boufflers actually eclipsing those of his conqueror, the Prince of Savoy) +may be mentioned that daring action of Messieurs de Luxembourg and +Tournefort, who, with a body of horse and dragoons, carried powder into +the town, of which the besieged were in extreme want, each soldier +bringing a bag with forty pounds of powder behind him; with which perilous +provision they engaged our own horse, faced the fire of the foot brought +out to meet them: and though half of the men were blown up in the dreadful +errand they rode on, a part of them got into the town with the succours of +which the garrison was so much in want. A French officer, Monsieur du +Bois, performed an act equally daring, and perfectly successful. The +duke's great army lying at Helchin, and covering the siege, and it being +necessary for Monsieur de Vendosme to get news of the condition of the +place, Captain du Bois performed his famous exploit: not only passing +through the lines of the siege, but swimming afterwards no less than seven +moats and ditches: and coming back the same way, swimming with his letters +in his mouth. + +By these letters Monsieur de Boufflers said that he could undertake to +hold the place till October; and that, if one of the convoys of the Allies +could be intercepted, they must raise the siege altogether. + +Such a convoy as hath been said was now prepared at Ostend, and about to +march for the siege; and on the 27th September, we (and the French too) +had news that it was on its way. It was composed of 700 waggons, +containing ammunition of all sorts, and was escorted out of Ostend by +2,000 infantry and 300 horse. At the same time Monsieur de la Mothe +quitted Bruges, having with him five-and-thirty battalions, and upwards of +sixty squadrons and forty guns, in pursuit of the convoy. + +Major-General Webb had meanwhile made up a force of twenty battalions, and +three squadrons of dragoons, at Turout, whence he moved to cover the +convoy and pursue la Mothe: with whose advanced guard ours came up upon +the great plain of Turout, and before the little wood and castle of +Wynendael; behind which the convoy was marching. + +As soon as they came in sight of the enemy, our advanced troops were +halted, with the wood behind them, and the rest of our force brought up as +quickly as possible, our little body of horse being brought forward to the +opening of the plain, as our general said, to amuse the enemy. When +Monsieur la Mothe came up he found us posted in two lines in front of the +wood; and formed his own army in battle facing ours, in eight lines, four +of infantry in front, and dragoons and cavalry behind. + +The French began the action, as usual, with a cannonade which lasted three +hours, when they made their attack, advancing in twelve lines, four of +foot and four of horse, upon the allied troops in the wood where we were +posted. Their infantry behaved ill; they were ordered to charge with the +bayonet, but, instead, began to fire, and almost at the very first +discharge from our men, broke and fled. The cavalry behaved better; with +these alone, who were three or four times as numerous as our whole force, +Monsieur de la Mothe might have won victory: but only two of our +battalions were shaken in the least; and these speedily rallied: nor could +the repeated attacks of the French horse cause our troops to budge an inch +from the position in the wood in which our general had placed them. + +After attacking for two hours, the French retired at night-fall entirely +foiled. With all the loss we had inflicted upon him, the enemy was still +three times stronger than we: and it could not be supposed that our +general could pursue M. de la Mothe, or do much more than hold our ground +about the wood, from which the Frenchman had in vain attempted to dislodge +us. La Mothe retired behind his forty guns, his cavalry protecting them +better than it had been enabled to annoy us; and meanwhile the convoy, +which was of more importance than all our little force, and the safe +passage of which we would have dropped to the last man to accomplish, +marched away in perfect safety during the action, and joyfully reached the +besieging camp before Lille. + +Major-General Cadogan, my lord duke's quartermaster-general (and between +whom and Mr. Webb there was no love lost), accompanied the convoy, and +joined Mr. Webb with a couple of hundred horse just as the battle was +over, and the enemy in full retreat. He offered, readily enough, to charge +with his horse upon the French as they fell back; but his force was too +weak to inflict any damage upon them; and Mr. Webb, commanding as +Cadogan's senior, thought enough was done in holding our ground before an +enemy that might still have overwhelmed us had we engaged him in the open +territory, and in securing the safe passage of the convoy. Accordingly, +the horse brought up by Cadogan did not draw a sword; and only prevented, +by the good countenance they showed, any disposition the French might have +had to renew the attack on us. And no attack coming, at nightfall General +Cadogan drew off with his squadron, being bound for head quarters, the two +generals at parting grimly saluting each other. + +"He will be at Roncq time enough to lick my lord duke's trenchers at +supper," says Mr. Webb. + +Our own men lay out in the woods of Wynendael that night, and our general +had his supper in the little castle there. + +"If I was Cadogan, I would have a peerage for this day's work," General +Webb said; "and Harry, thou shouldst have a regiment. Thou hast been +reported in the last two actions: thou wert near killed in the first. I +shall mention thee in my dispatch to his grace the commander-in-chief, and +recommend thee to poor Dick Harwood's vacant majority. Have you ever a +hundred guineas to give Cardonnel? Slip them into his hand to-morrow, when +you go to head quarters with my report." + +In this report the major-general was good enough to mention Captain +Esmond's name with particular favour; and that gentleman carried the +dispatch to head quarters the next day, and was not a little pleased to +bring back a letter by his grace's secretary, addressed to +Lieutenant-General Webb. The Dutch officer dispatched by Count Nassau +Woudenbourg, Vaelt-Mareschal Auverquerque's son, brought back also a +complimentary letter to his commander, who had seconded Mr. Webb in the +action with great valour and skill. + +Esmond, with a low bow and a smiling face, presented his dispatch, and +saluted Mr. Webb as Lieutenant-General, as he gave it in. The gentlemen +round about him--he was riding with his suite on the road to Menin as +Esmond came up with him--gave a cheer, and he thanked them, and opened the +dispatch with rather a flushed eager face. + +He slapped it down on his boot in a rage after he had read it. "'Tis not +even writ with his own hand. Read it out, Esmond." And Esmond read it +out:-- + + + "Sir--Mr. Cadogan is just now come in, and has acquainted me with + the success of the action you had yesterday in the afternoon + against the body of troops commanded by Monsieur de la Mothe, at + Wynendael, which must be attributed chiefly to your good conduct + and resolution. You may be sure I shall do you justice at home, + and be glad on all occasions to own the service you have done in + securing this convoy.--Yours, &c., M." + + +"Two lines by that d----d Cardonnel, and no more, for the taking of +Lille--for beating five times our number--for an action as brilliant as the +best he ever fought," says poor Mr. Webb. "Lieutenant-General! That's not +his doing. I was the oldest major-general. By ----, I believe he had been +better pleased if I had been beat." + +The letter to the Dutch officer was in French, and longer and more +complimentary than that to Mr. Webb. + +"And this is the man," he broke out, "that's gorged with gold--that's +covered with titles and honours that we won for him--and that grudges even +a line of praise to a comrade in arms! Hasn't he enough? Don't we fight +that he may roll in riches? Well, well, wait for the _Gazette_, gentlemen. +The queen and the country will do us justice if his grace denies it us." +There were tears of rage in the brave warrior's eyes as he spoke; and he +dashed them off his face on to his glove. He shook his fist in the air. +"Oh, by the Lord!" says he, "I know what I had rather have than a +peerage!" + +"And what is that, sir?" some of them asked. + +"I had rather have a quarter of an hour with John Churchill, on a fair +green field, and only a pair of rapiers between my shirt and his ----" + +"Sir!" interposes one. + +"Tell him so! I know that's what you mean. I know every word goes to him +that's dropped from every general officer's mouth. I don't say he's not +brave. Curse him! he's brave enough; but we'll wait for the _Gazette_, +gentlemen. God save her Majesty! she'll do us justice." + +The _Gazette_ did not come to us till a month afterwards; when my general +and his officers had the honour to dine with Prince Eugene in Lille; his +highness being good enough to say that we had brought the provisions, and +ought to share in the banquet. 'Twas a great banquet. His grace of +Marlborough was on his highness's right, and on his left the Mareschal de +Boufflers, who had so bravely defended the place. The chief officers of +either army were present; and you may be sure Esmond's general was +splendid this day: his tall noble person, and manly beauty of face, made +him remarkable anywhere; he wore, for the first time, the star of the +Order of Generosity, that his Prussian Majesty had sent to him for his +victory. His Highness, the Prince of Savoy, called a toast to the +conqueror of Wynendael. My lord duke drank it with rather a sickly smile. +The aides de camp were present; and Harry Esmond and his dear young lord +were together, as they always strove to be when duty would permit: they +were over against the table where the generals were, and could see all +that passed pretty well. Frank laughed at my lord duke's glum face: the +affair of Wynendael, and the captain-general's conduct to Webb, had been +the talk of the whole army. When his highness spoke, and gave--"_Le +vainqueur de Wynendael; son armee et sa victoire_," adding, "_qui nous +font diner a Lille aujourdhuy_"--there was a great cheer through the hall; +for Mr. Webb's bravery, generosity, and very weaknesses of character +caused him to be beloved in the army. + +"Like Hector, handsome, and like Paris, brave!" whispers Frank Castlewood. +"A Venus, an elderly Venus, couldn't refuse him a pippin. Stand up, Harry. +See, we are drinking the army of Wynendael. Ramillies is nothing to it. +Huzzay! Huzzay!" + +At this very time, and just after our general had made his +acknowledgement, some one brought in an English _Gazette_--and was passing +it from hand to hand down the table. Officers were eager enough to read +it; mothers and sisters at home must have sickened over it. There scarce +came out a _Gazette_ for six years that did not tell of some heroic death +or some brilliant achievement. + +"Here it is--Action of Wynendael--here you are, general," says Frank, +seizing hold of the little dingy paper that soldiers love to read so; and, +scrambling over from our bench, he went to where the general sat, who knew +him, and had seen many a time at his table his laughing, handsome face, +which everybody loved who saw. The generals in their great perukes made +way for him. He handed the paper over General Dohna's buff coat to our +general on the opposite side. + +He came hobbling back, and blushing at his feat: "I thought he'd like it, +Harry," the young fellow whispered. "Didn't I like to read my name after +Ramillies, in the _London Gazette_?--Viscount Castlewood serving a +volunteer--I say, what's yonder?" + +Mr. Webb, reading the _Gazette_, looked very strange--slapped it down on +the table--then sprung up in his place, and began,--"Will your highness +please to ----" + +His grace the Duke of Marlborough here jumped up too--"There's some +mistake, my dear General Webb." + +"Your grace had better rectify it," says Mr. Webb, holding out the letter; +but he was five off his grace the prince duke, who, besides, was higher +than the general (being seated with the Prince of Savoy, the Electoral +Prince of Hanover, and the envoys of Prussia and Denmark, under a +baldaquin), and Webb could not reach him, tall as he was. + +"Stay," says he, with a smile, as if catching at some idea, and then, with +a perfect courtesy, drawing his sword, he ran the _Gazette_ through with +the point, and said, "Permit me to hand it to your grace." + +The duke looked very black. "Take it," says he, to his master of the +horse, who was waiting behind him. + +The lieutenant-general made a very low bow, and retired and finished his +glass. The _Gazette_ in which Mr. Cardonnel, the duke's secretary, gave an +account of the victory of Wynendael, mentioned Mr. Webb's name, but gave +the sole praise and conduct of the action to the duke's favourite, Mr. +Cadogan. + +There was no little talk and excitement occasioned by this strange +behaviour of General Webb, who had almost drawn a sword upon the +commander-in-chief; but the general, after the first outbreak of his +anger, mastered it outwardly altogether; and, by his subsequent behaviour, +had the satisfaction of even more angering the commander-in-chief, than he +could have done by any public exhibition of resentment. + +On returning to his quarters, and consulting with his chief adviser, Mr. +Esmond, who was now entirely in the general's confidence, and treated by +him as a friend, and almost a son, Mr. Webb writ a letter to his grace the +commander-in-chief, in which he said:-- + + + Your grace must be aware that the sudden perusal of the _London + Gazette_, in which your grace's secretary, Mr. Cardonnel, hath + mentioned Major-General Cadogan's name, as the officer commanding + in the late action of Wynendael, must have caused a feeling of + anything but pleasure to the general who fought that action. + + Your grace must be aware that Mr. Cadogan was not even present at + the battle, though he arrived with squadrons of horse at its + close, and put himself under the command of his superior officer. + And as the result of the battle of Wynendael, in which + Lieutenant-General Webb had the good fortune to command, was the + capture of Lille, the relief of Brussels, then invested by the + enemy under the Elector of Bavaria, the restoration of the great + cities of Ghent and Bruges, of which the enemy (by treason within + the walls) had got possession in the previous year: Mr. Webb + cannot consent to forgo the honours of such a success and service, + for the benefit of Mr. Cadogan, or any other person. + + As soon as the military operations of the year are over, + Lieutenant-General Webb will request permission to leave the army, + and return to his place in Parliament, where he gives notice to + his grace the commander-in-chief, that he shall lay his case + before the House of Commons, the country, and her majesty the + queen. + + By his eagerness to rectify that false statement of the _Gazette_, + which had been written by his grace's secretary, Mr. Cardonnel, + Mr. Webb, not being able to reach his grace the commander-in-chief + on account of the gentlemen seated between them, placed the paper + containing the false statement on his sword, so that it might more + readily arrive in the hands of his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, + who surely would wish to do justice to every officer of his army. + + Mr. Webb knows his duty too well to think of insubordination to + his superior officer, or of using his sword in a campaign against + any but the enemies of her majesty. He solicits permission to + return to England immediately the military duties will permit, and + take with him to England Captain Esmond, of his regiment, who + acted as his aide de camp, and was present during the entire + action, and noted by his watch the time when Mr. Cadogan arrived + at its close. + + +The commander-in-chief could not but grant this permission, nor could he +take notice of Webb's letter, though it was couched in terms the most +insulting. Half the army believed that the cities of Ghent and Bruges were +given up by a treason, which some in our army very well understood; that +the commander-in-chief would not have relieved Lille if he could have +helped himself; that he would not have fought that year had not the Prince +of Savoy forced him. When the battle once began, then, for his own renown, +my Lord Marlborough would fight as no man in the world ever fought better; +and no bribe on earth could keep him from beating the enemy.(11) + +But the matter was taken up by the subordinates; and half the army might +have been by the ears, if the quarrel had not been stopped. General +Cadogan sent an intimation to General Webb to say that he was ready if +Webb liked, and would meet him. This was a kind of invitation our stout +old general was always too ready to accept, and 'twas with great +difficulty we got the general to reply that he had no quarrel with Mr. +Cadogan, who had behaved with perfect gallantry, but only with those at +head quarters, who had belied him. Mr. Cardonnel offered General Webb +reparation; Mr. Webb said he had a cane at the service of Mr. Cardonnel, +and the only satisfaction he wanted from him was one he was not likely to +get, namely, the truth. The officers in our staff of Webb's, and those in +the immediate suite of the general, were ready to come to blows; and hence +arose the only affair in which Mr. Esmond ever engaged as principal, and +that was from a revengeful wish to wipe off an old injury. + +My Lord Mohun, who had a troop in Lord Macclesfield's regiment of the +Horse Guards, rode this campaign with the duke. He had sunk by this time +to the very worst reputation; he had had another fatal duel in Spain; he +had married, and forsaken his wife; he was a gambler, a profligate, and +debauchee. He joined just before Oudenarde; and, as Esmond feared, as soon +as Frank Castlewood heard of his arrival, Frank was for seeking him out, +and killing him. The wound my lord got at Oudenarde prevented their +meeting, but that was nearly healed, and Mr. Esmond trembled daily lest +any chance should bring his boy and this known assassin together. They met +at the mess-table of Handyside's regiment at Lille; the officer commanding +not knowing of the feud between the two noblemen. + +Esmond had not seen the hateful handsome face of Mohun for nine years, +since they had met on that fatal night in Leicester Field. It was degraded +with crime and passion now; it wore the anxious look of a man who has +three deaths--and who knows how many hidden shames and lusts, and crimes, +on his conscience. He bowed with a sickly low bow, and slunk away when our +host presented us round to one another. Frank Castlewood had not known him +till then, so changed was he. He knew the boy well enough. + +'Twas curious to look at the two--especially the young man, whose face +flushed up when he heard the hated name of the other; and who said in his +bad French and his brave boyish voice--"He had long been anxious to meet my +Lord Mohun." The other only bowed, and moved away from him. I do him +justice, he wished to have no quarrel with the lad. + +Esmond put himself between them at table. "D---- it," says Frank, "why do +you put yourself in the place of a man who is above you in degree? My Lord +Mohun should walk after me. I want to sit by my Lord Mohun." + +Esmond whispered to Lord Mohun, that Frank was hurt in the leg at +Oudenarde; and besought the other to be quiet. Quiet enough he was for +some time; disregarding the many taunts which young Castlewood flung at +him, until after several healths, when my Lord Mohun got to be rather in +liquor. + +"Will you go away, my lord?" Mr. Esmond said to him, imploring him to quit +the table. + +"No, by G----," says my Lord Mohun. "I'll not go away for any man;" he was +quite flushed with wine by this time. + +The talk got round to the affairs of yesterday. Webb had offered to +challenge the commander-in-chief: Webb had been ill-used: Webb was the +bravest, handsomest, vainest man in the army. Lord Mohun did not know that +Esmond was Webb's aide de camp. He began to tell some stories against the +general; which, from t'other side of Esmond, young Castlewood +contradicted. + +"I can't bear any more of this," says my Lord Mohun. + +"Nor can I, my lord," says Mr. Esmond, starting up. "The story my Lord +Mohun has told respecting General Webb is false, gentlemen--false, I +repeat," and making a low bow to Lord Mohun, and without a single word +more, Esmond got up and left the dining-room. These affairs were common +enough among the military of those days. There was a garden behind the +house, and all the party turned instantly into it; and the two gentlemen's +coats were off and their points engaged within two minutes after Esmond's +words had been spoken. If Captain Esmond had put Mohun out of the world, +as he might, a villain would have been punished and spared further +villanies--but who is one man to punish another? I declare upon my honour +that my only thought was to prevent Lord Mohun from mischief with Frank, +and the end of this meeting was, that after half a dozen passes my lord +went home with a hurt which prevented him from lifting his right arm for +three months. + +"Oh, Harry, why didn't you kill the villain?" young Castlewood asked. "I +can't walk without a crutch: but I could have met him on horseback with +sword and pistol." But Harry Esmond said, "'Twas best to have no man's +life on one's conscience, not even that villain's"; and this affair, which +did not occupy three minutes, being over, the gentlemen went back to their +wine, and my Lord Mohun to his quarters, where he was laid up with a fever +which had spared mischief had it proved fatal. And very soon after this +affair Harry Esmond and his general left the camp for London; whither a +certain reputation had preceded the captain, for my Lady Castlewood of +Chelsea received him as if he had been a conquering hero. She gave a great +dinner to Mr. Webb, where the general's chair was crowned with laurels; +and her ladyship called Esmond's health in a toast, to which my kind +general was graciously pleased to bear the strongest testimony: and took +down a mob of at least forty coaches to cheer our general as he came out +of the House of Commons, the day when he received the thanks of Parliament +for his action. The mob huzza'ed and applauded him, as well as the fine +company: it was splendid to see him waving his hat, and bowing, and laying +his hand upon his Order of Generosity. He introduced Mr. Esmond to Mr. St. +John and the Right Honourable Robert Harley, Esquire, as he came out of +the House walking between them; and was pleased to make many flattering +observations regarding Mr. Esmond's behaviour during the three last +campaigns. + +Mr. St. John (who had the most winning presence of any man I ever saw, +excepting always my peerless young Frank Castlewood) said he had heard of +Mr. Esmond before from Captain Steele, and how he had helped Mr. Addison +to write his famous poem of the _Campaign_. + +"'Twas as great an achievement as the victory of Blenheim itself," Mr. +Harley said, who was famous as a judge and patron of letters, and so, +perhaps, it may be--though for my part I think there are twenty beautiful +lines, but all the rest is commonplace, and Mr. Addison's hymn worth a +thousand such poems. + +All the town was indignant at my lord duke's unjust treatment of General +Webb, and applauded the vote of thanks which the House of Commons gave to +the general for his victory at Wynendael. 'Tis certain that the capture of +Lille was the consequence of that lucky achievement, and the humiliation +of the old French king, who was said to suffer more at the loss of this +great city, than from any of the former victories our troops had won over +him. And, I think, no small part of Mr. Webb's exultation at his victory, +arose from the idea that Marlborough had been disappointed of a great +bribe the French king had promised him, should the siege be raised. The +very sum of money offered to him was mentioned by the duke's enemies; and +honest Mr. Webb chuckled at the notion, not only of beating the French, +but of beating Marlborough too, and intercepting a convoy of three +millions of French crowns, that were on their way to the generalissimo's +insatiable pockets. When the general's lady went to the queen's +drawing-room, all the Tory women crowded round her with congratulations, +and made her a train greater than the Duchess of Marlborough's own. Feasts +were given to the general by all the chiefs of the Tory party, who vaunted +him as the duke's equal in military skill; and perhaps used the worthy +soldier as their instrument, whilst he thought they were but acknowledging +his merits as a commander. As the general's aide de camp, and favourite +officer, Mr. Esmond came in for a share of his chief's popularity, and was +presented to her Majesty, and advanced to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, +at the request of his grateful chief. + +We may be sure there was one family in which any good fortune that +happened to Esmond, caused such a sincere pride and pleasure, that he, for +his part, was thankful he could make them so happy. With these fond +friends, Blenheim and Oudenarde seemed to be mere trifling incidents of +the war; and Wynendael was its crowning victory. Esmond's mistress never +tired to hear accounts of the battle; and I think General Webb's lady grew +jealous of her, for the general was for ever at Kensington, and talking on +that delightful theme. As for his aide de camp, though, no doubt, Esmond's +own natural vanity was pleased at the little share of reputation which his +good fortune had won him, yet it was chiefly precious to him (he may say +so, now that he hath long since outlived it) because it pleased his +mistress, and, above all, because Beatrix valued it. + +As for the old dowager of Chelsea, never was an old woman in all England +more delighted nor more gracious than she. Esmond had his quarters in her +ladyship's house, where the domestics were instructed to consider him as +their master. She bade him give entertainments, of which she defrayed the +charges, and was charmed when his guests were carried away tipsy in their +coaches. She must have his picture taken; and accordingly he was painted +by Mr. Jervas, in his red coat, and smiling upon a bombshell, which was +bursting at the corner of the piece. She vowed that unless he made a great +match, she should never die easy, and was for ever bringing young ladies +to Chelsea, with pretty faces and pretty fortunes, at the disposal of the +colonel. He smiled to think how times were altered with him, and of the +early days in his father's lifetime, when a trembling page he stood before +her, with her ladyship's basin and ewer, or crouched in her coach-step. +The only fault she found with him was, that he was more sober than an +Esmond ought to be; and would neither be carried to bed by his valet, nor +lose his heart to any beauty, whether of St. James's or Covent Garden. + +What is the meaning of fidelity in love, and whence the birth of it? 'Tis +a state of mind that men fall into, and depending on the man rather than +the woman. We love being in love, that's the truth on't. If we had not met +Joan, we should have met Kate, and adored her. We know our mistresses are +no better than many other women, nor no prettier, nor no wiser, nor no +wittier. 'Tis not for these reasons we love a woman, or for any special +quality or charm I know of; we might as well demand that a lady should be +the tallest woman in the world, like the Shropshire giantess,(12) as that +she should be a paragon in any other character, before we began to love +her. Esmond's mistress had a thousand faults beside her charms: he knew +both perfectly well! She was imperious, she was light-minded, she was +flighty, she was false, she had no reverence in her character; she was in +everything, even in beauty, the contrast of her mother, who was the most +devoted and the least selfish of women. Well, from the very first moment +he saw her on the stairs at Walcote, Esmond knew he loved Beatrix. There +might be better women--he wanted that one. He cared for none other. Was it +because she was gloriously beautiful? Beautiful as she was, he had heard +people say a score of times in their company, that Beatrix's mother looked +as young, and was the handsomer of the two. Why did her voice thrill in +his ear so? She could not sing near so well as Nicolini or Mrs. Tofts; +nay, she sang out of tune, and yet he liked to hear her better than St. +Cecilia. She had not a finer complexion than Mrs. Steele (Dick's wife, +whom he had now got, and who ruled poor Dick with a rod of pickle), and +yet to see her dazzled Esmond; he would shut his eyes, and the thought of +her dazzled him all the same. She was brilliant and lively in talk, but +not so incomparably witty as her mother, who, when she was cheerful, said +the finest things; but yet to hear her, and to be with her, was Esmond's +greatest pleasure. Days passed away between him and these ladies, he +scarce knew how. He poured his heart out to them, so as he never could in +any other company, where he hath generally passed for being moody, or +supercilious and silent. This society(13) was more delightful than that of +the greatest wits to him. May Heaven pardon him the lies he told the +dowager at Chelsea, in order to get a pretext for going away to +Kensington; the business at the Ordnance which he invented; the interview +with his general, the courts and statesman's levees which he _didn't_ +frequent and describe; who wore a new suit on Sunday at St. James's or at +the queen's birthday; how many coaches filled the street at Mr. Harley's +levee; how many bottles he had had the honour to drink overnight with Mr. +St. John at the "Cocoa Tree," or at the "Garter" with Mr. Walpole and Mr. +Steele. + +Mistress Beatrix Esmond had been a dozen times on the point of making +great matches, so the Court scandal said; but for his part Esmond never +would believe the stories against her; and came back, after three years' +absence from her, not so frantic as he had been perhaps, but still +hungering after her and no other; still hopeful, still kneeling, with his +heart in his hand for the young lady to take. We were now got to 1709. She +was near twenty-two years old, and three years at Court, and without a +husband. + +"'Tis not for want of being asked," Lady Castlewood said, looking into +Esmond's heart, as she could, with that perceptiveness affection gives. +"But she will make no mean match, Harry: she will not marry as I would +have her; the person whom I should like to call my son, and Henry Esmond +knows who that is, is best served by my not pressing his claim. Beatrix is +so wilful, that what I would urge on her, she would be sure to resist. The +man who would marry her will not be happy with her, unless he be a great +person, and can put her in a great position. Beatrix loves admiration more +than love; and longs, beyond all things, for command. Why should a mother +speak so of her child? You are my son, too, Harry. You should know the +truth about your sister. I thought you might cure yourself of your +passion," my lady added fondly. "Other people can cure themselves of that +folly, you know. But I see you are still as infatuated as ever. When we +read your name in the _Gazette_, I pleaded for you, my poor boy. Poor boy, +indeed! You are growing a grave old gentleman now, and I am an old woman. +She likes your fame well enough, and she likes your person. She says you +have wit, and fire, and good breeding, and are more natural than the fine +gentlemen of the Court. But this is not enough. She wants a +commander-in-chief, and not a colonel. Were a duke to ask her, she would +leave an earl whom she had promised. I told you so before. I know not how +my poor girl is so worldly." + +"Well," says Esmond, "a man can but give his best and his all. She has +that from me. What little reputation I have won, I swear I cared for it +because I thought Beatrix would be pleased with it. What care I to be a +colonel or a general? Think you 'twill matter a few score years hence, +what our foolish honours to-day are? I would have had a little fame, that +she might wear it in her hat. If I had anything better, I would endow her +with it. If she wants my life, I would give it her. If she marries +another, I will say God bless him. I make no boast, nor no complaint. I +think my fidelity is folly, perhaps. But so it is. I cannot help myself. I +love her. You are a thousand times better: the fondest, the fairest, the +dearest, of women. Sure, my dear lady, I see all Beatrix's faults as well +as you do. But she is my fate. 'Tis endurable. I shall not die for not +having her. I think I should be no happier if I won her. _Que +voulez-vous?_ as my lady of Chelsea would say. _Je l'aime_." + +"I wish she would have you," said Harry's fond mistress, giving a hand to +him. He kissed the fair hand ('twas the prettiest dimpled little hand in +the world, and my Lady Castlewood, though now almost forty years old, did +not look to be within ten years of her age). He kissed and kept her fair +hand, as they talked together. + +"Why," says he, "should she hear me? She knows what I would say. Far or +near, she knows I'm her slave. I have sold myself for nothing, it may be. +Well, 'tis the price I choose to take. I am worth nothing, or I am worth +all." + +"You are such a treasure," Esmond's mistress was pleased to say, "that the +woman who has your love, shouldn't change it away against a kingdom, I +think. I am a country-bred woman, and cannot say but the ambitions of the +town seem mean to me. I never was awe-stricken by my lady duchess's rank +and finery, or afraid," she added, with a sly laugh, "of anything but her +temper. I hear of Court ladies who pine because her Majesty looks cold on +them; and great noblemen who would give a limb that they might wear a +garter on the other. This worldliness, which I can't comprehend, was born +with Beatrix, who, on the first day of her waiting, was a perfect +courtier. We are like sisters, and she the eldest sister, somehow. She +tells me I have a mean spirit. I laugh, and say she adores a +coach-and-six. I cannot reason her out of her ambition. 'Tis natural to +her, as to me to love quiet, and be indifferent about rank and riches. +What are they, Harry? and for how long do they last? Our home is not +here." She smiled as she spoke, and looked like an angel that was only on +earth on a visit. "Our home is where the just are, and where our sins and +sorrows enter not. My father used to rebuke me, and say that I was too +hopeful about Heaven. But I cannot help my nature, and grow obstinate as I +grow to be an old woman; and as I love my children so, sure our Father +loves us with a thousand and a thousand times greater love. It must be +that we shall meet yonder, and be happy. Yes, you--and my children, and my +dear lord. Do you know, Harry, since his death, it has always seemed to me +as if his love came back to me, and that we are parted no more. Perhaps he +is here now, Harry--I think he is. Forgiven I am sure he is: even Mr. +Atterbury absolved him, and he died forgiving. Oh, what a noble heart he +had! How generous he was! I was but fifteen, and a child when he married +me. How good he was to stoop to me! He was always good to the poor and +humble." She stopped, then presently, with a peculiar expression, as if +her eyes were looking into Heaven, and saw my lord there, she smiled, and +gave a little laugh. "I laugh to see you, sir," she says; "when you come, +it seems as if you never were away." One may put her words down, and +remember them, but how describe her sweet tones, sweeter than music. + +My young lord did not come home at the end of the campaign, and wrote that +he was kept at Bruxelles on military duty. Indeed, I believe he was +engaged in laying siege to a certain lady, who was of the suite of Madame +de Soissons, the Prince of Savoy's mother, who was just dead, and who, +like the Flemish fortresses, was taken and retaken a great number of times +during the war, and occupied by French, English, and Imperialists. Of +course, Mr. Esmond did not think fit to enlighten Lady Castlewood +regarding the young scapegrace's doings: nor had he said a word about the +affair with Lord Mohun, knowing how abhorrent that man's name was to his +mistress. Frank did not waste much time or money on pen and ink; and, when +Harry came home with his general, only writ two lines to his mother, to +say his wound in the leg was almost healed, that he would keep his coming +of age next year--that the duty aforesaid would keep him at Bruxelles, and +that Cousin Harry would tell all the news. + +But from Bruxelles, knowing how the Lady Castlewood always liked to have a +letter about the famous 29th of December, my lord writ her a long and full +one, and in this he must have described the affair with Mohun; for when +Mr. Esmond came to visit his mistress one day, early in the new year, to +his great wonderment, she and her daughter both came up and saluted him, +and after them the dowager of Chelsea, too, whose chairman had just +brought her ladyship from her village to Kensington across the fields. +After this honour, I say, from the two ladies of Castlewood, the dowager +came forward in great state, with her grand tall head-dress of King +James's reign, that she never forsook, and said, "Cousin Henry, all our +family have met; and we thank you, cousin, for your noble conduct towards +the head of our house." And pointing to her blushing cheek, she made Mr. +Esmond aware that he was to enjoy the rapture of an embrace there. Having +saluted one cheek, she turned to him the other. "Cousin Harry," said both +the other ladies, in a little chorus, "we thank you for your noble +conduct;" and then Harry became aware that the story of the Lille affair +had come to his kinswomen's ears. It pleased him to hear them all saluting +him as one of their family. + +The tables of the dining-room were laid for a great entertainment; and the +ladies were in gala dresses--my lady of Chelsea in her highest _tour_, my +lady viscountess out of black, and looking fair and happy, _a ravir_; and +the maid of honour attired with that splendour which naturally +distinguished her, and wearing on her beautiful breast the French +officer's star which Frank had sent home after Ramillies. + +"You see, 'tis a gala day with us," says she, glancing down to the star +complacently, "and we have our orders on. Does not mamma look charming? +'Twas I dressed her!" Indeed, Esmond's dear mistress, blushing as he +looked at her, with her beautiful fair hair and an elegant dress, +according to the _mode_, appeared to have the shape and complexion of a +girl of twenty. + +On the table was a fine sword, with a red velvet scabbard, and a beautiful +chased silver handle, with a blue ribbon for a sword-knot. "What is this?" +says the captain, going up to look at this pretty piece. + +Mrs. Beatrix advanced towards it. "Kneel down," says she: "we dub you our +knight with this"--and she waved the sword over his head--"my lady dowager +hath given the sword; and I give the ribbon, and mamma hath sewn on the +fringe." + +"Put the sword on him, Beatrix," says her mother. "You are our knight, +Harry--our true knight. Take a mother's thanks and prayers for defending +her son, my dear, dear friend." She could say no more, and even the +dowager was affected, for a couple of rebellious tears made sad marks down +those wrinkled old roses which Esmond had just been allowed to salute. + +"We had a letter from dearest Frank," his mother said, "three days since, +whilst you were on your visit to your friend Captain Steele, at Hampton. +He told us all that you had done, and how nobly you had put yourself +between him and that--that wretch." + +"And I adopt you from this day," says the dowager; "and I wish I was +richer, for your sake, son Esmond," she added, with a wave of her hand; +and as Mr. Esmond dutifully went down on his knee before her ladyship, she +cast her eyes up to the ceiling (the gilt chandelier, and the twelve wax +candles in it, for the party was numerous), and invoked a blessing from +that quarter upon the newly adopted son. + +"Dear Frank," says the other viscountess, "how fond he is of his military +profession! He is studying fortification very hard. I wish he were here. +We shall keep his coming of age at Castlewood next year." + +"If the campaign permit us," says Mr. Esmond. + +"I am never afraid when he is with you," cries the boy's mother. "I am +sure my Henry will always defend him." + +"But there will be a peace before next year; we know it for certain," +cries the maid of honour. "Lord Marlborough will be dismissed, and that +horrible duchess turned out of all her places. Her Majesty won't speak to +her now. Did you see her at Bushy, Harry? she is furious, and she ranges +about the park like a lioness, and tears people's eyes out." + +"And the Princess Anne will send for somebody," says my lady of Chelsea, +taking out her medal and kissing it. + +"Did you see the king at Oudenarde, Harry?" his mistress asked. She was a +stanch Jacobite, and would no more have thought of denying her king than +her God. + +"I saw the young Hanoverian only:" Harry said, "the Chevalier de St. +George----" + +"The king, sir, the king!" said the ladies and Miss Beatrix; and she +clapped her pretty hands, and cried, "Vive le Roy!" + +By this time there came a thundering knock, that drove in the doors of the +house almost. It was three o'clock, and the company were arriving; and +presently the servant announced Captain Steele and his lady. + +Captain and Mrs. Steele, who were the first to arrive, had driven to +Kensington from their country-house, the Hovel at Hampton Wick, "Not from +our mansion in Bloomsbury Square," as Mrs. Steele took care to inform the +ladies. Indeed Harry had ridden away from Hampton that very morning, +leaving the couple by the ears; for from the chamber where he lay, in a +bed that was none of the cleanest, and kept awake by the company which he +had in his own bed, and the quarrel which was going on in the next room, +he could hear both night and morning the curtain lecture which Mrs. Steele +was in the habit of administering to poor Dick. + +At night it did not matter so much for the culprit; Dick was fuddled, and +when in that way no scolding could interrupt his benevolence. Mr. Esmond +could hear him coaxing and speaking in that maudlin manner, which punch +and claret produce, to his beloved Prue, and beseeching her to remember +that there was a _distiwisht officer ithe nex roob_, who would overhear +her. She went on, nevertheless, calling him a drunken wretch, and was only +interrupted in her harangues by the captain's snoring. + +In the morning, the unhappy victim awoke to a headache and consciousness, +and the dialogue of the night was resumed. "Why do you bring captains home +to dinner when there's not a guinea in the house? How am I to give dinners +when you leave me without a shilling? How am I to go trapesing to +Kensington in my yellow satin sack before all the fine company? I've +nothing fit to put on; I never have:" and so the dispute went on--Mr. +Esmond interrupting the talk when it seemed to be growing too intimate by +blowing his nose as loudly as ever he could, at the sound of which trumpet +there came a lull. But Dick was charming, though his wife was odious, and +'twas to give Mr. Steele pleasure, that the ladies of Castlewood, who were +ladies of no small fashion, invited Mrs. Steele. + +Besides the captain and his lady, there was a great and notable assemblage +of company: my lady of Chelsea having sent her lackeys and liveries to aid +the modest attendance at Kensington. There was Lieutenant-General Webb, +Harry's kind patron, of whom the dowager took possession, and who +resplended in velvet and gold lace; there was Harry's new acquaintance, +the Right Honourable Henry St. John, Esquire, the general's kinsman, who +was charmed with the Lady Castlewood, even more than with her daughter; +there was one of the greatest noblemen in the kingdom, the Scots Duke of +Hamilton, just created Duke of Brandon in England; and two other noble +lords of the Tory party, my Lord Ashburnham, and another I have forgot; +and for ladies, her grace the Duchess of Ormonde and her daughters, the +Lady Mary and the Lady Betty, the former one of Mistress Beatrix's +colleagues in waiting on the queen. + +"What a party of Tories!" whispered Captain Steele to Esmond, as we were +assembled in the parlour before dinner. Indeed, all the company present, +save Steele, were of that faction. + +Mr. St. John made his special compliments to Mrs. Steele, and so charmed +her that she declared she would have Steele a Tory too. + +"Or will you have me a Whig?" says Mr. St. John. "I think, madam, you +could convert a man to anything." + +"If Mr. St. John ever comes to Bloomsbury Square I will teach him what I +know," says Mrs. Steele, dropping her handsome eyes. "Do you know +Bloomsbury Square?" + +"Do I know the Mall? Do I know the Opera? Do I know the reigning toast? +Why, Bloomsbury is the very height of the mode," says Mr. St. John. "'Tis +_rus in urbe_. You have gardens all the way to Hampstead, and palaces +round about you--Southampton House and Montague House." + +"Where you wretches go and fight duels," cries Mrs. Steele. + +"Of which the ladies are the cause!" says her entertainer. "Madam, is Dick +a good swordsman? How charming the _Tatler_ is! We all recognized your +portrait in the 49th number, and I have been dying to know you ever since +I read it. 'Aspasia must be allowed to be the first of the beauteous order +of love.' Doth not the passage run so? 'In this accomplished lady love is +the constant effect, though it is never the design; yet though her mien +carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate +check to loose behaviour, and to love her is a liberal education.' " + +"Oh, indeed!" says Mrs. Steele, who did not seem to understand a word of +what the gentleman was saying. + +"Who could fail to be accomplished under such a mistress?" says Mr. St. +John, still gallant and bowing. + +"Mistress! upon my word, sir!" cries the lady. "If you mean me, sir, I +would have you know that I am the captain's wife." + +"Sure we all know it," answers Mr. St. John, keeping his countenance very +gravely; and Steele broke in, saying, "'Twas not about Mrs. Steele I writ +that paper--though I am sure she is worthy of any compliment I can pay +her--but of the Lady Elizabeth Hastings."(14) + +"I hear Mr. Addison is equally famous as a wit and a poet," says Mr. St. +John. "Is it true that his hand is to be found in your _Tatler_, Mr. +Steele?" + +"Whether 'tis the sublime or the humorous, no man can come near him," +cries Steele. + +"A fig, Dick, for your Mr. Addison!" cries out his lady: "a gentleman who +gives himself such airs and holds his head so high now. I hope your +ladyship thinks as I do: I can't bear those very fair men with white +eyelashes--a black man for me." (All the black men at table applauded, and +made Mrs. Steele a bow for this compliment.) "As for this Mr. Addison," +she went on, "he comes to dine with the captain sometimes, never says a +word to me, and then they walk upstairs, both tipsy, to a dish of tea. I +remember your Mr. Addison when he had but one coat to his back, and that +with a patch at the elbow." + +"Indeed--a patch at the elbow! You interest me," says Mr. St. John. "'Tis +charming to hear of one man of letters from the charming wife of another." + +"Law, I could tell you ever so much about 'em," continues the voluble +lady. "What do you think the captain has got now?--a little hunchback +fellow--a little hop-o'-my-thumb creature that he calls a poet--a little +Popish brat!" + +"Hush, there are two in the room," whispers her companion. + +"Well, I call him Popish because his name is Pope," says the lady. "'Tis +only my joking way. And this little dwarf of a fellow has wrote a pastoral +poem--all about shepherds and shepherdesses, you know." + +"A shepherd should have a little crook," says my mistress, laughing from +her end of the table: on which Mrs. Steele said, "She did not know, but +the captain brought home this queer little creature when she was in bed +with her first boy, and it was a mercy he had come no sooner; and Dick +raved about his _genus_, and was always raving about some nonsense or +other." + +"Which of the _Tatlers_ do you prefer, Mrs. Steele?" asked Mr. St. John. + +"I never read but one, and think it all a pack of rubbish, sir," says the +lady. "Such stuff about Bickerstaffe, and Distaff, and Quarterstaff, as it +all is! There's the captain going on still with the burgundy--I know he'll +be tipsy before he stops--Captain Steele!" + +"I drink to your eyes, my dear," says the captain, who seemed to think his +wife charming, and to receive as genuine all the satiric compliments which +Mr. St. John paid her. + +All this while the maid of honour had been trying to get Mr. Esmond to +talk, and no doubt voted him a dull fellow. For, by some mistake, just as +he was going to pop into the vacant place, he was placed far away from +Beatrix's chair, who sat between his grace and my Lord Ashburnham, and +shrugged her lovely white shoulders, and cast a look as if to say, "Pity +me," to her cousin. My lord duke and his young neighbour were presently in +a very animated and close conversation. Mrs. Beatrix could no more help +using her eyes than the sun can help shining, and setting those it shines +on a-burning. By the time the first course was done the dinner seemed long +to Esmond: by the time the soup came he fancied they must have been hours +at table: and as for the sweets and jellies he thought they never would be +done. + +At length the ladies rose, Beatrix throwing a Parthian glance at her duke +as she retreated; a fresh bottle and glasses were fetched, and toasts were +called. Mr. St. John asked his grace the Duke of Hamilton and the company +to drink to the health of his grace the Duke of Brandon. Another lord gave +General Webb's health, "and may he get the command the bravest officer in +the world deserves." Mr. Webb thanked the company, complimented his aide +de camp, and fought his famous battle over again. + +"_Il est fatiguant_," whispers Mr. St. John, "_avec sa trompette de +Wynendael_." + +Captain Steele, who was not of our side, loyally gave the health of the +Duke of Marlborough, the greatest general of the age. + +"I drink to the greatest general with all my heart," says Mr. Webb; "there +can be no gainsaying that character of him. My glass goes to the general, +and not to the duke, Mr. Steele." And the stout old gentleman emptied his +bumper; to which Dick replied by filling and emptying a pair of brimmers, +one for the general and one for the duke. + +And now his grace of Hamilton, rising up, with flashing eyes (we had all +been drinking pretty freely), proposed a toast to the lovely, to the +incomparable Mrs. Beatrix Esmond; we all drank it with cheers, and my Lord +Ashburnham especially, with a shout of enthusiasm. + +"What a pity there is a Duchess of Hamilton," whispers St. John, who drank +more wine and yet was more steady than most of the others, and we entered +the drawing-room where the ladies were at their tea. As for poor Dick, we +were obliged to leave him alone at the dining-table, where he was +hiccupping out the lines from the _Campaign_, in which the greatest poet +had celebrated the greatest general in the world; and Harry Esmond found +him, half an hour afterwards, in a more advanced stage of liquor, and +weeping about the treachery of Tom Boxer. + +The drawing-room was all dark to poor Harry, in spite of the grand +illumination. Beatrix scarce spoke to him. When my lord duke went away, +she practised upon the next in rank, and plied my young Lord Ashburnham +with all the fire of her eyes and the fascinations of her wit. Most of the +party were set to cards, and Mr. St. John, after yawning in the face of +Mrs. Steele, whom he did not care to pursue any more, and talking in his +most brilliant animated way to Lady Castlewood, whom he pronounced to be +beautiful, of a far higher order of beauty than her daughter, presently +took his leave, and went his way. The rest of the company speedily +followed, my Lord Ashburnham the last, throwing fiery glances at the +smiling young temptress, who had bewitched more hearts than his in her +thrall. + +No doubt, as a kinsman of the house, Mr. Esmond thought fit to be the last +of all in it; he remained after the coaches had rolled away--after his +dowager aunt's chair and flambeaux had marched off in the darkness towards +Chelsea, and the town's-people had gone to bed, who had been drawn into +the square to gape at the unusual assemblage of chairs and chariots, +lackeys and torchmen. The poor mean wretch lingered yet for a few minutes, +to see whether the girl would vouchsafe him a smile, or a parting word of +consolation. But her enthusiasm of the morning was quite died out, or she +chose to be in a different mood. She fell to joking about the dowdy +appearance of Lady Betty, and mimicked the vulgarity of Mrs. Steele; and +then she put up her little hand to her mouth and yawned, lighted a taper, +and shrugged her shoulders, and dropping Mr. Esmond a saucy curtsy, sailed +off to bed. + +"The day began so well, Henry, that I had hoped it might have ended +better," was all the consolation that poor Esmond's fond mistress could +give him; and as he trudged home through the dark alone, he thought, with +bitter rage in his heart, and a feeling of almost revolt against the +sacrifice he had made:--"She would have me," thought he, "had I but a name +to give her. But for my promise to her father, I might have my rank and my +mistress too." + +I suppose a man's vanity is stronger than any other passion in him; for I +blush, even now, as I recall the humiliation of those distant days, the +memory of which still smarts, though the fever of baulked desire has +passed away more than a score of years ago. When the writer's descendants +come to read this memoir, I wonder will they have lived to experience a +similar defeat and shame? Will they ever have knelt to a woman, who has +listened to them, and played with them, and laughed at them--who beckoning +them with lures and caresses, and with Yes, smiling from her eyes, has +tricked them on to their knees, and turned her back and left them? All +this shame Mr. Esmond had to undergo; and he submitted, and revolted, and +presently came crouching back for more. + +After this _feste_, my young Lord Ashburnham's coach was for ever rolling +in and out of Kensington Square; his lady-mother came to visit Esmond's +mistress, and at every assembly in the town, wherever the maid of honour +made her appearance, you might be pretty sure to see the young gentleman +in a new suit every week, and decked out in all the finery that his tailor +or embroiderer could furnish for him. My lord was for ever paying Mr. +Esmond compliments, bidding him to dinner, offering him horses to ride, +and giving him a thousand uncouth marks of respect and goodwill. At last, +one night at the coffee-house, whither my lord came considerably flushed +and excited with drink, he rushes up to Mr. Esmond, and cries out--"Give me +joy, my dearest colonel; I am the happiest of men." + +"The happiest of men needs no dearest colonel to give him joy," says Mr. +Esmond. "What is the cause of this supreme felicity?" + +"Haven't you heard?" says he. "Don't you know? I thought the family told +you everything: the adorable Beatrix hath promised to be mine." + +"What!" cries out Mr. Esmond, who had spent happy hours with Beatrix that +very morning--had writ verses for her, that she had sung at the +harpsichord. + +"Yes," says he; "I waited on her to-day. I saw you walking towards +Knightsbridge as I passed in my coach; and she looked so lovely, and spoke +so kind, that I couldn't help going down on my knees, and--and--sure I'm the +happiest of men in all the world; and I'm very young; but she says I shall +get older: and you know I shall be of age in four months; and there's very +little difference between us; and I'm so happy. I should like to treat the +company to something. Let us have a bottle--a dozen bottles--and drink the +health of the finest woman in England." + + ------------------------------------- + +Esmond left the young lord tossing off bumper after bumper, and strolled +away to Kensington to ask whether the news was true. 'Twas only too sure: +his mistress's sad, compassionate face told him the story; and then she +related what particulars of it she knew, and how my young lord had made +his offer, half an hour after Esmond went away that morning, and in the +very room where the song lay yet on the harpsichord, which Esmond had +writ, and they had sung together. + + + + +Book III. Containing The End Of Mr. Esmond's Adventures In England + + + +Chapter I. I Come To An End Of My Battles And Bruises + + +That feverish desire to gain a little reputation which Esmond had had, +left him now perhaps that he had attained some portion of his wish, and +the great motive of his ambition was over. His desire for military honour +was that it might raise him in Beatrix's eyes. 'Twas next to nobility and +wealth the only kind of rank she valued. It was the stake quickest won or +lost too; for law is a very long game that requires a life to practise; +and to be distinguished in letters or the Church would not have forwarded +the poor gentleman's plans in the least. So he had no suit to play but the +red one, and he played it; and this, in truth, was the reason of his +speedy promotion; for he exposed himself more than most gentlemen do, and +risked more to win more. Is he the only man that hath set his life against +a stake which may be not worth the winning? Another risks his life (and +his honour, too, sometimes) against a bundle of bank-notes, or a yard of +blue ribbon, or a seat in Parliament; and some for the mere pleasure and +excitement of the sport; as a field of a hundred huntsmen will do, each +out-bawling and out-galloping the other at the tail of a dirty fox, that +is to be the prize of the foremost happy conqueror. + +When he heard this news of Beatrix's engagement in marriage, Colonel +Esmond knocked under to his fate, and resolved to surrender his sword, +that could win him nothing now he cared for; and in this dismal frame of +mind he determined to retire from the regiment, to the great delight of +the captain next in rank to him, who happened to be a young gentleman of +good fortune, who eagerly paid Mr. Esmond a thousand guineas for his +majority in Webb's regiment, and was knocked on the head the next +campaign. Perhaps Esmond would not have been sorry to share his fate. He +was more the Knight of the Woful Countenance than ever he had been. His +moodiness must have made him perfectly odious to his friends under the +tents, who like a jolly fellow, and laugh at a melancholy warrior always +sighing after Dulcinea at home. + +Both the ladies of Castlewood approved of Mr. Esmond quitting the army, +and his kind general coincided in his wish of retirement, and helped in +the transfer of his commission, which brought a pretty sum into his +pocket. But when the commander-in-chief came home, and was forced, in +spite of himself, to appoint Lieutenant-General Webb to the command of a +division of the army in Flanders, the lieutenant-general prayed Colonel +Esmond so urgently to be his aide de camp and military secretary, that +Esmond could not resist his kind patron's entreaties, and again took the +field, not attached to any regiment, but under Webb's orders. What must +have been the continued agonies of fears(15) and apprehensions which +racked the gentle breasts of wives and matrons in those dreadful days, +when every _Gazette_ brought accounts of deaths and battles, and when the +present anxiety over, and the beloved person escaped, the doubt still +remained that a battle might be fought, possibly, of which the next +Flanders letter would bring the account; so they, the poor tender +creatures, had to go on sickening and trembling through the whole +campaign. Whatever these terrors were on the part of Esmond's mistress +(and that tenderest of women must have felt them most keenly for both her +sons, as she called them), she never allowed them outwardly to appear, but +hid her apprehension as she did her charities and devotion. 'Twas only by +chance that Esmond, wandering in Kensington, found his mistress coming out +of a mean cottage there, and heard that she had a score of poor retainers, +whom she visited and comforted in their sickness and poverty, and who +blessed her daily. She attended the early church daily (though of a Sunday +especially, she encouraged and advanced all sorts of cheerfulness and +innocent gaiety in her little household): and by notes entered into a +table-book of hers at this time, and devotional compositions writ with a +sweet artless fervour, such as the best divines could not surpass, showed +how fond her heart was, how humble and pious her spirit, what pangs of +apprehension she endured silently, and with what a faithful reliance she +committed the care of those she loved to the awful Dispenser of death and +life. + +As for her ladyship at Chelsea, Esmond's newly-adopted mother, she was now +of an age when the danger of any second party doth not disturb the rest +much. She cared for trumps more than for most things in life. She was firm +enough in her own faith, but no longer very bitter against ours. She had a +very good-natured, easy French director, Monsieur Gauthier by name, who +was a gentleman of the world, and would take a hand of cards with Dean +Atterbury, my lady's neighbour at Chelsea, and was well with all the High +Church party. No doubt Monsieur Gauthier knew what Esmond's peculiar +position was, for he corresponded with Holt, and always treated Colonel +Esmond with particular respect and kindness; but for good reasons the +colonel and the abbe never spoke on this matter together, and so they +remained perfect good friends. + +All the frequenters of my lady of Chelsea's house were of the Tory and +High Church party. Madame Beatrix was as frantic about the king as her +elderly kinswoman: she wore his picture on her heart; she had a piece of +his hair; she vowed he was the most injured, and gallant, and +accomplished, and unfortunate, and beautiful of princes. Steele, who +quarrelled with very many of his Tory friends, but never with Esmond, used +to tell the colonel that his kinswoman's house was a rendezvous of Tory +intrigues; that Gauthier was a spy; that Atterbury was a spy; that letters +were constantly going from that house to the queen at St. Germains; on +which Esmond, laughing, would reply, that they used to say in the army the +Duke of Marlborough was a spy too, and as much in correspondence with that +family as any Jesuit. And without entering very eagerly into the +controversy, Esmond had frankly taken the side of his family. It seemed to +him that King James the Third was undoubtedly King of England by right: +and at his sister's death it would be better to have him than a foreigner +over us. No man admired King William more; a hero and a conqueror, the +bravest, justest, wisest of men--but 'twas by the sword he conquered the +country, and held and governed it by the very same right that the great +Cromwell held it, who was truly and greatly a sovereign. But that a +foreign despotic prince, out of Germany, who happened to be descended from +King James the First, should take possession of this empire, seemed to Mr. +Esmond a monstrous injustice--at least, every Englishman had a right to +protest, and the English prince, the heir-at-law, the first of all. What +man of spirit with such a cause would not back it? What man of honour with +such a crown to win would not fight for it? But that race was destined. +That prince had himself against him, an enemy he could not overcome. He +never dared to draw his sword, though he had it. He let his chances slip +by as he lay in the lap of opera-girls, or snivelled at the knees of +priests asking pardon; and the blood of heroes, and the devotedness of +honest hearts, and endurance, courage, fidelity, were all spent for him in +vain. + +But let us return to my lady of Chelsea, who, when her son Esmond +announced to her ladyship that he proposed to make the ensuing campaign, +took leave of him with perfect alacrity, and was down to piquet with her +gentlewoman before he had well quitted the room on his last visit. "Tierce +to a king," were the last words he ever heard her say: the game of life +was pretty nearly over for the good lady, and three months afterwards she +took to her bed, where she flickered out without any pain, so the Abbe +Gauthier wrote over to Mr. Esmond, then with his general on the frontier +of France. The Lady Castlewood was with her at her ending, and had written +too, but these letters must have been taken by a privateer in the packet +that brought them; for Esmond knew nothing of their contents until his +return to England. + +My Lady Castlewood had left everything to Colonel Esmond, "as a reparation +for the wrong done to him"; 'twas writ in her will. But her fortune was +not much, for it never had been large, and the honest viscountess had +wisely sunk most of the money she had upon an annuity which terminated +with her life. However, there was the house and furniture, plate and +pictures at Chelsea, and a sum of money lying at her merchant's, Sir +Josiah Child, which altogether would realize a sum of near three hundred +pounds per annum, so that Mr. Esmond found himself, if not rich, at least +easy for life. Likewise, there were the famous diamonds which had been +said to be worth fabulous sums, though the goldsmith pronounced they would +fetch no more than four thousand pounds. These diamonds, however, Colonel +Esmond reserved, having a special use for them: but the Chelsea house, +plate, goods, &c., with the exception of a few articles which he kept +back, were sold by his orders; and the sums resulting from the sale +invested in the public securities so as to realize the aforesaid annual +income of three hundred pounds. + +Having now something to leave, he made a will, and dispatched it home. The +army was now in presence of the enemy; and a great battle expected every +day. 'Twas known that the general-in-chief was in disgrace, and the +parties at home strong against him; and there was no stroke this great and +resolute player would not venture to recall his fortune when it seemed +desperate. Frank Castlewood was with Colonel Esmond; his general having +gladly taken the young nobleman on to his staff. His studies of +fortifications at Bruxelles were over by this time. The fort he was +besieging had yielded, I believe, and my lord had not only marched in with +flying colours, but marched out again. He used to tell his boyish +wickednesses with admirable humour, and was the most charming young +scapegrace in the army. + +'Tis needless to say that Colonel Esmond had left every penny of his +little fortune to this boy. It was the colonel's firm conviction that the +next battle would put an end to him: for he felt aweary of the sun, and +quite ready to bid that and the earth farewell. Frank would not listen to +his comrade's gloomy forebodings, but swore they would keep his birthday +at Castlewood that autumn, after the campaign. He had heard of the +engagement at home. "If Prince Eugene goes to London," says Frank, "and +Trix can get hold of him, she'll jilt Ashburnham for his highness. I tell +you, she used to make eyes at the Duke of Marlborough, when she was only +fourteen and ogling poor little Blandford. _I_ wouldn't marry her, Harry, +no not if her eyes were twice as big. I'll take my fun. I'll enjoy for the +next three years every possible pleasure. I'll sow my wild oats then, and +marry some quiet, steady, modest, sensible viscountess; hunt my harriers; +and settle down at Castlewood. Perhaps I'll represent the county--no, +damme, _you_ shall represent the county. You have the brains of the +family. By the Lord, my dear old Harry, you have the best head and the +kindest heart in all the army; and every man says so--and when the queen +dies, and the king comes back, why shouldn't you go to the House of +Commons and be a minister, and be made a peer, and that sort of thing? +_You_ be shot in the next action! I wager a dozen of burgundy you are not +touched. Mohun is well of his wound. He is always with Corporal John now. +As soon as ever I see his ugly face I'll spit in it. I took lessons of +Father--of Captain Holtz at Bruxelles. What a man that is! He knows +everything." Esmond bade Frank have a care; that Father Holt's knowledge +was rather dangerous; not, indeed, knowing as yet how far the father had +pushed his instructions with his young pupil. + +The gazetteers and writers, both of the French and English side, have +given accounts sufficient of that bloody battle of Blarignies or +Malplaquet, which was the last and the hardest-earned of the victories of +the great Duke of Marlborough. In that tremendous combat, near upon two +hundred and fifty thousand men were engaged, more than thirty thousand of +whom were slain or wounded (the Allies lost twice as many men as they +killed of the French, whom they conquered): and this dreadful slaughter +very likely took place because a great general's credit was shaken at +home, and he thought to restore it by a victory. If such were the motives +which induced the Duke of Marlborough to venture that prodigious stake, +and desperately sacrifice thirty thousand brave lives, so that he might +figure once more in a _Gazette_, and hold his places and pensions a little +longer, the event defeated the dreadful and selfish design, for the +victory was purchased at a cost which no nation, greedy of glory as it may +be, would willingly pay for any triumph. The gallantry of the French was +as remarkable as the furious bravery of their assailants. We took a few +score of their flags, and a few pieces of their artillery; but we left +twenty thousand of the bravest soldiers of the world round about the +entrenched lines, from which the enemy was driven. He retreated in perfect +good order; the panic-spell seemed to be broke, under which the French had +laboured ever since the disaster of Hochstedt; and, fighting now on the +threshold of their country, they showed an heroic ardour of resistance, +such as had never met us in the course of their aggressive war. Had the +battle been more successful, the conqueror might have got the price for +which he waged it. As it was (and justly, I think), the party adverse to +the duke in England were indignant at the lavish extravagance of +slaughter, and demanded more eagerly than ever the recall of a chief, +whose cupidity and desperation might urge him further still. After this +bloody fight of Malplaquet, I can answer for it, that in the Dutch +quarters and our own, and amongst the very regiments and commanders, whose +gallantry was most conspicuous upon this frightful day of carnage, the +general cry was, that there was enough of the war. The French were driven +back into their own boundary, and all their conquests and booty of +Flanders disgorged. As for the Prince of Savoy, with whom our +commander-in-chief, for reasons of his own, consorted more closely than +ever, 'twas known that he was animated not merely by a political hatred, +but by personal rage against the old French king: the Imperial +Generalissimo never forgot the slight put by Lewis upon the Abbe de +Savoie; and in the humiliation or ruin of his most Christian Majesty, the +Holy Roman Emperor found his account. But what were these quarrels to us, +the free citizens of England and Holland? Despot as he was, the French +monarch was yet the chief of European civilization, more venerable in his +age and misfortunes than at the period of his most splendid successes; +whilst his opponent was but a semi-barbarous tyrant, with a pillaging +murderous horde of Croats and Pandours, composing a half of his army, +filling our camp with their strange figures, bearded like the miscreant +Turks their neighbours, and carrying into Christian warfare their native +heathen habits of rapine, lust, and murder. Why should the best blood in +England and France be shed in order that the Holy Roman and Apostolic +master of these ruffians should have his revenge over the Christian king? +And it was to this end we were fighting; for this that every village and +family in England was deploring the death of beloved sons and fathers. We +dared not speak to each other, even at table, of Malplaquet, so frightful +were the gaps left in our army by the cannon of that bloody action. 'Twas +heartrending, for an officer who had a heart, to look down his line on a +parade-day afterwards, and miss hundreds of faces of comrades--humble or of +high rank--that had gathered but yesterday full of courage and cheerfulness +round the torn and blackened flags. Where were our friends? As the great +duke reviewed us, riding along our lines with his fine suite of prancing +aides de camp and generals, stopping here and there to thank an officer +with those eager smiles and bows of which his grace was always lavish, +scarce a huzzah could be got for him, though Cadogan, with an oath, rode +up and cried--"D--n you, why don't you cheer?" But the men had no heart for +that: not one of them but was thinking, "Where's my comrade?--where's my +brother that fought by me, or my dear captain that led me yesterday?" +'Twas the most gloomy pageant I ever looked on; and the _Te Deum_, sung by +our chaplains, the most woful and dreary satire. + +Esmond's general added one more to the many marks of honour which he had +received in the front of a score of battles, and got a wound in the groin, +which laid him on his back; and you may be sure he consoled himself by +abusing the commander-in-chief, as he lay groaning:--"Corporal John's as +fond of me," he used to say, "as King David was of General Uriah; and so +he always gives me the post of danger." He persisted, to his dying day, in +believing that the duke intended he should be beat at Wynendael, and sent +him purposely with a small force, hoping that he might be knocked on the +head there. Esmond and Frank Castlewood both escaped without hurt, though +the division which our general commanded suffered even more than any +other, having to sustain not only the fury of the enemy's cannonade, which +was very hot and well-served, but the furious and repeated charges of the +famous Maison-du-Roy, which we had to receive and beat off again and +again, with volleys of shot and hedges of iron, and our four lines of +musketeers and pikemen. They said the King of England charged us no less +than twelve times that day, along with the French Household. Esmond's late +regiment, General Webb's own Fusiliers, served in the division which their +colonel commanded. The general was thrice in the centre of the square of +the Fusiliers, calling the fire at the French charges; and, after the +action, his grace the Duke of Berwick sent his compliments to his old +regiment and their colonel for their behaviour on the field. + +We drank my Lord Castlewood's health and majority, the 25th of September, +the army being then before Mons: and here Colonel Esmond was not so +fortunate as he had been in actions much more dangerous, and was hit by a +spent ball just above the place where his former wound was, which caused +the old wound to open again, fever, spitting of blood, and other ugly +symptoms, to ensue; and, in a word, brought him near to death's door. The +kind lad, his kinsman, attended his elder comrade with a very praiseworthy +affectionateness and care until he was pronounced out of danger by the +doctors, when Frank went off, passed the winter at Bruxelles, and +besieged, no doubt, some other fortress there. Very few lads would have +given up their pleasures so long and so gaily as Frank did; his cheerful +prattle soothed many long days of Esmond's pain and languor. Frank was +supposed to be still at his kinsman's bedside for a month after he had +left it, for letters came from his mother at home full of thanks to the +younger gentleman for his care of his elder brother (so it pleased +Esmond's mistress now affectionately to style him); nor was Mr. Esmond in +a hurry to undeceive her, when the good young fellow was gone for his +Christmas holiday. It was as pleasant to Esmond on his couch to watch the +young man's pleasure at the idea of being free, as to note his simple +efforts to disguise his satisfaction on going away. There are days when a +flask of champagne at a cabaret, and a red-cheeked partner to share it, +are too strong temptations for any young fellow of spirit. I am not going +to play the moralist, and cry "Fie!" For ages past, I know how old men +preach, and what young men practise; and that patriarchs have had their +weak moments, too, long since Father Noah toppled over after discovering +the vine. Frank went off, then, to his pleasures at Bruxelles, in which +capital many young fellows of our army declared they found infinitely +greater diversion even than in London: and Mr. Henry Esmond remained in +his sick-room, where he writ a fine comedy, that his mistress pronounced +to be sublime, and that was acted no less than three successive nights in +London in the next year. + +Here, as he lay nursing himself, ubiquitous Mr. Holtz reappeared, and +stopped a whole month at Mons, where he not only won over Colonel Esmond +to the king's side in politics (that side being always held by the Esmond +family); but where he endeavoured to reopen the controversial question +between the Churches once more, and to recall Esmond to that religion in +which, in his infancy, he had been baptized. Holtz was a casuist, both +dexterous and learned, and presented the case between the English Church +and his own in such a way that those who granted his premisses ought +certainly to allow his conclusions. He touched on Esmond's delicate state +of health, chance of dissolution, and so forth; and enlarged upon the +immense benefits that the sick man was likely to forgo--benefits which the +Church of England did not deny to those of the Roman communion, as how +should she, being derived from that Church, and only an offshoot from it. +But Mr. Esmond said that his Church was the church of his country, and to +that he chose to remain faithful: other people were welcome to worship and +to subscribe any other set of articles, whether at Rome or at Augsburg. +But if the good father meant that Esmond should join the Roman communion +for fear of consequences, and that all England ran the risk of being +damned for heresy, Esmond, for one, was perfectly willing to take his +chance of the penalty along with the countless millions of his fellow +countrymen, who were bred in the same faith, and along with some of the +noblest, the truest, the purest, the wisest, the most pious and learned +men and women in the world. + +As for the political question, in that Mr. Esmond could agree with the +father much more readily, and had come to the same conclusion, though, +perhaps, by a different way. The right-divine, about which Dr. Sacheverel +and the High Church party in England were just now making a bother, they +were welcome to hold as they chose. If Henry Cromwell and his father +before him, had been crowned and anointed (and bishops enough would have +been found to do it), it seemed to Mr. Esmond that they would have had the +right-divine just as much as any Plantagenet, or Tudor, or Stuart. But the +desire of the country being unquestionably for an hereditary monarchy, +Esmond thought an English king out of St. Germains was better and fitter +than a German prince from Herrenhausen, and that if he failed to satisfy +the nation, some other Englishman might be found to take his place; and +so, though with no frantic enthusiasm, or worship of that monstrous +pedigree which the Tories chose to consider divine, he was ready to say, +"God save King James!" when Queen Anne went the way of kings and +commoners. + +"I fear, colonel, you are no better than a republican at heart," says the +priest, with a sigh. + +"I am an Englishman," says Harry, "and take my country as I find her. The +will of the nation being for Church and King, I am for Church and King, +too; but English Church, and English King; and that is why your Church +isn't mine, though your king is." + +Though they lost the day at Malplaquet, it was the French who were elated +by that action, whilst the conquerors were dispirited by it; and the enemy +gathered together a larger army than ever, and made prodigious efforts for +the next campaign. Marshal Berwick was with the French this year; and we +heard that Mareschal Villars was still suffering of his wound, was eager +to bring our duke to action, and vowed he would fight us in his coach. +Young Castlewood came flying back from Bruxelles, as soon as he heard that +righting was to begin; and the arrival of the Chevalier de St. George was +announced about May. "It's the king's third campaign, and it's mine," +Frank liked saying. He was come back a greater Jacobite than ever, and +Esmond suspected that some fair conspirators at Bruxelles had been +inflaming the young man's ardour. Indeed, he owned that he had a message +from the queen, Beatrix's godmother, who had given her name to Frank's +sister the year before he and his sovereign were born. + +However desirous Marshal Villars might be to fight, my lord duke did not +seem disposed to indulge him this campaign. Last year his grace had been +all for the Whigs and Hanoverians; but finding, on going to England, his +country cold towards himself, and the people in a ferment of High-Church +loyalty, the duke comes back to his army cooled towards the Hanoverians, +cautious with the Imperialists, and particularly civil and polite towards +the Chevalier de St. George. 'Tis certain that messengers and letters were +continually passing between his grace and his brave nephew, the Duke of +Berwick, in the opposite camp. No man's caresses were more opportune than +his grace's, and no man ever uttered expressions of regard and affection +more generously. He professed to Monsieur de Torcy, so Mr. St. John told +the writer, quite an eagerness to be cut in pieces for the exiled queen +and her family; nay more, I believe, this year he parted with a portion of +the most precious part of himself--his money--which he sent over to the +royal exiles. Mr. Tunstal, who was in the prince's service, was twice or +thrice in and out of our camp; the French, in theirs of Arlieu and about +Arras. A little river, the Canihe, I think 'twas called (but this is writ +away from books and Europe; and the only map the writer hath of these +scenes of his youth, bears no mark of this little stream), divided our +pickets from the enemy's. Our sentries talked across the stream, when they +could make themselves understood to each other, and when they could not, +grinned, and handed each other their brandy-flasks or their pouches of +tobacco. And one fine day of June, riding thither with the officer who +visited the outposts (Colonel Esmond was taking an airing on horseback, +being too weak for military duty), they came to this river, where a number +of English and Scots were assembled, talking to the good-natured enemy on +the other side. + +Esmond was especially amused with the talk of one long fellow, with a +great curling red moustache, and blue eyes, that was half a dozen inches +taller than his swarthy little comrades on the French side of the stream, +and being asked by the colonel, saluted him, and said that he belonged to +the Royal Cravats. + +From his way of saying "Royal Cravat", Esmond at once knew that the +fellow's tongue had first wagged on the banks of the Liffey, and not the +Loire; and the poor soldier--a deserter probably--did not like to venture +very deep into French conversation, lest his unlucky brogue should peep +out. He chose to restrict himself to such few expressions in the French +language as he thought he had mastered easily; and his attempt at disguise +was infinitely amusing. Mr. Esmond whistled "Lillibullero," at which +Teague's eyes began to twinkle, and then flung him a dollar, when the poor +boy broke out with a "God bless--that is, _Dieu benisse votre honor_", that +would infallibly have sent him to the provost-marshal had he been on our +side of the river. + +Whilst this parley was going on, three officers on horseback, on the +French side, appeared at some little distance, and stopped as if eyeing +us, when one of them left the other two, and rode close up to us who were +by the stream. "Look, look!" says the Royal Cravat, with great agitation, +"_pas lui_, that's he; not him, _l'autre_," and pointed to the distant +officer on a chestnut horse, with a cuirass shining in the sun, and over +it a broad blue ribbon. + +"Please to take Mr. Hamilton's services to my Lord Marlborough--my lord +duke," says the gentleman in English; and, looking to see that the party +were not hostilely disposed, he added, with a smile, "There's a friend of +yours, gentlemen, yonder; he bids me to say that he saw some of your faces +on the 11th of September last year." + +As the gentleman spoke, the other two officers rode up, and came quite +close. We knew at once who it was. It was the king, then two-and-twenty +years old, tall and slim, with deep brown eyes, that looked melancholy, +though his lips wore a smile. We took off our hats and saluted him. No +man, sure, could see for the first time, without emotion, the youthful +inheritor of so much fame and misfortune. It seemed to Mr. Esmond that the +prince was not unlike young Castlewood, whose age and figure he resembled. +The Chevalier de St. George acknowledged the salute, and looked at us +hard. Even the idlers on our side of the river set up a hurrah. As for the +Royal Cravat, he ran to the prince's stirrup, knelt down and kissed his +boot, and bawled and looked a hundred ejaculations and blessings. The +prince bade the aide de camp give him a piece of money; and when the party +saluting us had ridden away, Cravat spat upon the piece of gold by way of +benediction, and swaggered away, pouching his coin and twirling his honest +carroty moustache. + +The officer in whose company Esmond was, the same little captain of +Handyside's regiment, Mr. Sterne, who had proposed the garden at Lille, +when my Lord Mohun and Esmond had their affair, was an Irishman too, and +as brave a little soul as ever wore a sword. "Bedad," says Roger Sterne, +"that long fellow spoke French so beautiful that I shouldn't have known he +wasn't a foreigner, till he broke out with his hulla-balloing, and only an +Irish calf can bellow like that."--And Roger made another remark in his +wild way, in which there was sense as well as absurdity--"If that young +gentleman," says he, "would but ride over to our camp instead of +Villars's, toss up his hat and say, 'Here am I, the king, who'll follow +me?' by the Lord, Esmond, the whole army would rise and carry him home +again, and beat Villars, and take Paris by the way." + +The news of the prince's visit was all through the camp quickly, and +scores of ours went down in hopes to see him. Major Hamilton, whom we had +talked with, sent back by a trumpet several silver pieces for officers +with us. Mr. Esmond received one of these: and that medal, and a +recompense not uncommon amongst princes, were the only rewards he ever had +from a royal person, whom he endeavoured not very long after to serve. + +Esmond quitted the army almost immediately after this, following his +general home; and, indeed, being advised to travel in the fine weather and +attempt to take no further part in the campaign. But he heard from the +army, that of the many who crowded to see the Chevalier de St. George, +Frank Castlewood had made himself most conspicuous: my lord viscount +riding across the little stream bareheaded to where the prince was, and +dismounting and kneeling before him to do him homage. Some said that the +prince had actually knighted him, but my lord denied that statement, +though he acknowledged the rest of the story, and said:--"From having been +out of favour with Corporal John," as he called the duke, before, his +grace warned him not to commit those follies, and smiled on him cordially +ever after. + +"And he was so kind to me," Frank writ, "that I thought I would put in a +good word for Master Harry, but when I mentioned your name he looked as +black as thunder, and said he had never heard of you." + + + +Chapter II. I Go Home, And Harp On The Old String + + +After quitting Mons and the army, and as he was waiting for a packet at +Ostend, Esmond had a letter from his young kinsman Castlewood at +Bruxelles, conveying intelligence whereof Frank besought him to be the +bearer to London, and which caused Colonel Esmond no small anxiety. + +The young scapegrace, being one-and-twenty years old, and being anxious to +sow his "wild otes", as he wrote, had married Mademoiselle de Wertheim, +daughter of Count de Wertheim, Chamberlain to the Emperor, and having a +post in the Household of the Governor of the Netherlands. + + + PS. (the young gentleman wrote): Clotilda is _older than me_, + which perhaps may be objected to her: but I am so _old a raik_ + that the age makes no difference, and I am _determined_ to reform. + We were married at St. Gudule, by Father Holt. She is heart and + soul for the _good cause_. And here the cry is _Vif-le-Roy_, which + my mother will _join in_, and Trix _too_. Break this news to 'em + gently: and tell Mr. Finch, my agent, to press the people for + their rents, and send me the _ryno_ anyhow. Clotilda sings, and + plays on the Spinet _beautifully_. She is a fair beauty. And if + it's a son, you shall stand _Godfather_. I'm going to leave the + army, having had _enuf of soldering_; and my lord duke + _recommends_ me. I shall pass the winter here: and stop at least + until Clo's lying-in. I call her _old Clo_, but nobody else shall. + She is the cleverest woman in all Bruxelles: understanding + painting, music, poetry, and perfect at _cookery and puddens_. I + borded with the count, that's how I came to know her. There are + four counts her brothers. One an abbey--three with the prince's + army. They have a lawsuit for _an immense fortune_: but are now in + a _pore way_. Break this to mother, who'll take anything from + _you_. And write, and bid Finch write _amediately_. Hostel de + 'l'Aigle Noire, Bruxelles, Flanders. + + +So Frank had married a Roman Catholic lady, and an heir was expected, and +Mr. Esmond was to carry this intelligence to his mistress at London. 'Twas +a difficult embassy; and the colonel felt not a little tremor as he neared +the capital. + +He reached his inn late, and sent a messenger to Kensington to announce +his arrival and visit the next morning. The messenger brought back news +that the Court was at Windsor, and the fair Beatrix absent and engaged in +her duties there. Only Esmond's mistress remained in her house at +Kensington. She appeared in Court but once in the year; Beatrix was quite +the mistress and ruler of the little mansion, inviting the company +thither, and engaging in every conceivable frolic of town pleasure. Whilst +her mother, acting as the young lady's protectress and elder sister, +pursued her own path, which was quite modest and secluded. + +As soon as ever Esmond was dressed (and he had been awake long before the +town), he took a coach for Kensington, and reached it so early that he met +his dear mistress coming home from morning prayers. She carried her +Prayer-book, never allowing a footman to bear it, as everybody else did: +and it was by this simple sign Esmond knew what her occupation had been. +He called to the coachman to stop, and jumped out as she looked towards +him. She wore her hood as usual, and she turned quite pale when she saw +him. To feel that kind little hand near to his heart seemed to give him +strength. They soon were at the door of her ladyship's house--and within +it. + +With a sweet sad smile she took his hand and kissed it. + +"How ill you have been: how weak you look, my dear Henry," she said. + +'Tis certain the colonel did look like a ghost, except that ghosts do not +look very happy, 'tis said. Esmond always felt so on returning to her +after absence, indeed whenever he looked in her sweet kind face. + +"I am come back to be nursed by my family," says he. "If Frank had not +taken care of me after my wound, very likely I should have gone +altogether." + +"Poor Frank, good Frank!" says his mother. "You'll always be kind to him, +my lord," she went on. "The poor child never knew he was doing you a +wrong." + +"My lord!" cries out Colonel Esmond. "What do you mean, dear lady?" + +"I am no lady," says she; "I am Rachel Esmond, Francis Esmond's widow, my +lord. I cannot bear that title. Would we never had taken it from him who +has it now. But we did all in our power, Henry: we did all in our power; +and my lord and I--that is----" + +"Who told you this tale, dearest lady?" asked the colonel. + +"Have you not had the letter I writ you? I writ to you at Mons directly I +heard it," says Lady Esmond. + +"And from whom?" again asked Colonel Esmond--and his mistress then told him +that on her death-bed the dowager countess, sending for her, had presented +her with this dismal secret as a legacy. "'Twas very malicious of the +dowager," Lady Esmond said, "to have had it so long, and to have kept the +truth from me. 'Cousin Rachel,' she said," and Esmond's mistress could not +forbear smiling as she told the story, " 'cousin Rachel,' cries the +dowager, 'I have sent for you, as the doctors say I may go off any day in +this dysentery; and to ease my conscience of a great load that has been on +it. You always have been a poor creature and unfit for great honour, and +what I have to say won't, therefore, affect you so much. You must know, +cousin Rachel, that I have left my house, plate, and furniture, three +thousand pounds in money, and my diamonds that my late revered saint and +sovereign, King James, presented me with, to my Lord Viscount Castlewood.' + +" 'To my Frank?' " says Lady Castlewood: " 'I was in hopes---- + +" 'To Viscount Castlewood, my dear, Viscount Castlewood, and Baron Esmond +of Shandon in the kingdom of Ireland, Earl and Marquis of Esmond under +patent of his Majesty King James the Second, conferred upon my husband the +late marquis--for I am Marchioness of Esmond before God and man.' + +" 'And have you left poor Harry nothing, dear marchioness?' " asks Lady +Castlewood (she hath told me the story completely since with her quiet +arch way; the most charming any woman ever had: and I set down the +narrative here at length so as to have done with it). " 'And have you left +poor Harry nothing?' " asks my dear lady: "for you know, Henry," she says +with her sweet smile, "I used always to pity Esau--and I think I am on his +side--though papa tried very hard to convince me the other way. + +" 'Poor Harry!' says the old lady. 'So you want something left to poor +Harry: he, he! (reach me the drops, cousin). Well then, my dear, since you +want poor Harry to have a fortune: you must understand that ever since the +year 1691, a week after the battle of the Boyne, where the Prince of +Orange defeated his royal sovereign and father, for which crime he is now +suffering in flames (ugh, ugh), Henry Esmond hath been Marquis of Esmond +and Earl of Castlewood in the United Kingdom, and Baron and Viscount +Castlewood of Shandon in Ireland, and a baronet--and his eldest son will +be, by courtesy, styled Earl of Castlewood--he! he! What do you think of +that, my dear?' + +" 'Gracious mercy! how long have you known this?' " cries the other lady +(thinking perhaps that the old marchioness was wandering in her wits). + +" 'My husband, before he was converted, was a wicked wretch,' " the sick +sinner continued. " 'When he was in the Low Countries he seduced a +weaver's daughter; and added to his wickedness by marrying her. And then +he came to this country and married me--a poor girl--a poor innocent young +thing--I say,' though she was past forty, you know, Harry, when she +married: and as for being innocent--'Well,' she went on, 'I knew nothing of +my lord's wickedness for three years after our marriage, and after the +burial of our poor little boy I had it done over again, my dear. I had +myself married by Father Holt in Castlewood chapel, as soon as ever I +heard the creature was dead--and having a great illness then, arising from +another sad disappointment I had, the priest came and told me that my lord +had a son before our marriage, and that the child was at nurse in England; +and I consented to let the brat be brought home, and a queer little +melancholy child it was when it came. + +" 'Our intention was to make a priest of him: and he was bred for this, +until you perverted him from it, you wicked woman. And I had again hopes +of giving an heir to my lord, when he was called away upon the king's +business, and died fighting gloriously at the Boyne Water. + +" 'Should I be disappointed--I owed your husband no love, my dear, for he +had jilted me in the most scandalous way; and I thought there would be +time to declare the little weaver's son for the true heir. But I was +carried off to prison, where your husband was so kind to me--urging all his +friends to obtain my release, and using all his credit in my favour--that I +relented towards him, especially as my director counselled me to be +silent; and that it was for the good of the king's service that the title +of our family should continue with your husband the late viscount, whereby +his fidelity would be always secured to the king. And a proof of this is, +that a year before your husband's death, when he thought of taking a place +under the Prince of Orange, Mr. Holt went to him, and told him what the +state of the matter was, and obliged him to raise a large sum for his +Majesty: and engaged him in the true cause so heartily, that we were sure +of his support on any day when it should be considered advisable to attack +the usurper. Then his sudden death came; and there was a thought of +declaring the truth. But 'twas determined to be best for the king's +service to let the title still go with the younger branch; and there's no +sacrifice a Castlewood wouldn't make for that cause, my dear. + +" 'As for Colonel Esmond, he knew the truth already' (and then, Harry," my +mistress said, "she told me of what had happened at my dear husband's +death-bed). 'He doth not intend to take the title, though it belongs to +him. But it eases my conscience that you should know the truth, my dear. +And your son is lawfully Viscount Castlewood so long as his cousin doth +not claim the rank.' " + +This was the substance of the dowager's revelation. Dean Atterbury had +knowledge of it, Lady Castlewood said, and Esmond very well knows how: +that divine being the clergyman for whom the late lord had sent on his +death-bed: and when Lady Castlewood would instantly have written to her +son, and conveyed the truth to him, the dean's advice was that a letter +should be writ to Colonel Esmond rather; that the matter should be +submitted to his decision, by which alone the rest of the family were +bound to abide. + +"And can my dearest lady doubt what that will be?" says the colonel. + +"It rests with you, Harry, as the head of our house." + +"It was settled twelve years since, by my dear lord's bedside," says +Colonel Esmond. "The children must know nothing of this. Frank and his +heirs after him must bear our name. 'Tis his rightfully; I have not even a +proof of that marriage of my father and mother, though my poor lord, on +his death-bed, told me that Father Holt had brought such a proof to +Castlewood. I would not seek it when I was abroad. I went and looked at my +poor mother's grave in her convent. What matter to her now? No court of +law on earth, upon my mere word, would deprive my lord viscount and set me +up. I am the head of the house, dear lady; but Frank is Viscount of +Castlewood still. And rather than disturb him, I would turn monk, or +disappear in America." + +As he spoke so to his dearest mistress, for whom he would have been +willing to give up his life, or to make any sacrifice any day, the fond +creature flung herself down on her knees before him, and kissed both his +hands in an outbreak of passionate love and gratitude, such as could not +but melt his heart, and make him feel very proud and thankful that God had +given him the power to show his love for her, and to prove it by some +little sacrifice on his own part. To be able to bestow benefits or +happiness on those one loves is sure the greatest blessing conferred upon +a man--and what wealth or name, or gratification of ambition or vanity, +could compare with the pleasure Esmond now had of being able to confer +some kindness upon his best and dearest friends? + +"Dearest saint," says he--"purest soul, that has had so much to suffer, +that has blest the poor lonely orphan with such a treasure of love. 'Tis +for me to kneel, not for you: 'tis for me to be thankful that I can make +you happy. Hath my life any other aim? Blessed be God that I can serve +you! What pleasure, think you, could all the world give me compared to +that?" + +"Don't raise me," she said, in a wild way, to Esmond, who would have +lifted her. "Let me kneel--let me kneel, and--and--worship you." + + ------------------------------------- + +Before such a partial judge, as Esmond's dear mistress owned herself to +be, any cause which he might plead was sure to be given in his favour; and +accordingly he found little difficulty in reconciling her to the news +whereof he was bearer, of her son's marriage to a foreign lady, Papist +though she was. Lady Castlewood never could be brought to think so ill of +that religion as other people in England thought of it: she held that ours +was undoubtedly a branch of the Church Catholic, but that the Roman was +one of the main stems on which, no doubt, many errors had been grafted +(she was, for a woman, extraordinarily well versed in this controversy, +having acted, as a girl, as secretary to her father, the late dean, and +written many of his sermons, under his dictation); and if Frank had chosen +to marry a lady of the Church of South Europe, as she would call the Roman +communion, that was no need why she should not welcome her as a +daughter-in-law: and accordingly she writ to her new daughter a very +pretty, touching letter (as Esmond thought, who had cognizance of it +before it went), in which the only hint of reproof was a gentle +remonstrance that her son had not written to herself, to ask a fond +mother's blessing for that step which he was about taking. "Castlewood +knew very well," so she wrote to her son, "that she never denied him +anything in her power to give, much less would she think of opposing a +marriage that was to make his happiness, as she trusted, and keep him out +of wild courses, which had alarmed her a good deal: and she besought him +to come quickly to England, to settle down in his family house of +Castlewood ('It is his family house,' says she, to Colonel Esmond, 'though +only his own house by your forbearance'), and to receive the accompt of +her stewardship during his ten years' minority." By care and frugality, +she had got the estate into a better condition than ever it had been since +the Parliamentary wars; and my lord was now master of a pretty, small +income, not encumbered of debts, as it had been, during his father's +ruinous time. "But in saving my son's fortune," says she, "I fear I have +lost a great part of my hold on him." And, indeed, this was the case; her +ladyship's daughter complaining that their mother did all for Frank, and +nothing for her; and Frank himself being dissatisfied at the narrow, +simple way of his mother's living at Walcote, where he had been brought up +more like a poor parson's son, than a young nobleman that was to make a +figure in the world. 'Twas this mistake in his early training, very +likely, that set him so eager upon pleasure when he had it in his power; +nor is he the first lad that has been spoiled by the over-careful fondness +of women. No training is so useful for children, great or small, as the +company of their betters in rank or natural parts; in whose society they +lose the overweening sense of their own importance, which stay-at-home +people very commonly learn. + +But, as a prodigal that's sending in a schedule of his debts to his +friends, never puts all down, and, you may be sure, the rogue keeps back +some immense swingeing bill, that he doesn't dare to own; so the poor +Frank had a very heavy piece of news to break to his mother, and which he +hadn't the courage to introduce into his first confession. Some misgivings +Esmond might have, upon receiving Frank's letter, and knowing into what +hands the boy had fallen; but whatever these misgivings were, he kept them +to himself, not caring to trouble his mistress with any fears that might +be groundless. + +However, the next mail which came from Bruxelles, after Frank had received +his mother's letter there, brought back a joint composition from himself +and his wife, who could spell no better than her young scapegrace of a +husband, full of expressions of thanks, love, and duty to the dowager +viscountess, as my poor lady now was styled; and along with this letter +(which was read in a family council, namely, the viscountess, Mistress +Beatrix, and the writer of this memoir, and which was pronounced to be +vulgar by the maid of honour, and felt to be so by the other two), there +came a private letter for Colonel Esmond from poor Frank, with another +dismal commission for the colonel to execute, at his best opportunity; and +this was to announce that Frank had seen fit, "by the exhortation of Mr. +Holt, the influence of his Clotilda, and the blessing of Heaven and the +saints," says my lord, demurely, "to change his religion, and be received +into the bosom of that Church of which his sovereign, many of his family, +and the greater part of the civilized world, were members." And his +lordship added a postscript, of which Esmond knew the inspiring genius +very well, for it had the genuine twang of the seminary, and was quite +unlike poor Frank's ordinary style of writing and thinking; in which he +reminded Colonel Esmond that he too was, by birth, of that Church; and +that his mother and sister should have his lordship's prayers to the +saints (an inestimable benefit, truly!) for their conversion. + +If Esmond had wanted to keep this secret he could not; for a day or two +after receiving this letter, a notice from Bruxelles appeared in the +_Post-Boy_, and other prints, announcing that "a young Irish lord, the +Viscount C-stle-w--d, just come to his majority, and who had served the +last campaigns with great credit, as aide de camp to his grace the Duke of +Marlborough, had declared for the Popish religion at Bruxelles, and had +walked in a procession barefoot, with a wax taper in his hand." The +notorious Mr. Holt, who had been employed as a Jacobite agent during the +last reign, and many times pardoned by King William, had been, the +_Post-Boy_ said, the agent of this conversion. + +The Lady Castlewood was as much cast down by this news as Miss Beatrix was +indignant at it. "So," says she, "Castlewood is no longer a home for us, +mother. Frank's foreign wife will bring her confessor, and there will be +frogs for dinner; and all Tusher's and my grandfather's sermons are flung +away upon my brother. I used to tell you that you killed him with the +Catechism, and that he would turn wicked as soon as he broke from his +mammy's leading-strings. Oh, mother, you would not believe that the young +scapegrace was playing you tricks, and that sneak of a Tusher was not a +fit guide for him. Oh, those parsons! I hate 'em all," says Mistress +Beatrix, clapping her hands together; "yes, whether they wear cassocks and +buckles, or beards and bare feet. There's a horrid Irish wretch who never +misses a Sunday at Court, and who pays me compliments there, the horrible +man; and if you want to know what parsons are, you should see his +behaviour, and hear him talk of his own cloth. They're all the same, +whether they're bishops or bonzes, or Indian fakirs. They try to domineer, +and they frighten us with kingdom come; and they wear a sanctified air in +public, and expect us to go down on our knees and ask their blessing; and +they intrigue, and they grasp, and they backbite, and they slander worse +than the worst courtier or the wickedest old woman. I heard this Mr. Swift +sneering at my Lord Duke of Marlborough's courage the other day. He! that +Teague from Dublin! because his grace is not in favour, dares to say this +of him; and he says this that it may get to her Majesty's ear, and to coax +and wheedle Mrs. Masham. They say the Elector of Hanover has a dozen of +mistresses in his Court at Herrenhausen, and if he comes to be king over +us, I wager that the bishops and Mr. Swift, that wants to be one, will +coax and wheedle them. Oh, those priests and their grave airs! I'm sick of +their square toes and their rustling cassocks. I should like to go to a +country where there was not one, or turn Quaker, and get rid of 'em; and I +would, only the dress is not becoming, and I've much too pretty a figure +to hide it. Haven't I, cousin?" and here she glanced at her person and the +looking-glass, which told her rightly that a more beautiful shape and face +never were seen. + +"I made that onslaught on the priests," says Miss Beatrix, afterwards, "in +order to divert my poor dear mother's anguish about Frank. Frank is as +vain as a girl, cousin. Talk of us girls being vain, what are _we_ to you? +It was easy to see that the first woman who chose would make a fool of +him, or the first robe--I count a priest and a woman all the same. We are +always caballing; we are not answerable for the fibs we tell; we are +always cajoling and coaxing, or threatening; and we are always making +mischief, Colonel Esmond--mark my word for that, who know the the world, +sir, and have to make my way in it. I see as well as possible how Frank's +marriage hath been managed. The count, our papa-in-law, is always away at +the coffee-house. The countess, our mother, is always in the kitchen +looking after the dinner. The countess, our sister, is at the spinet. When +my lord comes to say he is going on the campaign, the lovely Clotilda +bursts into tears, and faints so; he catches her in his arms--no, sir, keep +your distance, cousin, if you please--she cries on his shoulder, and he +says, 'Oh, my divine, my adored, my beloved Clotilda, are you sorry to +part with me?' 'Oh, my Francisco,' says she, 'oh, my lord!' and at this +very instant mamma and a couple of young brothers, with moustachios and +long rapiers, come in from the kitchen, where they have been eating bread +and onions. Mark my word, you will have all this woman's relations at +Castlewood three months after she has arrived there. The old count and +countess, and the young counts and all the little countesses her sisters. +Counts! every one of these wretches says he is a count. Guiscard, that +stabbed Mr. Harvy, said he was a count; and I believe he was a barber. All +Frenchmen are barbers--Fiddle-dee! don't contradict me--or else +dancing-masters, or else priests;" and so she rattled on. + +"Who was it taught _you_ to dance, cousin Beatrix?" says the colonel. + +She laughed out the air of a minuet, and swept a low curtsy, coming up to +the recover with the prettiest little foot in the world pointed out. Her +mother came in as she was in this attitude; my lady had been in her +closet, having taken poor Frank's conversion in a very serious way; the +madcap girl ran up to her mother, put her arms round her waist, kissed +her, tried to make her dance, and said: "Don't be silly, you kind little +mamma, and cry about Frank turning Papist. What a figure he must be, with +a white sheet and a candle walking in a procession barefoot!" And she +kicked off her little slippers (the wonderfullest little shoes with +wonderful tall red heels, Esmond pounced upon one as it fell close beside +him), and she put on the drollest little _moue_, and marched up and down +the room holding Esmond's cane by way of taper. Serious as her mood was, +Lady Castlewood could not refrain from laughing; and as for Esmond he +looked on with that delight with which the sight of this fair creature +always inspired him: never had he seen any woman so arch, so brilliant, +and so beautiful. + +Having finished her march, she put out her foot for her slipper. The +colonel knelt down: "If you will be Pope I will turn Papist," says he; and +her holiness gave him gracious leave to kiss the little stockinged foot +before he put the slipper on. + +Mamma's feet began to pat on the floor during this operation, and Beatrix, +whose bright eyes nothing escaped, saw that little mark of impatience. She +ran up and embraced her mother, with her usual cry of, "Oh, you silly +little mamma: your feet are quite as pretty as mine," says she: "they are, +cousin, though she hides 'em; but the shoemaker will tell you that he +makes for both off the same last." + +"You are taller than I am, dearest," says her mother, blushing over her +whole sweet face--"and--and it is your hand, my dear, and not your foot he +wants you to give him," and she said it with a hysteric laugh, that had +more of tears than laughter in it; laying her head on her daughter's fair +shoulder, and hiding it there. They made a very pretty picture together, +and looked like a pair of sisters--the sweet simple matron seeming younger +than her years, and her daughter, if not older, yet somehow, from a +commanding manner and grace which she possessed above most women, her +mother's superior and protectress. + +"But, oh!" cries my mistress, recovering herself after this scene, and +returning to her usual sad tone, "'tis a shame that we should laugh and be +making merry on a day when we ought to be down on our knees and asking +pardon." + +"Asking pardon for what?" says saucy Mrs. Beatrix,--"because Frank takes it +into his head to fast on Fridays, and worship images? You know if you had +been born a Papist, mother, a Papist you would have remained to the end of +your days. 'Tis the religion of the king and of some of the best quality. +For my part, I'm no enemy to it, and think Queen Bess was not a penny +better than Queen Mary." + +"Hush, Beatrix! Do not jest with sacred things, and remember of what +parentage you come," cries my lady. Beatrix was ordering her ribbons, and +adjusting her tucker, and performing a dozen provoking pretty ceremonies, +before the glass. The girl was no hypocrite at least. She never at that +time could be brought to think but of the world and her beauty; and seemed +to have no more sense of devotion than some people have of music, that +cannot distinguish one air from another. Esmond saw this fault in her, as +he saw many others--a bad wife would Beatrix Esmond make, he thought, for +any man under the degree of a prince. She was born to shine in great +assemblies, and to adorn palaces, and to command everywhere--to conduct an +intrigue of politics, or to glitter in a queen's train. But to sit at a +homely table, and mend the stockings of a poor man's children! that was no +fitting duty for her, or at least one that she wouldn't have broke her +heart in trying to do. She was a princess, though she had scarce a +shilling to her fortune; and one of her subjects--the most abject and +devoted wretch, sure, that ever drivelled at a woman's knees--was this +unlucky gentleman; who bound his good sense, and reason, and independence, +hand and foot; and submitted them to her. + +And who does not know how ruthlessly women will tyrannize when they are +let to domineer? and who does not know how useless advice is? I could give +good counsel to my descendants, but I know they'll follow their own way, +for all their grandfather's sermon. A man gets his own experience about +women, and will take nobody's hearsay; nor, indeed, is the young fellow +worth a fig that would. 'Tis I that am in love with my mistress, not my +old grandmother that counsels me; 'tis I that have fixed the value of the +thing I would have, and know the price I would pay for it. It may be +worthless to you, but 'tis all my life to me. Had Esmond possessed the +Great Mogul's crown and all his diamonds, or all the Duke of Marlborough's +money, or all the ingots sunk at Vigo, he would have given them all for +this woman. A fool he was, if you will; but so is a sovereign a fool, that +will give half a principality for a little crystal as big as a pigeon's +egg, and called a diamond: so is a wealthy nobleman a fool, that will face +danger or death, and spend half his life, and all his tranquillity, +caballing for a blue ribbon: so is a Dutch merchant a fool, that hath been +known to pay ten thousand crowns for a tulip. There's some particular +prize we all of us value, and that every man of spirit will venture his +life for. With this, it may be to achieve a great reputation for learning; +with that, to be a man of fashion, and the admiration of the town; with +another, to consummate a great work of art or poetry, and go to +immortality that way; and with another, for a certain time of his life, +the sole object and aim is a woman. + +Whilst Esmond was under the domination of this passion, he remembers many +a talk he had with his intimates, who used to rally our Knight of the +Rueful Countenance at his devotion, whereof he made no disguise, to +Beatrix; and it was with replies such as the above he met his friends' +satire. "Granted, I am a fool," says he, "and no better than you; but you +are no better than I. You have your folly you labour for; give me the +charity of mine. What flatteries do you, Mr. St. John, stoop to whisper in +the ears of a queen's favourite? What nights of labour doth not the +laziest man in the world endure, forgoing his bottle, and his boon +companions, forgoing Lais, in whose lap he would like to be yawning, that +he may prepare a speech full of lies, to cajole three hundred stupid +country gentlemen in the House of Commons, and get the hiccuping cheers of +the October Club! What days will you spend in your jolting chariot!" (Mr. +Esmond often rode to Windsor, and especially, of later days, with the +secretary.) "What hours will you pass on your gouty feet--and how humbly +will you kneel down to present a dispatch--you, the proudest man in the +world, that has not knelt to God since you were a boy, and in that posture +whisper, flatter, adore almost, a stupid woman, that's often boozy with +too much meat and drink, when Mr. Secretary goes for his audience! If my +pursuit is vanity, sure yours is too." And then the secretary would fly +out in such a rich flow of eloquence, as this pen cannot pretend to +recall; advocating his scheme of ambition, showing the great good he would +do for his country when he was the undisputed chief of it; backing his +opinion with a score of pat sentences from Greek and Roman authorities (of +which kind of learning he made rather an ostentatious display), and +scornfully vaunting the very arts and meannesses by which fools were to be +made to follow him, opponents to be bribed or silenced, doubters +converted, and enemies overawed. + +"I am Diogenes," says Esmond, laughing, "that is taken up for a ride in +Alexander's chariot. I have no desire to vanquish Darius or to tame +Bucephalus. I do not want what you want, a great name or a high place: to +have them would bring me no pleasure. But my moderation is taste, not +virtue; and I know that what I do want, is as vain as that which you long +after. Do not grudge me my vanity, if I allow yours; or rather, let us +laugh at both indifferently, and at ourselves, and at each other." + +"If your charmer holds out," says St. John, "at this rate, she may keep +you twenty years besieging her, and surrender by the time you are seventy, +and she is old enough to be a grandmother. I do not say the pursuit of a +particular woman is not as pleasant a pastime as any other kind of +hunting," he added; "only, for my part, I find the game won't run long +enough. They knock under too soon--that's the fault I find with 'em." + +"The game which you pursue is in the habit of being caught, and used to +being pulled down," says Mr. Esmond. + +"But Dulcinea del Toboso is peerless, eh?" says the other. "Well, honest +Harry, go and attack windmills--perhaps thou art not more mad than other +people," St. John added, with a sigh. + + + +Chapter III. A Paper Out Of The "Spectator" + + +Doth any young gentleman of my progeny, who may read his old grandfather's +papers, chance to be presently suffering under the passion of Love? There +is a humiliating cure, but one that is easy and almost specific for the +malady--which is, to try an alibi. Esmond went away from his mistress and +was cured a half-dozen times; he came back to her side, and instantly fell +ill again of the fever. He vowed that he could leave her and think no more +of her, and so he could pretty well, at least, succeed in quelling that +rage and longing he had whenever he was with her; but as soon as he +returned he was as bad as ever again. Truly a ludicrous and pitiable +object, at least exhausting everybody's pity but his dearest mistress's, +Lady Castlewood's, in whose tender breast he reposed all his dreary +confessions, and who never tired of hearing him and pleading for him. + +Sometimes Esmond would think there was hope. Then again he would be +plagued with despair, at some impertinence or coquetry of his mistress. +For days they would be like brother and sister, or the dearest +friends--she, simple, fond, and charming--he, happy beyond measure at her +good behaviour. But this would all vanish on a sudden. Either he would be +too pressing, and hint his love, when she would rebuff him instantly, and +give his vanity a box on the ear: or he would be jealous, and with perfect +good reason, of some new admirer that had sprung up, or some rich young +gentleman newly arrived in the town, that this incorrigible flirt would +set her nets and baits to draw in. If Esmond remonstrated, the little +rebel would say--"Who are you? I shall go my own way, sirrah, and that way +is towards a husband, and I don't want _you_ on the way. I am for your +betters, colonel, for your betters: do you hear that? You might do if you +had an estate and were younger; only eight years older than I, you say! +pish, you are a hundred years older. You are an old, old Graveairs, and I +should make you miserable, that would be the only comfort I should have in +marrying you. But you have not money enough to keep a cat decently after +you have paid your man his wages, and your landlady her bill. Do you think +I'm going to live in a lodging, and turn the mutton at a string whilst +your honour nurses the baby? Fiddlestick, and why did you not get this +nonsense knocked out of your head when you were in the wars? You are come +back more dismal and dreary than ever. You and mamma are fit for each +other. You might be Darby and Joan, and play cribbage to the end of your +lives." + +"At least you own to your worldliness, my poor Trix," says her mother. + +"Worldliness--O my pretty lady! Do you think that I am a child in the +nursery, and to be frightened by Bogey? Worldliness, to be sure; and pray, +madam, where is the harm of wishing to be comfortable? When you are gone, +you dearest old woman, or when I am tired of you and have run away from +you, where shall I go? Shall I go and be head nurse to my Popish +sister-in-law, take the children their physic, and whip 'em, and put 'em +to bed when they are naughty? Shall I be Castlewood's upper servant, and +perhaps marry Tom Tusher? _Merci!_ I have been long enough Frank's humble +servant. Why am I not a man? I have ten times his brains, and had I worn +the--well, don't let your ladyship be frightened--had I worn a sword and +periwig instead of this mantle and commode, to which nature has condemned +me--(though 'tis a pretty stuff, too--cousin Esmond! you will go to the +Exchange to-morrow, and get the exact counterpart of this ribbon, sir, do +you hear?)--I would have made our name talked about. So would Graveairs +here have made something out of our name if he had represented it. My Lord +Graveairs would have done very well. Yes, you have a very pretty way, and +would have made a very decent, grave speaker;" and here she began to +imitate Esmond's way of carrying himself, and speaking to his face, and so +ludicrously that his mistress burst out a-laughing, and even he himself +could see there was some likeness in the fantastical malicious caricature. + +"Yes," says she, "I solemnly vow, own, and confess, that I want a good +husband. Where's the harm of one? My face is my fortune. Who'll come?--buy, +buy, buy! I cannot toil, neither can I spin, but I can play twenty-three +games on the cards. I can dance the last dance, I can hunt the stag, and I +think I could shoot flying. I can talk as wicked as any woman of my years, +and know enough stories to amuse a sulky husband for at least one thousand +and one nights. I have a pretty taste for dress, diamonds, gambling, and +old china. I love sugar-plums, Malines lace (that you brought me, cousin, +is very pretty), the opera, and everything that is useless and costly. I +have got a monkey and a little black boy--Pompey, sir, go and give a dish +of chocolate to Colonel Graveairs,--and a parrot and a spaniel, and I must +have a husband. Cupid, you hear?" + +"Iss, missis," says Pompey, a little grinning negro Lord Peterborow gave +her, with a bird of Paradise in his turbant, and a collar with his +mistress's name on it. + +"Iss, missis!" says Beatrix, imitating the child. "And if husband not +come, Pompey must go fetch one." + +And Pompey went away grinning with his chocolate tray, as Miss Beatrix ran +up to her mother and ended her sally of mischief in her common way, with a +kiss--no wonder that upon paying such a penalty her fond judge pardoned +her. + + ------------------------------------- + +When Mr. Esmond came home, his health was still shattered; and he took a +lodging near to his mistress's, at Kensington, glad enough to be served by +them, and to see them day after day. He was enabled to see a little +company--and of the sort he liked best. Mr. Steele and Mr. Addison both did +him the honour to visit him: and drank many a flask of good claret at his +lodging, whilst their entertainer, through his wound, was kept to diet +drink and gruel. These gentlemen were Whigs, and great admirers of my Lord +Duke of Marlborough; and Esmond was entirely of the other party. But their +different views of politics did not prevent the gentlemen from agreeing in +private, nor from allowing, on one evening when Esmond's kind old patron, +Lieutenant-General Webb, with a stick and a crutch, hobbled up to the +colonel's lodging (which was prettily situate at Knightsbridge, between +London and Kensington, and looking over the Gardens), that the +lieutenant-general was a noble and gallant soldier--and even that he had +been hardly used in the Wynendael affair. He took his revenge in talk, +that must be confessed; and if Mr. Addison had had a mind to write a poem +about Wynendael, he might have heard from the commander's own lips the +story a hundred times over. + +Mr. Esmond, forced to be quiet, betook himself to literature for a +relaxation, and composed his comedy, whereof the prompter's copy lieth in +my walnut escritoire, sealed up and docketed, _The Faithful Fool_, a +Comedy, as it was performed by her Majesty's servants. 'Twas a very +sentimental piece; and Mr. Steele, who had more of that kind of sentiment +than Mr. Addison, admired it, whilst the other rather sneered at the +performance; though he owned that, here and there, it contained some +pretty strokes. He was bringing out his own play of _Cato_ at the time, +the blaze of which quite extinguished Esmond's farthing candle: and his +name was never put to the piece, which was printed as by a Person of +Quality. Only nine copies were sold, though Mr. Dennis, the great critic, +praised it, and said 'twas a work of great merit; and Colonel Esmond had +the whole impression burned one day in a rage, by Jack Lockwood, his man. + +All this comedy was full of bitter satiric strokes against a certain young +lady. The plot of the piece was quite a new one. A young woman was +represented with a great number of suitors, selecting a pert fribble of a +peer, in place of the hero (but ill-acted, I think, by Mr. Wilks, the +Faithful Fool), who persisted in admiring her. In the fifth act, Teraminta +was made to discover the merits of Eugenio (the F. F.), and to feel a +partiality for him too late; for he announced that he had bestowed his +hand and estate upon Rosaria, a country lass, endowed with every virtue. +But it must be owned that the audience yawned through the play; and that +it perished on the third night, with only half a dozen persons to behold +its agonies. Esmond and his two mistresses came to the first night, and +Miss Beatrix fell asleep; whilst her mother, who had not been to a play +since King James the Second's time, thought the piece, though not +brilliant, had a very pretty moral. + +Mr. Esmond dabbled in letters, and wrote a deal of prose and verse at this +time of leisure. When displeased with the conduct of Miss Beatrix, he +would compose a satire, in which he relieved his mind. When smarting under +the faithlessness of women, he dashed off a copy of verses, in which he +held the whole sex up to scorn. One day, in one of these moods, he made a +little joke, in which (swearing him to secrecy) he got his friend Dick +Steele to help him; and, composing a paper, he had it printed exactly like +Steele's paper, and by his printer, and laid on his mistress's +breakfast-table the following:-- + +"SPECTATOR. + +No. 341. Tuesday, April 1, 1712. + +Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur.--HORACE. + +Thyself the moral of the Fable see.--CREECH. + +"Jocasta is known as a woman of learning and fashion, and as one of the +most amiable persons of this Court and country. She is at home two +mornings of the week, and all the wits and a few of the beauties of London +flock to her assemblies. When she goes abroad to Tunbridge or the Bath, a +retinue of adorers rides the journey with her; and, besides the London +beaux, she has a crowd of admirers at the Wells, the polite amongst the +natives of Sussex and Somerset pressing round her tea-tables, and being +anxious for a nod from her chair. Jocasta's acquaintance is thus very +numerous. Indeed, 'tis one smart writer's work to keep her visiting-book--a +strong footman is engaged to carry it; and it would require a much +stronger head, even than Jocasta's own, to remember the names of all her +dear friends. + +"Either at Epsom Wells or at Tunbridge (for of this important matter +Jocasta cannot be certain) it was her ladyship's fortune to become +acquainted with a young gentleman, whose conversation was so sprightly, +and manners amiable, that she invited the agreeable young spark to visit +her if ever he came to London, where her house in Spring Garden should be +open to him. Charming as he was, and without any manner of doubt a pretty +fellow, Jocasta hath such a regiment of the like continually marching +round her standard, that 'tis no wonder her attention is distracted +amongst them. And so, though this gentleman made a considerable impression +upon her, and touched her heart for at least three-and-twenty minutes, it +must be owned that she has forgotten his name. He is a dark man, and may +be eight-and-twenty years old. His dress is sober, though of rich +materials. He has a mole on his forehead over his left eye; has a blue +ribbon to his cane and sword, and wears his own hair. + +"Jocasta was much flattered by beholding her admirer (for that everybody +admires who sees her is a point which she never can for a moment doubt) in +the next pew to her at St. James's Church last Sunday; and the manner in +which he appeared to go to sleep during the sermon--though from under his +fringed eyelids it was evident he was casting glances of respectful +rapture towards Jocasta--deeply moved and interested her. On coming out of +church, he found his way to her chair, and made her an elegant bow as she +stepped into it. She saw him at Court afterwards, where he carried himself +with a most distinguished air, though none of her acquaintances knew his +name; and the next night he was at the play, where her ladyship was +pleased to acknowledge him from the side-box. + +"During the whole of the comedy she racked her brains so to remember his +name, that she did not hear a word of the piece: and having the happiness +to meet him once more in the lobby of the playhouse, she went up to him in +a flutter, and bade him remember that she kept two nights in the week, and +that she longed to see him at Spring Garden. + +"He appeared on Tuesday, in a rich suit, showing a very fine taste both in +the tailor and wearer; and though a knot of us were gathered round the +charming Jocasta, fellows who pretended to know every face upon the town, +not one could tell the gentleman's name in reply to Jocasta's eager +inquiries, flung to the right and left of her as he advanced up the room +with a bow that would become a duke. + +"Jocasta acknowledged this salute with one of those smiles and curtsies of +which that lady hath the secret. She curtsies with a languishing air, as +if to say, 'You are come at last. I have been pining for you:' and then +she finishes her victim with a killing look, which declares: 'O Philander! +I have no eyes but for you.' Camilla hath as good a curtsy perhaps, and +Thalestris much such another look; but the glance and the curtsy together +belong to Jocasta of all the English beauties alone. + +" 'Welcome to London, sir,' says she. 'One can see you are from the +country by your looks.' She would have said 'Epsom', or 'Tunbridge', had +she remembered rightly at which place she had met the stranger; but, alas! +she had forgotten. + +"The gentleman said, 'he had been in town but three days; and one of his +reasons for coming hither was to have the honour of paying his court to +Jocasta.' + +"She said, 'the waters had agreed with her but indifferently.' + +" 'The waters were for the sick,' the gentleman said: 'the young and +beautiful came but to make them sparkle. And, as the clergyman read the +service on Sunday,' he added, 'your ladyship reminded me of the angel that +visited the pool.' A murmur of approbation saluted this sally. Manilio, +who is a wit when he is not at cards, was in such a rage that he revoked +when he heard it. + +"Jocasta was an angel visiting the waters; but at which of the Bethesdas? +She was puzzled more and more; and, as her way always is, looked the more +innocent and simple, the more artful her intentions were. + +" 'We were discoursing,' says she, 'about spelling of names and words when +you came. Why should we say goold and write gold, and call china chayny, +and Cavendish Candish, and Cholmondeley Chumley? If we call Pulteney +Poltney, why shouldn't we call poultry pultry--and----' + +" 'Such an enchantress as your ladyship,' says he, 'is mistress of all +sorts of spells.' But this was Dr. Swift's pun, and we all knew it. + +" 'And--and how do you spell your name?' says she, coming to the point, at +length; for this sprightly conversation had lasted much longer than is +here set down, and been carried on through at least three dishes of tea. + +" 'Oh, madam,' says he, '_I spell my name with the y_.' And laying down +his dish, my gentleman made another elegant bow, and was gone in a moment. + +"Jocasta hath had no sleep since this mortification, and the stranger's +disappearance. If balked in anything, she is sure to lose her health and +temper; and we, her servants, suffer, as usual, during the angry fits of +our queen. Can you help us, Mr. Spectator, who know everything, to read +this riddle for her, and set at rest all our minds? We find in her list, +Mr. Berty, Mr. Smith, Mr. Pike, Mr. Tyler--who may be Mr. Bertie, Mr. +Smyth, Mr. Pyke, Mr. Tiler, for what we know. She hath turned away the +clerk of her visiting-book, a poor fellow with a great family of children. +Read me this riddle, good Mr. Shortface, and oblige your admirer--OEDIPUS." + +THE "TRUMPET" COFFEE-HOUSE, Whitehall. + +"MR. SPECTATOR--I am a gentleman but little acquainted with the town, +though I have had a university education, and passed some years serving my +country abroad, where my name is better known than in the coffee-houses +and St. James's. + +"Two years since my uncle died, leaving me a pretty estate in the county +of Kent; and being at Tunbridge Wells last summer, after my mourning was +over, and on the look-out, if truth must be told, for some young lady who +would share with me the solitude of my great Kentish house, and be kind to +my tenantry (for whom a woman can do a great deal more good than the +best-intentioned man can), I was greatly fascinated by a young lady of +London, who was the toast of all the company at the Wells. Everyone knows +Saccharissa's beauty; and I think, Mr. Spectator, no one better than +herself. + +"My table-book informs me that I danced no less than seven-and-twenty sets +with her at the assembly. I treated her to the fiddles twice. I was +admitted on several days to her lodging, and received by her with a great +deal of distinction, and, for a time, was entirely her slave. It was only +when I found, from common talk of the company at the Wells, and from +narrowly watching one, who I once thought of asking the most sacred +question a man can put to a woman, that I became aware how unfit she was +to be a country gentleman's wife; and that this fair creature was but a +heartless worldly jilt, playing with affections that she never meant to +return, and, indeed, incapable of returning them. 'Tis admiration such +women want, not love that touches them; and I can conceive, in her old +age, no more wretched creature than this lady will be, when her beauty +hath deserted her, when her admirers have left her, and she hath neither +friendship nor religion to console her. + +"Business calling me to London, I went to St. James's Church last Sunday, +and there opposite me sat my beauty of the Wells. Her behaviour during the +whole service was so pert, languishing, and absurd; she flirted her fan, +and ogled and eyed me in a manner so indecent, that I was obliged to shut +my eyes, so as actually not to see her, and whenever I opened them beheld +hers (and very bright they are) still staring at me. I fell in with her +afterwards at Court, and at the playhouse; and here nothing would satisfy +her but she must elbow through the crowd and speak to me, and invite me to +the assembly, which she holds at her house, nor very far from Ch-r-ng +Cr-ss. + +"Having made her a promise to attend, of course I kept my promise; and +found the young widow in the midst of a half-dozen of card-tables, and a +crowd of wits and admirers. I made the best bow I could, and advanced +towards her; and saw by a peculiar puzzled look in her face, though she +tried to hide her perplexity, that she had forgotten even my name. + +"Her talk, artful as it was, convinced me that I had guessed aright. She +turned the conversation most ridiculously upon the spelling of names and +words; and I replied with as ridiculous, fulsome compliments as I could +pay her: indeed, one in which I compared her to an angel visiting the +sick-wells, went a little too far; nor should I have employed it, but that +the allusion came from the Second Lesson last Sunday, which we both had +heard, and I was pressed to answer her. + +"Then she came to the question, which I knew was awaiting me, and asked +how I _spelt_ my name? 'Madam,' says I, turning on my heel, 'I spell it +with the _y_.' And so I left her, wondering at the light-heartedness of +the town-people, who forget and make friends so easily, and resolved to +look elsewhere for a partner for your constant reader. + +"CYMON WYLDOATS. + +"You know my real name, Mr. Spectator, in which there is no such a letter +as _hupsilon_. But if the lady, whom I have called Saccharissa, wonders +that I appear no more at the tea-tables, she is hereby respectfully +informed the reason _y_." + + ------------------------------------- + +The above is a parable, whereof the writer will now expound the meaning. +Jocasta was no other than Miss Esmond, maid of honour to her Majesty. She +had told Mr. Esmond this little story of having met a gentleman, +somewhere, and forgetting his name, when the gentleman, with no such +malicious intentions as those of "Cymon" in the above fable, made the +answer simply as above; and we all laughed to think how little Mistress +Jocasta-Beatrix had profited by her artifice and precautions. + +As for Cymon he was intended to represent yours and her very humble +servant, the writer of the apologue and of this story, which we had +printed on a _Spectator_ paper at Mr. Steele's office, exactly as those +famous journals were printed, and which was laid on the table at breakfast +in place of the real newspaper. Mistress Jocasta, who had plenty of wit, +could not live without her _Spectator_ to her tea; and this sham +_Spectator_ was intended to convey to the young woman that she herself was +a flirt, and that Cymon was a gentleman of honour and resolution, seeing +all her faults, and determined to break the chains once and for ever. + +For though enough hath been said about this love business already--enough, +at least, to prove to the writer's heirs what a silly fond fool their old +grandfather was, who would like them to consider him a a very wise old +gentleman; yet not near all has been told concerning this matter, which, +if it were allowed to take in Esmond's journal the space it occupied in +his time, would weary his kinsmen and women of a hundred years' time +beyond all endurance; and form such a diary of folly and drivelling, +raptures and rage, as no man of ordinary vanity would like to leave behind +him. + +The truth is, that, whether she laughed at him or encouraged him; whether +she smiled or was cold, and turned her smiles on another--worldly and +ambitious, as he knew her to be; hard and careless, as she seemed to grow +with her Court life, and a hundred admirers that came to her and left her; +Esmond, do what he would, never could get Beatrix out of his mind; thought +of her constantly at home or away. If he read his name in a _Gazette_, or +escaped the shot of a cannon-ball or a greater danger in the campaign, as +has happened to him more than once, the instant thought after the honour +achieved or the danger avoided, was "What will _she_ say of it?" "Will +this distinction or the idea of this peril elate her or touch her, so as +to be better inclined towards me?" He could no more help this passionate +fidelity of temper than he could help the eyes he saw with--one or the +other seemed a part of his nature; and knowing every one of her faults as +well as the keenest of her detractors, and the folly of an attachment to +such a woman, of which the fruition could never bring him happiness for +above a week, there was yet a charm about this Circe from which the poor +deluded gentleman could not free himself; and for a much longer period +than Ulysses (another middle-aged officer, who had travelled much, and +been in the foreign wars), Esmond felt himself enthralled and besotted by +the wiles of this enchantress. Quit her! He could no more quit her, as the +Cymon of this story was made to quit his false one, than he could lose his +consciousness of yesterday. She had but to raise her finger, and he would +come back from ever so far; she had but to say, "I have discarded +such-and-such an adorer," and the poor infatuated wretch would be sure to +come and _roder_ about her mother's house, willing to be put on the ranks +of suitors, though he knew he might be cast off the next week. If he were +like Ulysses in his folly at least, she was in so far like Penelope, that +she had a crowd of suitors, and undid day after day and night after night +the handiwork of fascination and the web of coquetry with which she was +wont to allure and entertain them. + +Part of her coquetry may have come from her position about the Court, +where the beautiful maid of honour was the light about which a thousand +beaux came and fluttered; where she was sure to have a ring of admirers +round her, crowding to listen to her repartees as much as to admire her +beauty; and where she spoke and listened to much free talk, such as one +never would have thought the lips or ears of Rachel Castlewood's daughter +would have uttered or heard. When in waiting at Windsor or Hampton, the +Court ladies and gentlemen would be making riding parties together; Mrs. +Beatrix in a horseman's coat and hat, the foremost after the staghounds +and over the park fences, a crowd of young fellows at her heels. If the +English country ladies at this time were the most pure and modest of any +ladies in the world--the English town and Court ladies permitted themselves +words and behaviour that were neither modest nor pure; and claimed, some +of them, a freedom which those who love that sex most would never wish to +grant them. The gentlemen of my family that follow after me (for I don't +encourage the ladies to pursue any such studies), may read in the works of +Mr. Congreve, and Dr. Swift, and others, what was the conversation and +what the habits of our time. + +The most beautiful woman in England in 1712, when Esmond returned to this +country, a lady of high birth, and though of no fortune to be sure, with a +thousand fascinations of wit and manners--Beatrix Esmond--was now +six-and-twenty years old, and Beatrix Esmond still. Of her hundred adorers +she had not chosen one for a husband; and those who had asked had been +jilted by her; and more still had left her. A succession of near ten +years' crops of beauties had come up since her time, and had been reaped +by proper _husband_men, if we may make an agricultural simile, and had +been housed comfortably long ago. Her own contemporaries were sober +mothers by this time; girls with not a tithe of her charms, or her wit, +having made good matches, and now claiming precedence over the spinster +who but lately had derided and outshone them. The young beauties were +beginning to look down on Beatrix as an old maid, and sneer, and call her +one of Charles the Second's ladies, and ask whether her portrait was not +in the Hampton Court Gallery? But still she reigned, at least in one man's +opinion, superior over all the little misses that were the toasts of the +young lads; and in Esmond's eyes was ever perfectly lovely and young. + +Who knows how many were nearly made happy by possessing her, or, rather, +how many were fortunate in escaping this siren? 'Tis a marvel to think +that her mother was the purest and simplest woman in the whole world, and +that this girl should have been born from her. I am inclined to fancy, my +mistress, who never said a harsh word to her children (and but twice or +thrice only to one person), must have been too fond and pressing with the +maternal authority; for her son and her daughter both revolted early; nor +after their first flight from the nest could they ever be brought back +quite to the fond mother's bosom. Lady Castlewood, and perhaps it was as +well, knew little of her daughter's life and real thoughts. How was she to +apprehend what passed in queens' antechambers and at Court tables? Mrs. +Beatrix asserted her own authority so resolutely that her mother quickly +gave in. The maid of honour had her own equipage; went from home and came +back at her own will: her mother was alike powerless to resist her or to +lead her, or to command or to persuade her. + +She had been engaged once, twice, thrice, to be married, Esmond believed. +When he quitted home, it hath been said, she was promised to my Lord +Ashburnham, and now, on his return, behold his lordship was just married +to Lady Mary Butler, the Duke of Ormonde's daughter, and his fine houses, +and twelve thousand a year of fortune, for which Miss Beatrix had rather +coveted him, was out of her power. To her Esmond could say nothing in +regard to the breaking of this match; and, asking his mistress about it, +all Lady Castlewood answered was: "Do not speak to me about it, Harry. I +cannot tell you how or why they parted, and I fear to inquire. I have told +you before, that with all her kindness, and wit, and generosity, and that +sort of splendour of nature she has; I can say but little good of poor +Beatrix, and look with dread at the marriage she will form. Her mind is +fixed on ambition only, and making a great figure: and, this achieved, she +will tire of it as she does of everything. Heaven help her husband, +whoever he shall be! My Lord Ashburnham was a most excellent young man, +gentle and yet manly, of very good parts, so they told me, and as my +little conversation would enable me to judge: and a kind temper--kind and +enduring I'm sure he must have been, from all that he had to endure. But +he quitted her at last, from some crowning piece of caprice or tyranny of +hers; and now he has married a young woman that will make him a thousand +times happier than my poor girl ever could." + +The rupture, whatever its cause was (I heard the scandal, but indeed shall +not take pains to repeat at length in this diary the trumpery coffee-house +story), caused a good deal of low talk; and Mr. Esmond was present at my +lord's appearance at the birthday with his bride, over whom the revenge +that Beatrix took was to look so imperial and lovely that the modest +downcast young lady could not appear beside her, and Lord Ashburnham, who +had his reasons for wishing to avoid her, slunk away quite shamefaced, and +very early. This time his grace the Duke of Hamilton, whom Esmond had seen +about her before, was constant at Miss Beatrix's side: he was one of the +most splendid gentlemen of Europe, accomplished by books, by travel, by +long command of the best company, distinguished as a statesman, having +been ambassador in King William's time, and a noble speaker in the Scots +Parliament, where he had led the party that was against the union, and +though now five- or six-and-forty years of age, a gentleman so high in +stature, accomplished in wit, and favoured in person, that he might +pretend to the hand of any princess in Europe. + +"Should you like the duke for a cousin?" says Mr. Secretary St. John, +whispering to Colonel Esmond in French; "it appears that the widower +consoles himself." + +But to return to our little _Spectator_ paper and the conversation which +grew out of it. Miss Beatrix at first was quite _bit_ (as the phrase of +that day was) and did not "smoke" the authorship of the story: indeed +Esmond had tried to imitate as well as he could Mr. Steele's manner (as +for the other author of the _Spectator_, his prose style I think is +altogether inimitable); and Dick, who was the idlest and best-natured of +men, would have let the piece pass into his journal and go to posterity as +one of his own lucubrations, but that Esmond did not care to have a lady's +name whom he loved sent forth to the world in a light so unfavourable. +Beatrix pished and psha'd over the paper; Colonel Esmond watching with no +little interest her countenance as she read it. + +"How stupid your friend Mr. Steele becomes!" cries Miss Beatrix. "Epsom +and Tunbridge! Will he never have done with Epsom and Tunbridge, and with +beaux at church, and Jocastas and Lindamiras? Why does he not call women +Nelly and Betty, as their godfathers and godmothers did for them in their +baptism?" + +"Beatrix, Beatrix!" says her mother, "speak gravely of grave things." + +"Mamma thinks the Church Catechism came from Heaven, I believe," says +Beatrix, with a laugh, "and was brought down by a bishop from a mountain. +Oh, how I used to break my heart over it! Besides, I had a Popish +god-mother, mamma; why did you give me one?" + +"I gave you the queen's name," says her mother, blushing. "And a very +pretty name it is," said somebody else. + +Beatrix went on reading--"Spell my name with a _y_--why, you wretch," says +she, turning round to Colonel Esmond, "you have been telling my story to +Mr. Steele--or stop--you have written the paper yourself to turn me into +ridicule. For shame, sir!" + +Poor Mr. Esmond felt rather frightened, and told a truth, which was +nevertheless an entire falsehood. "Upon my honour," says he, "I have not +even read the _Spectator_ of this morning." Nor had he, for that was not +the _Spectator_, but a sham newspaper put in its place. + +She went on reading: her face rather flushed as she read. "No," she says, +"I think you couldn't have written it. I think it must have been Mr. +Steele when he was drunk--and afraid of his horrid vulgar wife. Whenever I +see an enormous compliment to a woman, and some outrageous panegyric about +female virtue, I always feel sure that the captain and his better half +have fallen out overnight, and that he has been brought home tipsy, or has +been found out in ----" + +"Beatrix!" cries the Lady Castlewood. + +"Well, mamma! Do not cry out before you are hurt. I am not going to say +anything wrong. I won't give you more annoyance than I can help, you +pretty kind mamma. Yes, and your little Trix is a naughty little Trix, and +she leaves undone those things which she ought to have done, and does +those things which she ought not to have done, and there's----well now--I +won't go on. Yes, I will, unless you kiss me." And with this the young +lady lays aside her paper, and runs up to her mother and performs a +variety of embraces with her ladyship, saying as plain as eyes could speak +to Mr. Esmond--"There, sir: would not _you_ like to play the very same +pleasant game?" + +"Indeed, madam, I would," says he. + +"Would what?" asked Miss Beatrix. + +"What you meant when you looked at me in that provoking way," answers +Esmond. + +"What a confessor!" cries Beatrix, with a laugh. + +"What is it Henry would like, my dear?" asks her mother, the kind soul, +who was always thinking what we would like, and how she could please us. + +The girl runs up to her--"Oh, you silly kind mamma," she says, kissing her +again, "that's what Harry would like;" and she broke out into a great +joyful laugh: and Lady Castlewood blushed as bashful as a maid of sixteen. + +"Look at her, Harry," whispers Beatrix, running up, and speaking in her +sweet low tones. "Doesn't the blush become her? Isn't she pretty? She +looks younger than I am: and I am sure she is a hundred million thousand +times better." + +Esmond's kind mistress left the room, carrying her blushes away with her. + +"If we girls at Court could grow such roses as that," continues Beatrix, +with her laugh, "what wouldn't we do to preserve 'em? We'd clip their +stalks and put 'em in salt and water. But those flowers don't bloom at +Hampton Court and Windsor, Henry." She paused for a minute, and the smile +fading away from her April face, gave place to a menacing shower of tears: +"Oh, how good she is, Harry," Beatrix went on to say. "Oh, what a saint +she is! Her goodness frightens me. I'm not fit to live with her. I should +be better, I think, if she were not so perfect. She has had a great sorrow +in her life, and a great secret; and repented of it. It could not have +been my father's death. She talks freely about that; nor could she have +loved him very much--though who knows what we women do love, and why?" + +"What, and why, indeed," says Mr. Esmond. + +"No one knows," Beatrix went on, without noticing this interruption except +by a look, "what my mother's life is. She hath been at early prayer this +morning: she passes hours in her closet; if you were to follow her +thither, you would find her at prayers now. She tends the poor of the +place--the horrid dirty poor! She sits through the curate's sermons--oh, +those dreary sermons! And you see, _on a beau dire_; but good as they are, +people like her are not fit to commune with us of the world. There is +always, as it were, a third person present, even when I and my mother are +alone. She can't be frank with me quite; who is always thinking of the +next world, and of her guardian angel, perhaps that's in company. Oh, +Harry, I'm jealous of that guardian angel!" here broke out Mistress +Beatrix. "It's horrid, I know; but my mother's life is all for Heaven, and +mine--all for earth. We can never be friends quite; and then, she cares +more for Frank's little finger than she does for me--I know she does: and +she loves you, sir, a great deal too much; and I hate you for it. I would +have had her all to myself; but she wouldn't. In my childhood, it was my +father she loved--(Oh, how could she? I remember him kind and handsome, but +so stupid, and not being able to speak after drinking wine). And then, it +was Frank; and now, it is Heaven and the clergyman. How I would have loved +her! From a child I used to be in a rage that she loved anybody but me; +but she loved you all better--all, I know she did. And now, she talks of +the blessed consolation of religion. Dear soul! she thinks she is happier +for believing, as she must, that we are all of us wicked and miserable +sinners; and this world is only a _pied a terre_ for the good, where they +stay for a night, as we do, coming from Walcote, at that great, dreary, +uncomfortable Hounslow inn, in those horrid beds. Oh, do you remember +those horrid beds?--and the chariot comes and fetches them to Heaven the +next morning." + +"Hush, Beatrix," says Mr. Esmond. + +"Hush, indeed. You are a hypocrite, too, Henry, with your grave airs and +your glum face. We are all hypocrites. Oh dear me! We are all alone, +alone, alone," says poor Beatrix, her fair breast heaving with a sigh. + +"It was I that writ every line of that paper, my dear," says Mr. Esmond. +"You are not so worldly as you think yourself, Beatrix, and better than we +believe you. The good we have in us we doubt of; and the happiness that's +to our hand we throw away. You bend your ambition on a great marriage and +establishment--and why? You'll tire of them when you win them; and be no +happier with a coronet on your coach----" + +"Than riding pillion with Lubin to market," says Beatrix. "Thank you, +Lubin!" + +"I'm a dismal shepherd, to be sure," answers Esmond, with a blush; "and +require a nymph that can tuck my bed-clothes up, and make me water-gruel. +Well, Tom Lockwood can do that. He took me out of the fire upon his +shoulders, and nursed me through my illness as love will scarce ever do. +Only good wages, and a hope of my clothes, and the contents of my +portmanteau. How long was it that Jacob served an apprenticeship for +Rachel?" + +"For mamma?" says Beatrix. "Is it mamma your honour wants, and that I +should have the happiness of calling you papa?" + +Esmond blushed again. "I spoke of a Rachel that a shepherd courted five +thousand years ago; when shepherds were longer lived than now. And my +meaning was, that since I saw you first after our separation--a child you +were then----" + +"And I put on my best stockings to captivate you, I remember, sir." + +"You have had my heart ever since then, such as it was; and such as you +were, I cared for no other woman. What little reputation I have won, it +was that you might be pleased with it: and, indeed, it is not much; and I +think a hundred fools in the army have got and deserved quite as much. Was +there something in the air of that dismal old Castlewood that made us all +gloomy, and dissatisfied, and lonely under its ruined old roof? We were +all so, even when together and united, as it seemed, following our +separate schemes, each as we sat round the table." + +"Dear, dreary old place!" cries Beatrix. "Mamma hath never had the heart +to go back thither since we left it, when--never mind how many years ago," +and she flung back her curls, and looked over her fair shoulder at the +mirror superbly, as if she said, "Time, I defy you." + +"Yes," says Esmond, who had the art, as she owned, of divining many of her +thoughts. "You can afford to look in the glass still; and only be pleased +by the truth it tells you. As for me, do you know what my scheme is? I +think of asking Frank to give me the Virginia estate King Charles gave our +grandfather." (She gave a superb curtsy, as much as to say, "Our +grandfather, indeed! Thank you, Mr. Bastard.") "Yes, I know you are +thinking of my bar-sinister, and so am I. A man cannot get over it in this +country; unless, indeed, he wears it across a king's arms, when 'tis a +highly honourable coat: and I am thinking of retiring into the +plantations, and building myself a wigwam in the woods, and perhaps, if I +want company, suiting myself with a squaw. We will send your ladyship furs +over for the winter; and, when you are old, we'll provide you with +tobacco. I am not quite clever enough, or not rogue enough--I know not +which--for the Old World. I may make a place for myself in the new, which +is not so full; and found a family there. When you are a mother yourself, +and a great lady, perhaps I shall send you over from the plantation some +day a little barbarian that is half Esmond half Mohock, and you will be +kind to him for his father's sake, who was, after all, your kinsman; and +whom you loved a little." + +"What folly you are talking, Harry!" says Miss Beatrix, looking with her +great eyes. + +"'Tis sober earnest," says Esmond. And, indeed, the scheme had been +dwelling a good deal in his mind for some time past, and especially since +his return home, when he found how hopeless, and even degrading to +himself, his passion was. "No," says he, then, "I have tried half a dozen +times now. I can bear being away from you well enough; but being with you +is intolerable" (another low curtsy on Mrs. Beatrix's part), "and I will +go. I have enough to buy axes and guns for my men, and beads and blankets +for the savages; and I'll go and live amongst them." + +"_Mon ami_," she says, quite kindly, and taking Esmond's hand, with an air +of great compassion. "You can't think that in our position anything more +than our present friendship is possible. You are our elder brother--as such +we view you, pitying your misfortune, not rebuking you with it. Why, you +are old enough and grave enough to be our father. I always thought you a +hundred years old, Harry, with your solemn face and grave air. I feel as a +sister to you, and can no more. Isn't that enough, sir?" And she put her +face quite close to his--who knows with what intention? + +"It's too much," says Esmond, turning away. "I can't bear this life, and +shall leave it. I shall stay, I think, to see you married, and then +freight a ship, and call it the _Beatrix_, and bid you all----" + +Here the servant, flinging the door open, announced his grace the Duke of +Hamilton, and Esmond started back with something like an imprecation on +his lips, as the nobleman entered, looking splendid in his star and green +ribbon. He gave Mr. Esmond just that gracious bow which he would have +given to a lackey who fetched him a chair or took his hat, and seated +himself by Miss Beatrix, as the poor colonel went out of the room with a +hang-dog look. + +Esmond's mistress was in the lower room as he passed downstairs. She often +met him as he was coming away from Beatrix; and she beckoned him into the +apartment. + +"Has she told you, Harry?" Lady Castlewood said. + +"She has been very frank--very," says Esmond. + +"But--but about what is going to happen?" + +"What is going to happen?" says he, his heart beating. + +"His grace the Duke of Hamilton has proposed to her," says my lady. "He +made his offer yesterday. They will marry as soon as his mourning is over; +and you have heard his grace is appointed ambassador to Paris; and the +ambassadress goes with him." + + + +Chapter IV. Beatrix's New Suitor + + +The gentleman whom Beatrix had selected was, to be sure, twenty years +older than the colonel, with whom she quarrelled for being too old; but +this one was but a nameless adventurer, and the other the greatest duke in +Scotland, with pretensions even to a still higher title. My Lord Duke of +Hamilton had, indeed, every merit belonging to a gentleman, and he had had +the time to mature his accomplishments fully, being upwards of fifty years +old when Madam Beatrix selected him for a bridegroom. Duke Hamilton, then +Earl of Arran, had been educated at the famous Scottish University of +Glasgow, and, coming to London, became a great favourite of Charles the +Second, who made him a lord of his bedchamber, and afterwards appointed +him ambassador to the French king, under whom the earl served two +campaigns as his Majesty's aide de camp; and he was absent on this service +when King Charles died. + +King James continued my lord's promotion--made him master of the wardrobe, +and colonel of the Royal Regiment of Horse; and his lordship adhered +firmly to King James, being of the small company that never quitted that +unfortunate monarch till his departure out of England; and then it was, in +1688, namely, that he made the friendship with Colonel Francis Esmond, +that had always been, more or less, maintained in the two families. + +The earl professed a great admiration for King William always, but never +could give him his allegiance; and was engaged in more than one of the +plots in the late great king's reign, which always ended in the plotters' +discomfiture, and generally in their pardon, by the magnanimity of the +king. Lord Arran was twice prisoner in the Tower during this reign, +undauntedly saying, when offered his release, upon parole not to engage +against King William, that he would not give his word, because "he was +sure he could not keep it"; but, nevertheless, he was both times +discharged without any trial; and the king bore this noble enemy so little +malice, that when his mother, the Duchess of Hamilton, of her own right, +resigned her claim on her husband's death, the earl was, by patent signed +at Loo, 1690, created Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of Clydesdale, and Earl of +Arran, with precedency from the original creation. His grace took the +oaths and his seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1700: was famous there +for his patriotism and eloquence, especially in the debates about the +Union Bill, which Duke Hamilton opposed with all his strength, though he +would not go the length of the Scottish gentry, who were for resisting it +by force of arms. 'Twas said he withdrew his opposition all of a sudden, +and in consequence of letters from the king at St. Germains, who entreated +him on his allegiance not to thwart the queen, his sister, in this +measure; and the duke, being always bent upon effecting the king's return +to his kingdom through a reconciliation between his Majesty and Queen +Anne, and quite averse to his landing with arms and French troops, held +aloof, and kept out of Scotland during the time when the Chevalier de St. +George's descent from Dunkirk was projected, passing his time in England +in his great estate of Staffordshire. + +When the Whigs went out of office in 1710, the queen began to show his +grace the very greatest marks of her favour. He was created Duke of +Brandon and Baron of Dutton in England; having the Thistle already +originally bestowed on him by King James the Second, his grace was now +promoted to the honour of the Garter--a distinction so great and +illustrious, that no subject hath ever borne them hitherto together. When +this objection was made to her Majesty, she was pleased to say, "Such a +subject as the Duke of Hamilton has a pre-eminent claim to every mark of +distinction which a crowned head can confer. I will henceforth wear both +orders myself." + +At the Chapter held at Windsor in October, 1712, the duke and other +knights, including Lord-Treasurer, the new-created Earl of Oxford and +Mortimer, were installed; and a few days afterwards his grace was +appointed Ambassador-Extraordinary to France, and his equipages, plate, +and liveries commanded, of the most sumptuous kind, not only for his +excellency the ambassador, but for her excellency the ambassadress, who +was to accompany him. Her arms were already quartered on the coach panels, +and her brother was to hasten over on the appointed day to give her away. + +His lordship was a widower, having married, in 1698, Elizabeth, daughter +of Digby, Lord Gerard, by which marriage great estates came into the +Hamilton family; and out of these estates came, in part, that tragic +quarrel which ended the duke's career. + + ------------------------------------- + +From the loss of a tooth to that of a mistress there's no pang that is not +bearable. The apprehension is much more cruel than the certainty; and we +make up our mind to the misfortune when 'tis irremediable, part with the +tormentor, and mumble our crust on t'other side of the jaws. I think +Colonel Esmond was relieved when a ducal coach-and-six came and whisked +his charmer away out of his reach, and placed her in a higher sphere. As +you have seen the nymph in the opera-machine go up to the clouds at the +end of the piece where Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, and all the divine company +of Olympians are seated, and quaver out her last song as a goddess: so +when this portentous elevation was accomplished in the Esmond family, I am +not sure that every one of us did not treat the divine Beatrix with +special honours; at least, the saucy little beauty carried her head with a +toss of supreme authority, and assumed a touch-me-not air, which all her +friends very good-humouredly bowed to. + +An old army acquaintance of Colonel Esmond's, honest Tom Trett, who had +sold his company, married a wife, and turned merchant in the city, was +dreadfully gloomy for a long time, though living in a fine house on the +river, and carrying on a great trade to all appearance. At length Esmond +saw his friend's name in the _Gazette_ as a bankrupt; and a week after +this circumstance my bankrupt walks into Mr. Esmond's lodging with a face +perfectly radiant with good humour, and as jolly and careless as when they +had sailed from Southampton ten years before for Vigo. "This bankruptcy," +says Tom, "has been hanging over my head these three years; the thought +hath prevented my sleeping, and I have looked at poor Polly's head on +t'other pillow, and then towards my razor on the table, and thought to put +an end to myself, and so give my woes the slip. But now we are bankrupts: +Tom Trett pays as many shillings in the pound as he can; his wife has a +little cottage at Fulham, and her fortune secured to herself. I am afraid +neither of bailiff nor of creditor; and for the last six nights have slept +easy." So it was that when Fortune shook her wings and left him, honest +Tom cuddled himself up in his ragged virtue, and fell asleep. + +Esmond did not tell his friend how much his story applied to Esmond too; +but he laughed at it, and used it; and having fairly struck his docket in +this love transaction, determined to put a cheerful face on his +bankruptcy. Perhaps Beatrix was a little offended at his gaiety. "Is this +the way, sir, that you receive the announcement of your misfortune," says +she, "and do you come smiling before me as if you were glad to be rid of +me?" + +Esmond would not be put off from his good humour, but told her the story +of Tom Trett and his bankruptcy. "I have been hankering after the grapes +on the wall," says he, "and lost my temper because they were beyond my +reach; was there any wonder? They're gone now, and another has them--a +taller man than your humble servant has won them." And the colonel made +his cousin a low bow. + +"A taller man, cousin Esmond!" says she. "A man of spirit would have +scaled the wall, sir, and seized them! A man of courage would have fought +for 'em, not gaped for 'em." + +"A duke has but to gape and they drop into his mouth," says Esmond, with +another low bow. + +"Yes, sir," says she, "a duke _is_ a taller man than you. And why should I +not be grateful to one such as his grace, who gives me his heart and his +great name? It is a great gift he honours me with; I know 'tis a bargain +between us; and I accept it, and will do my utmost to perform my part of +it. 'Tis no question of sighing and philandering between a nobleman of his +grace's age and a girl who hath little of that softness in her nature. Why +should I not own that I am ambitious, Harry Esmond; and if it be no sin in +a man to covet honour, why should a woman too not desire it? Shall I be +frank with you, Harry, and say that if you had not been down on your +knees, and so humble, you might have fared better with me? A woman of my +spirit, cousin, is to be won by gallantry, and not by sighs and rueful +faces. All the time you are worshipping and singing hymns to me, I know +very well I am no goddess, and grow weary of the incense. So would you +have been weary of the goddess too--when she was called Mrs. Esmond, and +got out of humour because she had not pin-money enough, and was forced to +go about in an old gown. Eh! cousin, a goddess in a mob-cap, that has to +make her husband's gruel, ceases to be divine--I am sure of it. I should +have been sulky and scolded; and of all the proud wretches in the world +Mr. Esmond is the proudest, let me tell him that. You never fall into a +passion; but you never forgive, I think. Had you been a great man, you +might have been good humoured; but being nobody, sir, you are too great a +man for me; and I'm afraid of you, cousin--there; and I won't worship you, +and you'll never be happy except with a woman who will. Why, after I +belonged to you, and after one of my tantrums, you would have put the +pillow over my head some night, and smothered me, as the black man does +the woman in the play that you're so fond of. What's the creature's +name?--Desdemona. You would, you little black-eyed Othello!" + +"I think I should, Beatrix," says the colonel. + +"And I want no such ending. I intend to live to be a hundred, and to go to +ten thousand routs and balls, and to play cards every night of my life +till the year eighteen hundred. And I like to be the first of my company, +sir; and I like flattery and compliments, and you give me none; and I like +to be made to laugh, sir, and who's to laugh at _your_ dismal face, I +should like to know; and I like a coach-and-six or a coach-and-eight; and +I like diamonds, and a new gown every week; and people to say--'That's the +duchess--How well her grace looks--Make way for Madame l'Ambassadrice +d'Angleterre--Call her excellency's people'--that's what I like. And as for +you, you want a woman to bring your slippers and cap, and to sit at your +feet, and cry, 'O caro! O bravo!' whilst you read your Shakespeares, and +Miltons, and stuff. Mamma would have been the wife for you, had you been a +little older, though you look ten years older than she does--you do, you +glum-faced, blue-bearded, little old man! You might have sat, like Darby +and Joan, and flattered each other; and billed and cooed like a pair of +old pigeons on a perch. I want my wings and to use them, sir." And she +spread out her beautiful arms, as if indeed she could fly off like the +pretty "Gawrie", whom the man in the story was enamoured of. + +"And what will your Peter Wilkins say to your flight?" says Esmond, who +never admired this fair creature more than when she rebelled and laughed +at him. + +"A duchess knows her place," says she, with a laugh. "Why, I have a son +already made for me, and thirty years old (my Lord Arran), and four +daughters. How they will scold, and what a rage they will be in, when I +come to take the head of the table! But I give them only a month to be +angry; at the end of that time they shall love me every one, and so shall +Lord Arran, and so shall all his grace's Scots vassals and followers in +the Highlands. I'm bent on it; and, when I take a thing in my head, 'tis +done. His grace is the greatest gentleman in Europe, and I'll try and make +him happy; and, when the king comes back, you may count on my protection, +Cousin Esmond--for come back the king will and shall: and I'll bring him +back from Versailles, if he comes under my hoop." + +"I hope the world will make you happy, Beatrix," says Esmond, with a sigh. +"You'll be Beatrix till you are my lady duchess--will you not? I shall then +make your grace my very lowest bow." + +"None of these sighs and this satire, cousin," she says. "I take his +grace's great bounty thankfully--yes, thankfully; and will wear his honours +becomingly. I do not say he hath touched my heart; but he has my +gratitude, obedience, admiration--I have told him that, and no more; and +with that his noble heart is content. I have told him all--even the story +of that poor creature that I was engaged to--and that I could not love; and +I gladly gave his word back to him, and jumped for joy to get back my own. +I am twenty-five years old." + +"Twenty-six, my dear," says Esmond. + +"Twenty-five, sir--I choose to be twenty-five; and, in eight years, no man +hath ever touched my heart. Yes--you did once, for a little, Harry, when +you came back after Lille, and engaging with that murderer, Mohun, and +saving Frank's life. I thought I could like you; and mamma begged me hard, +on her knees, and I did--for a day. But the old chill came over me, Henry, +and the old fear of you and your melancholy; and I was glad when you went +away, and engaged with my Lord Ashburnham, that I might hear no more of +you, that's the truth. You are too good for me somehow. I could not make +you happy, and should break my heart in trying, and not being able to love +you. But if you had asked me when we gave you the sword, you might have +had me, sir, and we both should have been miserable by this time. I talked +with that silly lord all night just to vex you and mamma, and I succeeded, +didn't I? How frankly we can talk of these things! It seems a thousand +years ago: and, though we are here sitting in the same room, there's a +great wall between us. My dear, kind, faithful, gloomy old cousin! I can +like you now, and admire you too, sir, and say that you are brave, and +very kind, and very true, and a fine gentleman for all--for all your little +mishap at your birth," says she, wagging her arch head. + +"And now, sir," says she, with a curtsy, "we must have no more talk except +when mamma is by, as his grace is with us; for he does not half like you, +cousin, and is as jealous as the black man in your favourite play." + +Though the very kindness of the words stabbed Mr. Esmond with the keenest +pang, he did not show his sense of the wound by any look of his (as +Beatrix, indeed, afterwards owned to him), but said, with a perfect +command of himself and an easy smile, "The interview must not end yet, my +dear, until I have had my last word. Stay, here comes your mother" (indeed +she came in here with her sweet anxious face, and Esmond, going up, kissed +her hand respectfully). "My dear lady may hear, too, the last words, which +are no secrets, and are only a parting benediction accompanying a present +for your marriage from an old gentleman your guardian; for I feel as if I +was the guardian of all the family, and an old, old fellow that is fit to +be the grandfather of you all; and in this character let me make my lady +duchess her wedding present. They are the diamonds my father's widow left +me. I had thought Beatrix might have had them a year ago; but they are +good enough for a duchess, though not bright enough for the handsomest +woman in the world." And he took the case out of his pocket in which the +jewels were, and presented them to his cousin. + +She gave a cry of delight, for the stones were indeed very handsome, and +of great value; and the next minute the necklace was where Belinda's cross +is in Mr. Pope's admirable poem, and glittering on the whitest and most +perfectly-shaped neck in all England. + +The girl's delight at receiving these trinkets was so great, that after +rushing to the looking-glass and examining the effect they produced upon +that fair neck which they surrounded, Beatrix was running back with her +arms extended, and was perhaps for paying her cousin with a price, that he +would have liked no doubt to receive from those beautiful rosy lips of +hers, but at this moment the door opened, and his grace the bridegroom +elect was announced. + +He looked very black upon Mr. Esmond, to whom he made a very low bow +indeed, and kissed the hand of each lady in his most ceremonious manner. +He had come in his chair from the palace hard by, and wore his two stars +of the Garter and the Thistle. + +"Look, my lord duke," says Mrs. Beatrix, advancing to him, and showing the +diamonds on her breast. + +"Diamonds," says his grace. "Hm! they seem pretty." + +"They are a present on my marriage," says Beatrix. + +"From her Majesty?" asks the duke. "The queen is very good." + +"From my cousin Henry--from our cousin Henry"--cry both the ladies in a +breath. + +"I have not the honour of knowing the gentleman. I thought that my Lord +Castlewood had no brother: and that on your ladyship's side there were no +nephews." + +"From our cousin, Colonel Henry Esmond, my lord," says Beatrix, taking the +colonel's hand very bravely--"who was left guardian to us by our father, +and who has a hundred times shown his love and friendship for our family." + +"The Duchess of Hamilton receives no diamonds but from her husband, +madam," says the duke--"may I pray you to restore these to Mr. Esmond?" + +"Beatrix Esmond may receive a present from our kinsman and benefactor, my +lord duke," says Lady Castlewood, with an air of great dignity. "She is my +daughter yet: and if her mother sanctions the gift--no one else hath the +right to question it." + +"Kinsman and benefactor!" says the duke. "I know of no kinsman: and I do +not choose that my wife should have for benefactor a----" + +"My lord," says Colonel Esmond. + +"I am not here to bandy words," says his grace: "frankly I tell you that +your visits to this house are too frequent, and that I choose no presents +for the Duchess of Hamilton from gentlemen that bear a name they have no +right to." + +"My lord!" breaks out Lady Castlewood, "Mr. Esmond hath the best right to +that name of any man in the world: and 'tis as old and as honourable as +your grace's." + +My lord duke smiled, and looked as if Lady Castlewood was mad, that was so +talking to him. + +"If I called him benefactor," said my mistress, "it is because he has been +so to us--yes, the noblest, the truest, the bravest, the dearest of +benefactors. He would have saved my husband's life from Mohun's sword. He +did save my boy's, and defended him from that villain. Are those no +benefits?" + +"I ask Colonel Esmond's pardon," says his grace, if possible more haughty +than before; "I would say not a word that should give him offence, and +thank him for his kindness to your ladyship's family. My Lord Mohun and I +are connected, you know, by marriage--though neither by blood nor +friendship; but I must repeat what I said, that my wife can receive no +presents from Colonel Esmond." + +"My daughter may receive presents from the Head of our House: my daughter +may thankfully take kindness from her father's, her mother's, her +brother's dearest friend; and be grateful for one more benefit besides the +thousand we owe him," cries Lady Esmond. "What is a string of diamond +stones compared to that affection he hath given us--our dearest preserver +and benefactor? We owe him not only Frank's life, but our all--yes, our +all," says my mistress, with a heightened colour and a trembling voice. +"The title we bear is his, if he would claim it. 'Tis we who have no right +to our name: not he that's too great for it. He sacrificed his name at my +dying lord's bedside--sacrificed it to my orphan children; gave up rank and +honour because he loved us so nobly. His father was Viscount of Castlewood +and Marquis of Esmond before him; and he is his father's lawful son and +true heir, and we are the recipients of his bounty, and he the chief of a +house that's as old as your own. And if he is content to forgo his name +that my child may bear it, we love him and honour him and bless him under +whatever name he bears"--and here the fond and affectionate creature would +have knelt to Esmond again, but that he prevented her; and Beatrix, +running up to her with a pale face and a cry of alarm, embraced her and +said, "Mother, what is this?" + +"'Tis a family secret, my lord duke," says Colonel Esmond: "poor Beatrix +knew nothing of it: nor did my lady till a year ago. And I have as good a +right to resign my title as your grace's mother to abdicate hers to you." + +"I should have told everything to the Duke of Hamilton," said my mistress, +"had his grace applied to me for my daughter's hand, and not to Beatrix. I +should have spoken with you this very day in private, my lord, had not +your words brought about this sudden explanation--and now 'tis fit Beatrix +should hear it; and know, as I would have all the world know, what we owe +to our kinsman and patron." + +And then in her touching way, and having hold of her daughter's hand, and +speaking to her rather than my lord duke, Lady Castlewood told the story +which you know already--lauding up to the skies her kinsman's behaviour. On +his side Mr. Esmond explained the reasons that seemed quite sufficiently +cogent with him, why the succession in the family, as at present it stood, +should not be disturbed; and he should remain, as he was, Colonel Esmond. + +"And Marquis of Esmond, my lord," says his grace, with a low bow. "Permit +me to ask your lordship's pardon for words that were uttered in ignorance; +and to beg for the favour of your friendship. To be allied to you, sir, +must be an honour under whatever name you are known" (so his grace was +pleased to say): "and in return for the splendid present you make my wife, +your kinswoman, I hope you will please to command any service that James +Douglas can perform. I shall never be easy until I repay you a part of my +obligations at least; and ere very long, and with the mission her Majesty +hath given me," says the duke, "that may perhaps be in my power. I shall +esteem it as a favour, my lord, if Colonel Esmond will give away the +bride." + +"And if he will take the usual payment in advance, he is welcome," says +Beatrix, stepping up to him; and as Esmond kissed her, she whispered, "Oh, +why didn't I know you before?" + +My lord duke was as hot as a flame at this salute, but said never a word: +Beatrix made him a proud curtsy, and the two ladies quitted the room +together. + +"When does your excellency go for Paris?" asks Colonel Esmond. + +"As soon after the ceremony as may be," his grace answered. "'Tis fixed +for the first of December: it cannot be sooner. The equipage will not be +ready till then. The queen intends the embassy should be very grand--and I +have law business to settle. That ill-omened Mohun has come, or is coming, +to London again: we are in a lawsuit about my late Lord Gerard's property; +and he hath sent to me to meet him." + + + +Chapter V. Mohun Appears For The Last Time In This History + + +Besides my Lord Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who, for family reasons, had +kindly promised his protection and patronage to Colonel Esmond, he had +other great friends in power now, both able and willing to assist him, and +he might, with such allies, look forward to as fortunate advancement in +civil life at home as he had got rapid promotion abroad. His grace was +magnanimous enough to offer to take Mr. Esmond as secretary on his Paris +embassy, but no doubt he intended that proposal should be rejected; at any +rate, Esmond could not bear the thoughts of attending his mistress farther +than the church-door after her marriage, and so declined that offer which +his generous rival made him. + +Other gentlemen, in power, were liberal at least of compliments and +promises to Colonel Esmond. Mr. Harley, now become my Lord Oxford and +Mortimer, and installed Knight of the Garter on the same day as his grace +of Hamilton had received the same honour, sent to the colonel to say that +a seat in Parliament should be at his disposal presently, and Mr. St. John +held out many flattering hopes of advancement to the colonel when he +should enter the House. Esmond's friends were all successful, and the most +successful and triumphant of all was his dear old commander, General Webb, +who was now appointed Lieutenant-General of the Land Forces, and received +with particular honour by the ministry, by the queen, and the people out +of doors, who huzza'd the brave chief when they used to see him in his +chariot, going to the House or to the Drawing-room, or hobbling on foot to +his coach from St. Stephen's upon his glorious old crutch and stick, and +cheered him as loud as they had ever done Marlborough. + +That great duke was utterly disgraced; and honest old Webb dated all his +grace's misfortunes from Wynendael, and vowed that Fate served the traitor +right. Duchess Sarah had also gone to ruin; she had been forced to give up +her keys, and her places, and her pensions:--"Ah, ah!" says Webb, "she +would have locked up three millions of French crowns with her keys had I +but been knocked on the head, but I stopped that convoy at Wynendael." Our +enemy Cardonnel was turned out of the House of Commons (along with Mr. +Walpole) for malversation of public money. Cadogan lost his place of +Lieutenant of the Tower. Marlborough's daughters resigned their posts of +ladies of the bedchamber; and so complete was the duke's disgrace, that +his son-in-law, Lord Bridgewater, was absolutely obliged to give up his +lodging at St. James's, and had his half-pension, as Master of the Horse, +taken away. But I think the lowest depth of Marlborough's fall was when he +humbly sent to ask General Webb when he might wait upon him; he who had +commanded the stout old general, who had injured him and sneered at him, +who had kept him dangling in his antechamber, who could not even after his +great service condescend to write him a letter in his own hand. The nation +was as eager for peace, as ever it had been hot for war. The Prince of +Savoy came amongst us, had his audience of the queen, and got his famous +Sword of Honour, and strove with all his force to form a Whig party +together, to bring over the young Prince of Hanover--to do anything which +might prolong the war, and consummate the ruin of the old sovereign whom +he hated so implacably. But the nation was tired of the struggle; so +completely wearied of it that not even our defeat at Denain could rouse us +into any anger, though such an action so lost two years before, would have +set all England in a fury. 'Twas easy to see that the great Marlborough +was not with the army. Eugene was obliged to fall back in a rage, and +forgo the dazzling revenge of his life. 'Twas in vain the duke's side +asked, "Would we suffer our arms to be insulted? Would we not send back +the only champion who could repair our honour?" The nation had had its +bellyful of fighting; nor could taunts or outcries goad up our Britons any +more. + +For a statesman, that was always prating of liberty, and had the grandest +philosophic maxims in his mouth, it must be owned that Mr. St. John +sometimes rather acted like a Turkish than a Greek philosopher, and +especially fell foul of one unfortunate set of men, the men of letters, +with a tyranny a little extraordinary in a man who professed to respect +their calling so much. The literary controversy at this time was very +bitter, the Government side was the winning one, the popular one, and I +think might have been the merciful one. 'Twas natural that the Opposition +should be peevish and cry out; some men did so from their hearts, admiring +the Duke of Marlborough's prodigious talents, and deploring the disgrace +of the greatest general the world ever knew: 'twas the stomach that caused +other patriots to grumble, and such men cried out because they were poor, +and paid to do so. Against these my Lord Bolingbroke never showed the +slightest mercy, whipping a dozen into prison or into the pillory without +the least commiseration. + +From having been a man of arms Mr. Esmond had now come to be a man of +letters, but on a safer side than that in which the above-cited poor +fellows ventured their liberties and ears. There was no danger on ours, +which was the winning side; besides, Mr. Esmond pleased himself by +thinking that he writ like a gentleman if he did not always succeed as a +wit. + +Of the famous wits of that age, who have rendered Queen Anne's reign +illustrious, and whose works will be in all Englishmen's hands in ages yet +to come, Mr. Esmond saw many, but at public places chiefly; never having a +great intimacy with any of them, except with honest Dick Steele and Mr. +Addison, who parted company with Esmond, however, when that gentleman +became a declared Tory, and lived on close terms with the leading persons +of that party. Addison kept himself to a few friends, and very rarely +opened himself except in their company. A man more upright and +conscientious than he, it was not possible to find in public life, and one +whose conversation was so various, easy, and delightful. Writing now in my +mature years, I own that I think Addison's politics were the right, and +were my time to come over again, I would be a Whig in England and not a +Tory; but with people that take a side in politics, 'tis men rather than +principles that commonly bind them. A kindness or a slight puts a man +under one flag or the other, and he marches with it to the end of the +campaign. Esmond's master in war was injured by Marlborough, and hated +him: and the lieutenant fought the quarrels of his leader. Webb coming to +London was used as a weapon by Marlborough's enemies (and true steel he +was, that honest chief); nor was his aide de camp, Mr. Esmond, an +unfaithful or unworthy partisan. 'Tis strange here, and on a foreign soil, +and in a land that is independent in all but the name (for that the North +American colonies shall remain dependants on yonder little island for +twenty years more, I never can think), to remember how the nation at home +seemed to give itself up to the domination of one or other aristocratic +party, and took a Hanoverian king, or a French one, according as either +prevailed. And while the Tories, the October Club gentlemen, the High +Church parsons that held by the Church of England, were for having a +Papist king, for whom many of their Scottish and English leaders, firm +churchmen all, laid down their lives with admirable loyalty and devotion; +they were governed by men who had notoriously no religion at all, but used +it as they would use any opinion for the purpose of forwarding their own +ambition. The Whigs, on the other hand, who professed attachment to +religion and liberty too, were compelled to send to Holland or Hanover for +a monarch around whom they could rally. A strange series of compromises is +that English history; compromise of principle, compromise of party, +compromise of worship! The lovers of English freedom and independence +submitted their religious consciences to an Act of Parliament; could not +consolidate their liberty without sending to Zell or the Hague for a king +to live under; and could not find amongst the proudest people in the world +a man speaking their own language, and understanding their laws, to govern +them. The Tory and High Church patriots were ready to die in defence of a +Papist family that had sold us to France; the great Whig nobles, the +sturdy Republican recusants who had cut off Charles Stuart's head for +treason, were fain to accept a king whose title came to him through a +royal grandmother, whose own royal grandmother's head had fallen under +Queen Bess's hatchet. And our proud English nobles sent to a petty German +town for a monarch to come and reign in London; and our prelates kissed +the ugly hands of his Dutch mistresses, and thought it no dishonour. In +England you can but belong to one party or t'other, and you take the house +you live in with all its encumbrances, its retainers, its antique +discomforts, and ruins even; you patch up, but you never build up anew. +Will we of the New World submit much longer, even nominally, to this +ancient British superstition? There are signs of the times which make me +think that ere long we shall care as little about King George here, and +peers temporal and peers spiritual, as we do for King Canute or the +Druids. + +This chapter began about the wits, my grandson may say, and hath wandered +very far from their company. The pleasantest of the wits I knew were the +Doctors Garth and Arbuthnot, and Mr. Gay, the author of _Trivia_, the most +charming kind soul that ever laughed at a joke or cracked a bottle. Mr. +Prior I saw, and he was the earthen pot swimming with the pots of brass +down the stream, and always and justly frightened lest he should break in +the voyage. I met him both at London and Paris, where he was performing +piteous congees to the Duke of Shrewsbury, not having courage to support +the dignity which his undeniable genius and talent had won him, and +writing coaxing letters to Secretary St. John, and thinking about his +plate and his place, and what on earth should become of him should his +party go out. The famous Mr. Congreve I saw a dozen of times at Button's, +a splendid wreck of a man, magnificently attired, and though gouty, and +almost blind, bearing a brave face against fortune. + +The great Mr. Pope (of whose prodigious genius I have no words to express +my admiration) was quite a puny lad at this time, appearing seldom in +public places. There were hundreds of men, wits, and pretty fellows +frequenting the theatres and coffee-houses of that day--whom _nunc +prescribere longum est_. Indeed I think the most brilliant of that sort I +ever saw was not till fifteen years afterwards, when I paid my last visit +in England, and met young Harry Fielding, son of the Fielding that served +in Spain and afterwards in Flanders with us, and who for fun and humour +seemed to top them all. As for the famous Dr. Swift, I can say of him, +"_vidi tantum_." He was in London all these years up to the death of the +queen; and in a hundred public places where I saw him, but no more; he +never missed Court of a Sunday, where once or twice he was pointed out to +your grandfather. He would have sought me out eagerly enough had I been a +great man with a title to my name, or a star on my coat. At Court the +doctor had no eyes but for the very greatest. Lord Treasurer and St. John +used to call him Jonathan, and they paid him with this cheap coin for the +service they took of him. He writ their lampoons, fought their enemies, +flogged and bullied in their service, and it must be owned with a +consummate skill and fierceness. 'Tis said he hath lost his intellect now, +and forgotten his wrongs and his rage against mankind. I have always +thought of him and of Marlborough as the two greatest men of that age. I +have read his books (who doth not know them?) here in our calm woods, and +imagine a giant to myself as I think of him, a lonely fallen Prometheus, +groaning as the vulture tears him. Prometheus I saw, but when first I ever +had any words with him, the giant stepped out of a sedan-chair in the +Poultry, whither he had come with a tipsy Irish servant parading before +him, who announced him, bawling out his reverence's name, whilst his +master below was as yet haggling with the chairman. I disliked this Mr. +Swift, and heard many a story about him, of his conduct to men, and his +words to women. He could flatter the great as much as he could bully the +weak; and Mr. Esmond, being younger and hotter in that day than now, was +determined, should he ever meet this dragon, not to run away from his +teeth and his fire. + +Men have all sorts of motives which carry them onwards in life, and are +driven into acts of desperation, or it may be of distinction, from a +hundred different causes. There was one comrade of Esmond's, an honest +little Irish lieutenant of Handyside's, who owed so much money to a camp +sutler, that he began to make love to the man's daughter, intending to pay +his debt that way; and at the battle of Malplaquet, flying away from the +debt and lady too, he rushed so desperately on the French lines, that he +got his company; and came a captain out of the action, and had to marry +the sutler's daughter after all, who brought him his cancelled debt to her +father as poor Rogers's fortune. To run out of the reach of bill and +marriage, he ran on the enemy's pikes; and as these did not kill him he +was thrown back upon t'other horn of his dilemma. Our great duke at the +same battle was fighting, not the French, but the Tories in England; and +risking his life and the army's, not for his country but for his pay and +places; and for fear of his wife at home, that only being in life whom he +dreaded. I have asked about men in my own company (new drafts of poor +country boys were perpetually coming over to us during the wars, and +brought from the ploughshare to the sword), and found that a half of them +under the flags were driven thither on account of a woman: one fellow was +jilted by his mistress and took the shilling in despair; another jilted +the girl, and fled from her and the parish to the tents where the law +could not disturb him. Why go on particularizing? What can the sons of +Adam and Eve expect, but to continue in that course of love and trouble +their father and mother set out on? O my grandson! I am drawing nigh to +the end of that period of my history, when I was acquainted with the great +world of England and Europe, my years are past the Hebrew poet's limit, +and I say unto thee, all my troubles and joys too, for that matter, have +come from a woman; as thine will when thy destined course begins. 'Twas a +woman that made a soldier of me, that set me intriguing afterwards; I +believe I would have spun smocks for her had she so bidden me; what +strength I had in my head I would have given her; hath not every man in +his degree had his Omphale and Delilah? Mine befooled me on the banks of +the Thames, and in dear old England; thou mayest find thine own by +Rappahannoc. + +To please that woman then I tried to distinguish myself as a soldier, and +afterwards as a wit and a politician; as to please another I would have +put on a black cassock and a pair of bands, and had done so but that a +superior fate intervened to defeat that project. And I say, I think the +world is like Captain Esmond's company I spoke of anon; and, could you see +every man's career in life, you would find a woman clogging him; or +clinging round his march and stopping him; or cheering him and goading +him; or beckoning him out of her chariot, so that he goes up to her, and +leaves the race to be run without him; or bringing him the apple, and +saying "Eat"; or fetching him the daggers and whispering "Kill! yonder +lies Duncan, and a crown, and an opportunity". + +Your grandfather fought with more effect as a politician than as a wit; +and having private animosities and grievances of his own and his general's +against the great duke in command of the army, and more information on +military matters than most writers, who had never seen beyond the fire of +a tobacco-pipe at Wills's, he was enabled to do good service for that +cause which he embarked in, and for Mr. St. John and his party. But he +disdained the abuse in which some of the Tory writers indulged; for +instance, Dr. Swift, who actually chose to doubt the Duke of Marlborough's +courage, and was pleased to hint that his grace's military capacity was +doubtful: nor were Esmond's performances worse for the effect they were +intended to produce (though no doubt they could not injure the Duke of +Marlborough nearly so much in the public eyes as the malignant attacks of +Swift did, which were carefully directed so as to blacken and degrade +him), because they were writ openly and fairly by Mr. Esmond, who made no +disguise of them, who was now out of the army, and who never attacked the +prodigious courage and talents, only the selfishness and rapacity, of the +chief. + +The colonel then, having writ a paper for one of the Tory journals, called +the _Post-Boy_ (a letter upon Bouchain, that the town talked about for two +whole days, when the appearance of an Italian singer supplied a fresh +subject for conversation), and having business at the Exchange, where Mrs. +Beatrix wanted a pair of gloves or a fan very likely, Esmond went to +correct his paper, and was sitting at the printer's, when the famous Dr. +Swift came in, his Irish fellow with him that used to walk before his +chair, and bawled out his master's name with great dignity. + +Mr. Esmond was waiting for the printer too, whose wife had gone to the +tavern to fetch him, and was meantime engaged in drawing a picture of a +soldier on horseback for a dirty little pretty boy of the printer's wife, +whom she had left behind her. + +"I presume you are the editor of the _Post-Boy_, sir?" says the doctor, in +a grating voice that had an Irish twang; and he looked at the colonel from +under his two bushy eyebrows with a pair of very clear blue eyes. His +complexion was muddy, his figure rather fat, his chin double. He wore a +shabby cassock, and a shabby hat over his black wig, and he pulled out a +great gold watch, at which he looks very fierce. + +"I am but a contributor, Dr. Swift," says Esmond, with the little boy +still on his knee. He was sitting with his back in the window, so that the +doctor could not see him. + +"Who told you I was Dr. Swift?" says the doctor, eyeing the other very +haughtily. + +"Your reverence's valet bawled out your name," says the colonel. "I should +judge you brought him from Ireland." + +"And pray, sir, what right have you to judge whether my servant came from +Ireland or no? I want to speak with your employer, Mr. Leach. I'll thank +ye go fetch him." + +"Where's your papa, Tommy?" asks the colonel of the child, a smutty little +wretch in a frock. + +Instead of answering, the child begins to cry; the doctor's appearance had +no doubt frightened the poor little imp. + +"Send that squalling little brat about his business, and do what I bid ye, +sir," says the doctor. + +"I must finish the picture first for Tommy," says the colonel, laughing. +"Here, Tommy, will you have your Pandour with whiskers or without?" + +"Whisters," says Tommy, quite intent on the picture. + +"Who the devil are ye, sir?" cries the doctor; "are ye a printer's man or +are ye not?" he pronounced it like _naught_. + +"Your reverence needn't raise the devil to ask who I am," says Colonel +Esmond. "Did you ever hear of Dr. Faustus, little Tommy? or Friar Bacon, +who invented gunpowder, and set the Thames on fire?" + +Mr. Swift turned quite red, almost purple. "I did not intend any offence, +sir," says he. + +"I daresay, sir, you offended without meaning," says the other drily. + +"Who are ye, sir? Do you know who I am, sir? You are one of the pack of +Grub-Street scribblers that my friend Mr. Secretary hath laid by the +heels. How dare ye, sir, speak to me in this tone?" cries the doctor, in a +great fume. + +"I beg your honour's humble pardon if I have offended your honour," says +Esmond, in a tone of great humility. "Rather than be sent to the Compter, +or be put in the pillory, there's nothing I wouldn't do. But Mrs. Leach, +the printer's lady, told me to mind Tommy whilst she went for her husband +to the tavern, and I daren't leave the child lest he should fall into the +fire; but if your reverence will hold him----" + +"I take the little beast!" says the doctor, starting back. "I am engaged +to your betters, fellow. Tell Mr. Leach that when he makes an appointment +with Dr. Swift he had best keep it, do ye hear? And keep a respectful +tongue in your head, sir, when you address a person like me." + +"I'm but a poor broken-down soldier," says the colonel, "and I've seen +better days, though I am forced now to turn my hand to writing. We can't +help our fate, sir." + +"You're the person that Mr. Leach hath spoken to me of, I presume. Have +the goodness to speak civilly when you are spoken to--and tell Leach to +call at my lodgings in Bury Street, and bring the papers with him to-night +at ten o'clock. And the next time you see me, you'll know me, and be +civil, Mr. Kemp." + +Poor Kemp, who had been a lieutenant at the beginning of the war, and +fallen into misfortune, was the writer of the _Post-Boy_, and now took +honest Mr. Leach's pay in place of her Majesty's. Esmond had seen this +gentleman, and a very ingenious, hard-working honest fellow he was, +toiling to give bread to a great family, and watching up many a long +winter night to keep the wolf from his door. And Mr. St. John, who had +liberty always on his tongue, had just sent a dozen of the Opposition +writers into prison, and one actually into the pillory, for what he called +libels, but libels not half so violent as those writ on our side. With +regard to this very piece of tyranny, Esmond had remonstrated strongly +with the secretary, who laughed and said, the rascals were served quite +right; and told Esmond a joke of Swift's regarding the matter. Nay, more, +this Irishman, when St. John was about to pardon a poor wretch condemned +to death for rape, absolutely prevented the secretary from exercising this +act of good nature, and boasted that he had had the man hanged; and great +as the doctor's genius might be, and splendid his ability, Esmond for one +would affect no love for him, and never desired to make his acquaintance. +The doctor was at Court every Sunday assiduously enough, a place the +colonel frequented but rarely, though he had a great inducement to go +there in the person of a fair maid of honour of her Majesty's; and the +airs and patronage Mr. Swift gave himself, forgetting gentlemen of his +country whom he knew perfectly, his loud talk at once insolent and +servile, nay, perhaps his very intimacy with lord treasurer and the +secretary, who indulged all his freaks and called him Jonathan, you may be +sure, were remarked by many a person of whom the proud priest himself took +no note, during that time of his vanity and triumph. + +'Twas but three days after the 15th of November, 1712 (Esmond minds him +well of the date), that he went by invitation to dine with his general, +the foot of whose table he used to take on these festive occasions, as he +had done at many a board, hard and plentiful, during the campaign. This +was a great feast, and of the latter sort; the honest old gentleman loved +to treat his friends splendidly: his grace of Ormonde, before he joined +his army as generalissimo, my Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, one of her +Majesty's secretaries of state, my Lord Orkney, that had served with us +abroad, being of the party. His grace of Hamilton, master of the ordnance, +and in whose honour the feast had been given, upon his approaching +departure as ambassador to Paris, had sent an excuse to General Webb at +two o'clock, but an hour before the dinner: nothing but the most immediate +business, his grace said, should have prevented him having the pleasure of +drinking a parting glass to the health of General Webb. His absence +disappointed Esmond's old chief, who suffered much from his wounds +besides; and though the company was grand, it was rather gloomy. St. John +came last, and brought a friend with him:--"I'm sure," says my general, +bowing very politely, "my table hath always a place for Dr. Swift." + +Mr. Esmond went up to the doctor with a bow and a smile:--"I gave Dr. +Swift's message," says he, "to the printer: I hope he brought your +pamphlet to your lodgings in time." Indeed poor Leach had come to his +house very soon after the doctor left it, being brought away rather tipsy +from the tavern by his thrifty wife; and he talked of cousin Swift in a +maudlin way, though of course Mr. Esmond did not allude to this +relationship. The doctor scowled, blushed, and was much confused, and said +scarce a word during the whole of dinner. A very little stone will +sometimes knock down these Goliaths of wit; and this one was often +discomfited when met by a man of any spirit; he took his place sulkily, +put water in his wine that the others drank plentifully, and scarce said a +word. + +The talk was about the affairs of the day, or rather about persons than +affairs: my Lady Marlborough's fury, her daughters in old clothes and +mob-caps looking out from their windows and seeing the company pass to the +Drawing-room; the gentleman-usher's horror when the Prince of Savoy was +introduced to her Majesty in a tie-wig, no man out of a full-bottomed +periwig ever having kissed the royal hand before; about the Mohawks and +the damage they were doing, rushing through the town, killing and +murdering. Some one said the ill-omened face of Mohun had been seen at the +theatre the night before, and Macartney and Meredith with him. Meant to be +a feast, the meeting, in spite of drink, and talk, was as dismal as a +funeral. Every topic started subsided into gloom. His grace of Ormonde +went away because the conversation got upon Denain, where we had been +defeated in the last campaign. Esmond's general was affected at the +allusion to this action too, for his comrade of Wynendael, the Count of +Nassau-Woudenberg, had been slain there. Mr. Swift, when Esmond pledged +him, said he drank no wine, and took his hat from the peg and went away, +beckoning my Lord Bolingbroke to follow him; but the other bade him take +his chariot and save his coach-hire, he had to speak with Colonel Esmond; +and when the rest of the company withdrew to cards, these two remained +behind in the dark. + +Bolingbroke always spoke freely when he had drunk freely. His enemies +could get any secret out of him in that condition; women were even +employed to ply him, and take his words down. I have heard that my Lord +Stair, three years after, when the secretary fled to France and became the +pretender's minister, got all the information he wanted by putting female +spies over St. John in his cups. He spoke freely now:--"Jonathan knows +nothing of this for certain, though he suspects it, and by George, Webb +will take an archbishopric, and Jonathan a--no, damme--Jonathan will take an +archbishopric from James, I warrant me, gladly enough. Your duke hath the +string of the whole matter in his hand," the secretary went on. "We have +that which will force Marlborough to keep his distance, and he goes out of +London in a fortnight. Prior hath his business; he left me this morning, +and mark me, Harry, should fate carry off our august, our beloved, our +most gouty and plethoric queen, and defender of the faith, _la bonne cause +triomphera. A la sante de la bonne cause!_ Everything good comes from +France. Wine comes from France; give us another bumper to the _bonne +cause_." We drank it together. + +"Will the _bonne cause_ turn Protestant?" asked Mr. Esmond. + +"No, hang it," says the other, "he'll defend our faith as in duty bound, +but he'll stick by his own. The Hind and the Panther shall run in the same +car, by Jove. Righteousness and peace shall kiss each other; and we'll +have Father Massillon to walk down the aisle of St. Paul's, cheek by jowl, +with Dr. Sacheverel. Give us more wine; here's a health to the _bonne +cause_, kneeling--damme, let's drink it kneeling." He was quite flushed and +wild with wine as he was talking. + +"And suppose," says Esmond, who always had this gloomy apprehension, "the +_bonne cause_ should give us up to the French, as his father and uncle did +before him?" + +"Give us up to the French!" starts up Bolingbroke; "is there any English +gentleman that fears that? You who have seen Blenheim and Ramillies, +afraid of the French! Your ancestors and mine, and brave old Webb's +yonder, have met them in a hundred fields, and our children will be ready +to do the like. Who's he that wishes for more men from England? My cousin +Westmoreland? Give us up to the French, pshaw!" + +"His uncle did," says Mr. Esmond. + +"And what happened to his grandfather?" broke out St. John, filling out +another bumper. "Here's to the greatest monarch England ever saw; here's +to the Englishman that made a kingdom of her. Our great king came from +Huntingdon, not Hanover; our fathers didn't look for a Dutchman to rule +us. Let him come and we'll keep him, and we'll show him Whitehall. If he's +a traitor let us have him here to deal with him; and then there are +spirits here as great as any that have gone before. There are men here +that can look at danger in the face and not be frightened at it. Traitor, +treason! what names are these to scare you and me? Are all Oliver's men +dead, or his glorious name forgotten in fifty years? Are there no men +equal to him, think you, as good--aye, as good? God save the king! and, if +the monarchy fails us, God save the British republic!" + +He filled another great bumper, and tossed it up and drained it wildly, +just as the noise of rapid carriage-wheels approaching was stopped at our +door, and after a hurried knock and a moment's interval, Mr. Swift came +into the hall, ran upstairs to the room we were dining in, and entered it +with a perturbed face. St. John, excited with drink, was making some wild +quotation out of _Macbeth_, but Swift stopped him. + +"Drink no more, my lord, for God's sake," says he, "I come with the most +dreadful news." + +"Is the queen dead?" cries out Bolingbroke, seizing on a water-glass. + +"No, Duke Hamilton is dead, he was murdered an hour ago by Mohun and +Macartney; they had a quarrel this morning; they gave him not so much time +as to write a letter. He went for a couple of his friends, and he is dead, +and Mohun, too, the bloody villain, who was set on him. They fought in +Hyde Park just before sunset; the duke killed Mohun, and Macartney came up +and stabbed him, and the dog is fled. I have your chariot below; send to +every part of the country and apprehend that villain; come to the duke's +house and see if any life be left in him." + +"O Beatrix, Beatrix," thought Esmond, "and here ends my poor girl's +ambition!" + + + +Chapter VI. Poor Beatrix + + +There had been no need to urge upon Esmond the necessity of a separation +between him and Beatrix: Fate had done that completely; and I think from +the very moment poor Beatrix had accepted the duke's offer, she began to +assume the majestic air of a duchess, nay, queen elect, and to carry +herself as one sacred and removed from us common people. Her mother and +kinsman both fell into her ways, the latter scornfully perhaps, and +uttering his usual gibes at her vanity and his own. There was a certain +charm about this girl of which neither Colonel Esmond nor his fond +mistress could forgo the fascination; in spite of her faults and her pride +and wilfulness, they were forced to love her; and, indeed, might be set +down as the two chief flatterers of the brilliant creature's court. + +Who, in the course of his life, hath not been so bewitched, and worshipped +some idol or another? Years after this passion hath been dead and buried, +along with a thousand other worldly cares and ambitions, he who felt it +can recall it out of its grave, and admire, almost as fondly as he did in +his youth, that lovely queenly creature. I invoke that beautiful spirit +from the shades and love her still; or rather I should say such a past is +always present to a man; such a passion once felt forms a part of his +whole being, and cannot be separated from it; it becomes a portion of the +man of to-day, just as any great faith or conviction, the discovery of +poetry, the awakening of religion, ever afterward influence him; just as +the wound I had at Blenheim, and of which I wear the scar, hath become +part of my frame and influenced my whole body, nay spirit, subsequently, +though 'twas got and healed forty years ago. Parting and forgetting! What +faithful heart can do these? Our great thoughts, our great affections, the +Truths of our life, never leave us. Surely, they cannot separate from our +consciousness; shall follow it whithersoever that shall go; and are of +their nature divine and immortal. + +With the horrible news of this catastrophe, which was confirmed by the +weeping domestics at the duke's own door, Esmond rode homewards as quick +as his lazy coach would carry him, devising all the time how he should +break the intelligence to the person most concerned in it; and if a satire +upon human vanity could be needed, that poor soul afforded it in the +altered company and occupations in which Esmond found her. For days +before, her chariot had been rolling the street from mercer to +toyshop--from goldsmith to laceman: her taste was perfect, or at least the +fond bridegroom had thought so, and had given entire authority over all +tradesmen, and for all the plate, furniture, and equipages, with which his +grace the ambassador wished to adorn his splendid mission. She must have +her picture by Kneller, a duchess not being complete without a portrait, +and a noble one he made, and actually sketched in, on a cushion, a coronet +which she was about to wear. She vowed she would wear it at King James the +Third's coronation, and never a princess in the land would have become +ermine better. Esmond found the antechamber crowded with milliners and +toyshop women, obsequious goldsmiths with jewels, salvers, and tankards; +and mercer's men with hangings, and velvets, and brocades. My lady duchess +elect was giving audience to one famous silversmith from Exeter "Change," +who brought with him a great chased salver, of which he was pointing out +the beauties as Colonel Esmond entered. "Come," says she, "cousin, and +admire the taste of this pretty thing." I think Mars and Venus were lying +in the golden bower, that one gilt Cupid carried off the war-god's +casque--another his sword--another his great buckler, upon which my Lord +Duke Hamilton's arms with ours were to be engraved--and a fourth was +kneeling down to the reclining goddess with the ducal coronet in his +hands, God help us! The next time Mr. Esmond saw that piece of plate, the +arms were changed, the ducal coronet had been replaced by a viscount's; it +formed part of the fortune of the thrifty goldsmith's own daughter, when +she married my Lord Viscount Squanderfield two years after. + +"Isn't this a beautiful piece?" says Beatrix, examining it, and she +pointed out the arch graces of the Cupids, and the fine carving of the +languid prostrate Mars. Esmond sickened as he thought of the warrior dead +in his chamber, his servants and children weeping around him; and of this +smiling creature attiring herself, as it were, for that nuptial death-bed. +"'Tis a pretty piece of vanity," says he, looking gloomily at the +beautiful creature: there were flambeaux in the room lighting up the +brilliant mistress of it. She lifted up the great gold salver with her +fair arms. + +"Vanity!" says she haughtily. "What is vanity in you, sir, is propriety in +me. You ask a Jewish price for it, Mr. Graves; but have it I will, if only +to spite Mr. Esmond." + +"O Beatrix, lay it down!" says Mr. Esmond. "Herodias! you know not what +you carry in the charger." + +She dropped it with a clang; the eager goldsmith running to seize his +fallen ware. The lady's face caught the fright from Esmond's pale +countenance, and her eyes shone out like beacons of alarm:--"What is it, +Henry?" says she, running to him, and seizing both his hands. "What do you +mean by your pale face and gloomy tones?" + +"Come away, come away!" says Esmond, leading her: she clung frightened to +him, and he supported her upon his heart, bidding the scared goldsmith +leave them. The man went into the next apartment, staring with surprise, +and hugging his precious charger. + +"O my Beatrix, my sister!" says Esmond, still holding in his arms the +pallid and affrighted creature, "you have the greatest courage of any +woman in the world; prepare to show it now, for you have a dreadful trial +to bear." + +She sprang away from the friend who would have protected her:--"Hath he +left me?" says she. "We had words this morning: he was very gloomy, and I +angered him: but he dared not, he dared not!" As she spoke a burning blush +flushed over her whole face and bosom. Esmond saw it reflected in the +glass by which she stood, with clenched hands, pressing her swelling +heart. + +"He has left you," says Esmond, wondering that rage rather than sorrow was +in her looks. + +"And he is alive," cries Beatrix, "and you bring me this commission! He +has left me, and you haven't dared to avenge me! You, that pretend to be +the champion of our house, have let me suffer this insult! Where is +Castlewood? I will go to my brother." + +"The duke is not alive, Beatrix," said Esmond. + +She looked at her cousin wildly, and fell back to the wall as though shot +in the breast:--"And you come here, and--and--you killed him?" + +"No; thank Heaven," her kinsman said, "the blood of that noble heart doth +not stain my sword! In its last hour it was faithful to thee, Beatrix +Esmond. Vain and cruel woman! kneel and thank the awful Heaven which +awards life and death, and chastises pride, that the noble Hamilton died +true to you; at least that 'twas not your quarrel, or your pride, or your +wicked vanity, that drove him to his fate. He died by the bloody sword +which already had drank your own father's blood. O woman, O sister! to +that sad field where two corpses are lying--for the murderer died too by +the hand of the man he slew--can you bring no mourners but your revenge and +your vanity? God help and pardon thee, Beatrix, as He brings this awful +punishment to your hard and rebellious heart." + +Esmond had scarce done speaking, when his mistress came in. The colloquy +between him and Beatrix had lasted but a few minutes, during which time +Esmond's servant had carried the disastrous news through the household. +The army of Vanity Fair, waiting without, gathered up all their fripperies +and fled aghast. Tender Lady Castlewood had been in talk above with Dean +Atterbury, the pious creature's almoner and director; and the dean had +entered with her as a physician whose place was at a sick-bed. Beatrix's +mother looked at Esmond and ran towards her daughter, with a pale face and +open heart and hands, all kindness and pity. But Beatrix passed her by, +nor would she have any of the medicaments of the spiritual physician. "I +am best in my own room and by myself," she said. Her eyes were quite dry; +nor did Esmond ever see them otherwise, save once, in respect to that +grief. She gave him a cold hand as she went out: "Thank you, brother," she +said, in a low voice, and with a simplicity more touching than tears; "all +you have said is true and kind, and I will go away and ask pardon." The +three others remained behind, and talked over the dreadful story. It +affected Dr. Atterbury more even than us, as it seemed. The death of +Mohun, her husband's murderer, was more awful to my mistress than even the +duke's unhappy end. Esmond gave at length what particulars he knew of +their quarrel, and the cause of it. The two noblemen had long been at war +with respect to the Lord Gerard's property, whose two daughters my lord +duke and Mohun had married. They had met by appointment that day at the +lawyer's in Lincoln's Inn Fields; had words which, though they appeared +very trifling to those who heard them, were not so to men exasperated by +long and previous enmity. Mohun asked my lord duke where he could see his +grace's friends, and within an hour had sent two of his own to arrange +this deadly duel. It was pursued with such fierceness, and sprung from so +trifling a cause, that all men agreed at the time that there was a party, +of which these three notorious brawlers were but agents, who desired to +take Duke Hamilton's life away. They fought three on a side, as in that +tragic meeting twelve years back, which hath been recounted already, and +in which Mohun performed his second murder. They rushed in, and closed +upon each other at once without any feints or crossing of swords even, and +stabbed one at the other desperately, each receiving many wounds; and +Mohun having his death-wound, and my lord duke lying by him, Macartney +came up and stabbed his grace as he lay on the ground, and gave him the +blow of which he died. Colonel Macartney denied this, of which the horror +and indignation of the whole kingdom would nevertheless have him guilty, +and fled the country, whither he never returned. + +What was the real cause of the Duke Hamilton's death--a paltry quarrel that +might easily have been made up, and with a ruffian so low, base, +profligate, and degraded with former crimes and repeated murders, that a +man of such a renown and princely rank as my lord duke might have +disdained to sully his sword with the blood of such a villain. But his +spirit was so high that those who wished his death knew that his courage +was like his charity, and never turned any man away; and he died by the +hands of Mohun, and the other two cut-throats that were set on him. The +queen's ambassador to Paris died, the loyal and devoted servant of the +House of Stuart, and a royal prince of Scotland himself, and carrying the +confidence, the repentance of Queen Anne along with his own open devotion, +and the goodwill of millions in the country more, to the queen's exiled +brother and sovereign. + +That party to which Lord Mohun belonged had the benefit of his service, +and now were well rid of such a ruffian. He, and Meredith, and Macartney, +were the Duke of Marlborough's men; and the two colonels had been broke +but the year before for drinking perdition to the Tories. His grace was a +Whig now and a Hanoverian, and as eager for war as Prince Eugene himself. +I say not that he was privy to Duke Hamilton's death, I say that his party +profited by it; and that three desperate and bloody instruments were found +to effect that murder. + +As Esmond and the dean walked away from Kensington discoursing of this +tragedy, and how fatal it was to the cause which they both had at heart; +the street-criers were already out with their broadsides, shouting through +the town the full, true, and horrible account of the death of Lord Mohun +and Duke Hamilton in a duel. A fellow had got to Kensington, and was +crying it in the square there at very early morning, when Mr. Esmond +happened to pass by. He drove the man from under Beatrix's very window, +whereof the casement had been set open. The sun was shining though 'twas +November: he had seen the market-carts rolling into London, the guard +relieved at the Palace, the labourers trudging to their work in the +gardens between Kensington and the City--the wandering merchants and +hawkers filling the air with their cries. The world was going to its +business again, although dukes lay dead and ladies mourned for them; and +kings, very likely, lost their chances. So night and day pass away, and +to-morrow comes, and our place knows us not. Esmond thought of the +courier, now galloping on the north road to inform him, who was Earl of +Arran yesterday, that he was Duke of Hamilton to-day, and of a thousand +great schemes, hopes, ambitions, that were alive in the gallant heart, +beating a few hours since, and now in a little dust quiescent. + + + +Chapter VII. I Visit Castlewood Once More + + +Thus, for a third time, Beatrix's ambitious hopes were circumvented, and +she might well believe that a special malignant fate watched and pursued +her, tearing her prize out of her hand just as she seemed to grasp it, and +leaving her with only rage and grief for her portion. Whatever her +feelings might have been of anger or of sorrow (and I fear me that the +former emotion was that which most tore her heart), she would take no +confidant, as people of softer natures would have done under such a +calamity; her mother and her kinsman knew that she would disdain their +pity, and that to offer it would be but to infuriate the cruel wound which +fortune had inflicted. We knew that her pride was awfully humbled and +punished by this sudden and terrible blow; she wanted no teaching of ours +to point out the sad moral of her story. Her fond mother could give but +her prayers, and her kinsman his faithful friendship and patience to the +unhappy stricken creature; and it was only by hints, and a word or two +uttered months afterwards, that Beatrix showed she understood their silent +commiseration, and on her part was secretly thankful for their +forbearance. The people about the Court said there was that in her manner +which frightened away scoffing and condolence: she was above their triumph +and their pity, and acted her part in that dreadful tragedy greatly and +courageously; so that those who liked her least were yet forced to admire +her. We, who watched her after her disaster, could not but respect the +indomitable courage and majestic calm with which she bore it. "I would +rather see her tears than her pride," her mother said, who was accustomed +to bear her sorrows in a very different way, and to receive them as the +stroke of God, with an awful submission and meekness. But Beatrix's nature +was different to that tender parent's; she seemed to accept her grief, and +to defy it; nor would she allow it (I believe not even in private, and in +her own chamber) to extort from her the confession of even a tear of +humiliation or a cry of pain. Friends and children of our race, who come +after me, in which way will you bear your trials? I know one that prays +God will give you love rather than pride, and that the Eye all-seeing +shall find you in the humble place. Not that we should judge proud spirits +otherwise than charitably. 'Tis nature hath fashioned some for ambition +and dominion, as it hath formed others for obedience and gentle +submission. The leopard follows his nature as the lamb does, and acts +after leopard law; she can neither help her beauty, nor her courage, nor +her cruelty; nor a single spot on her shining coat; nor the conquering +spirit which impels her; nor the shot which brings her down. + + ------------------------------------- + +During that well-founded panic the Whigs had, lest the queen should +forsake their Hanoverian prince, bound by oaths and treaties as she was to +him, and recall her brother, who was allied to her by yet stronger ties of +nature and duty; the Prince of Savoy, and the boldest of that party of the +Whigs, were for bringing the young Duke of Cambridge over, in spite of the +queen and the outcry of her Tory servants, arguing that the electoral +prince, a peer and prince of the blood-royal of this realm too, and in the +line of succession to the crown, had a right to sit in the Parliament +whereof he was a member, and to dwell in the country which he one day was +to govern. Nothing but the strongest ill will expressed by the queen, and +the people about her, and menaces of the royal resentment, should this +scheme be persisted in, prevented it from being carried into effect. + +The boldest on our side were, in like manner, for having our prince into +the country. The undoubted inheritor of the right divine; the feelings of +more than half the nation, of almost all the clergy, of the gentry of +England and Scotland with him; entirely innocent of the crime for which +his father suffered--brave, young, handsome, unfortunate--who in England +would dare to molest the prince should he come among us, and fling himself +upon British generosity, hospitality, and honour? An invader with an army +of Frenchmen behind him, Englishmen of spirit would resist to the death, +and drive back to the shores whence he came; but a prince, alone, armed +with his right only, and relying on the loyalty of his people, was sure, +many of his friends argued, of welcome, at least of safety, among us. The +hand of his sister the queen, of the people his subjects, never could be +raised to do him a wrong. But the queen was timid by nature, and the +successive ministers she had, had private causes for their irresolution. +The bolder and honester men, who had at heart the illustrious young +exile's cause, had no scheme of interest of their own to prevent them from +seeing the right done, and, provided only he came as an Englishman, were +ready to venture their all to welcome and defend him. + +St. John and Harley both had kind words in plenty for the prince's +adherents, and gave him endless promises of future support; but hints and +promises were all they could be got to give; and some of his friends were +for measures much bolder, more efficacious, and more open. With a party of +these, some of whom are yet alive, and some whose names Mr. Esmond has no +right to mention, he found himself engaged the year after that miserable +death of Duke Hamilton, which deprived the prince of his most courageous +ally in this country. Dean Atterbury was one of the friends whom Esmond +may mention, as the brave bishop is now beyond exile and persecution, and +to him, and one or two more, the colonel opened himself of a scheme of his +own, that, backed by a little resolution on the prince's part, could not +fail of bringing about the accomplishment of their dearest wishes. + +My young Lord Viscount Castlewood had not come to England to keep his +majority, and had now been absent from the country for several years. The +year when his sister was to be married and Duke Hamilton died, my lord was +kept at Bruxelles by his wife's lying-in. The gentle Clotilda could not +bear her husband out of her sight; perhaps she mistrusted the young +scapegrace should he ever get loose from her leading-strings; and she kept +him by her side to nurse the baby and administer posset to the gossips. +Many a laugh poor Beatrix had had about Frank's uxoriousness: his mother +would have gone to Clotilda when her time was coming, but that the +mother-in-law was already in possession, and the negotiations for poor +Beatrix's marriage were begun. A few months after the horrid catastrophe +in Hyde Park, my mistress and her daughter retired to Castlewood, where my +lord, it was expected, would soon join them. But, to say truth, their +quiet household was little to his taste; he could be got to come to +Walcote but once after his first campaign; and then the young rogue spent +more than half his time in London, not appearing at Court, or in public +under his own name and title, but frequenting plays, bagnios, and the very +worst company, under the name of Captain Esmond (whereby his innocent +kinsman got more than once into trouble); and so under various pretexts, +and in pursuit of all sorts of pleasures, until he plunged into the lawful +one of marriage, Frank Castlewood had remained away from this country, and +was unknown, save amongst the gentlemen of the army, with whom he had +served abroad. The fond heart of his mother was pained by this long +absence. 'Twas all that Henry Esmond could do to soothe her natural +mortification, and find excuses for his kinsman's levity. + +In the autumn of the year 1713, Lord Castlewood thought of returning home. +His first child had been a daughter; Clotilda was in the way of gratifying +his lordship with a second, and the pious youth thought that, by bringing +his wife to his ancestral home, by prayers to St. Philip of Castlewood, +and what not, Heaven might be induced to bless him with a son this time, +for whose coming the expectant mamma was very anxious. + +The long-debated peace had been proclaimed this year at the end of March; +and France was open to us. Just as Frank's poor mother had made all things +ready for Lord Castlewood's reception, and was eagerly expecting her son, +it was by Colonel Esmond's means that the kind lady was disappointed of +her longing, and obliged to defer once more the darling hope of her heart. + +Esmond took horses to Castlewood. He had not seen its ancient grey towers +and well-remembered woods for nearly fourteen years, and since he rode +thence with my lord, to whom his mistress with her young children by her +side waved an adieu, what ages seem to have passed since then, what years +of action and passion, of care, love, hope, disaster! The children were +grown up now, and had stories of their own. As for Esmond, he felt to be a +hundred years old; his dear mistress only seemed unchanged; she looked and +welcomed him quite as of old. There was the fountain in the court babbling +its familiar music, the old hall and its furniture, the carved chair my +late lord used, the very flagon he drank from. Esmond's mistress knew he +would like to sleep in the little room he used to occupy; 'twas made ready +for him, and wall-flowers and sweet herbs set in the adjoining chamber, +the chaplain's room. + +In tears of not unmanly emotion, with prayers of submission to the awful +Dispenser of death and life, of good and evil fortune, Mr. Esmond passed a +part of that first night at Castlewood, lying awake for many hours as the +clock kept tolling (in tones so well remembered), looking back, as all men +will, that revisit their home of childhood, over the great gulf of time, +and surveying himself on the distant bank yonder, a sad little melancholy +boy, with his lord still alive--his dear mistress, a girl yet, her children +sporting around her. Years ago, a boy on that very bed, when she had +blessed him and called him her knight, he had made a vow to be faithful +and never desert her dear service. Had he kept that fond boyish promise? +Yes, before Heaven; yes, praise be to God! His life had been hers; his +blood, his fortune, his name, his whole heart ever since had been hers and +her children's. All night long he was dreaming his boyhood over again, and +waking fitfully; he half fancied he heard Father Holt calling to him from +the next chamber, and that he was coming in and out from the mysterious +window. + +Esmond rose up before the dawn, passed into the next room, where the air +was heavy with the odour of the wall-flowers; looked into the brasier +where the papers had been burnt, into the old presses where Holt's books +and papers had been kept, and tried the spring, and whether the window +worked still. The spring had not been touched for years, but yielded at +length, and the whole fabric of the window sank down. He lifted it and it +relapsed into its frame; no one had ever passed thence since Holt used it +sixteen years ago. + +Esmond remembered his poor lord saying, on the last day of his life, that +Holt used to come in and out of the house like a ghost, and knew that the +father liked these mysteries, and practised such secret disguises, +entrances, and exits; this was the way the ghost came and went, his pupil +had always conjectured. Esmond closed the casement up again as the dawn +was rising over Castlewood village; he could hear the clinking at the +blacksmith's forge yonder among the trees, across the green, and past the +river, on which a mist still lay sleeping. + +Next Esmond opened that long cupboard over the woodwork of the +mantelpiece, big enough to hold a man, and in which Mr. Holt used to keep +sundry secret properties of his. The two swords he remembered so well as a +boy, lay actually there still, and Esmond took them out and wiped them, +with a strange curiosity of emotion. There were a bundle of papers here, +too, which no doubt had been left at Holt's last visit to the place, in my +lord viscount's life, that very day when the priest had been arrested and +taken to Hexham Castle. Esmond made free with these papers, and found +treasonable matter of King William's reign, the names of Charnock and +Perkins, Sir John Fenwick and Sir John Friend, Rookwood and Lodwick, Lords +Montgomery and Ailesbury, Clarendon and Yarmouth, that had all been +engaged in plots against the usurper; a letter from the Duke of Berwick +too, and one from the king at St. Germains, offering to confer upon his +trusty and well-beloved Francis Viscount Castlewood the titles of Earl and +Marquis of Esmond, bestowed by patent royal, and in the fourth year of his +reign, upon Thomas Viscount Castlewood and the heirs male of his body, in +default of which issue the ranks and dignities were to pass to Francis +aforesaid. + +This was the paper, whereof my lord had spoken, which Holt showed him the +very day he was arrested, and for an answer to which he would come back in +a week's time. I put these papers hastily into the crypt whence I had +taken them, being interrupted by a tapping of a light finger at the ring +of the chamber-door: 'twas my kind mistress, with her face full of love +and welcome. She, too, had passed the night wakefully, no doubt; but +neither asked the other how the hours had been spent. There are things we +divine without speaking, and know though they happen out of our sight. +This fond lady hath told me that she knew both days when I was wounded +abroad. Who shall say how far sympathy reaches, and how truly love can +prophesy? "I looked into your room," was all she said; "the bed was +vacant, the little old bed! I knew I should find you here." And tender and +blushing faintly with a benediction in her eyes, the gentle creature +kissed him. + +They walked out, hand-in-hand, through the old court, and to the +terrace-walk, where the grass was glistening with dew, and the birds in +the green woods above were singing their delicious choruses under the +blushing morning sky. How well all things were remembered! The ancient +towers and gables of the hall darkling against the east, the purple +shadows on the green slopes, the quaint devices and carvings of the dial, +the forest-crowned heights, the fair yellow plain cheerful with crops and +corn, the shining river rolling through it towards the pearly hills +beyond; all these were before us, along with a thousand beautiful memories +of our youth, beautiful and sad, but as real and vivid in our minds as +that fair and always-remembered scene our eyes beheld once more. We forget +nothing. The memory sleeps, but awakens again; I often think how it shall +be when, after the last sleep of death, the reveille shall arouse us for +ever, and the past in one flash of self-consciousness rush back, like the +soul, revivified. + +The house would not be up for some hours yet (it was July, and the dawn +was only just awake), and here Esmond opened himself to his mistress, of +the business he had in hand, and what part Frank was to play in it. He +knew he could confide anything to her, and that the fond soul would die +rather than reveal it; and bidding her keep the secret from all, he laid +it entirely before his mistress (always as stanch a little loyalist as any +in the kingdom), and indeed was quite sure that any plan of his was secure +of her applause and sympathy. Never was such a glorious scheme to her +partial mind, never such a devoted knight to execute it. An hour or two +may have passed whilst they were having their colloquy. Beatrix came out +to them just as their talk was over; her tall beautiful form robed in +sable (which she wore without ostentation ever since last year's +catastrophe), sweeping over the green terrace, and casting its shadows +before her across the grass. + +She made us one of her grand curtsies smiling, and called us "the young +people". She was older, paler, and more majestic than in the year before; +her mother seemed the youngest of the two. She never once spoke of her +grief, Lady Castlewood told Esmond, or alluded, save by a quiet word or +two, to the death of her hopes. + +When Beatrix came back to Castlewood she took to visiting all the cottages +and all the sick. She set up a school of children, and taught singing to +some of them. We had a pair of beautiful old organs in Castlewood Church, +on which she played admirably, so that the music there became to be known +in the country for many miles round, and no doubt people came to see the +fair organist as well as to hear her. Parson Tusher and his wife were +established at the vicarage, but his wife had brought him no children +wherewith Tom might meet his enemies at the gate. Honest Tom took care not +to have many such, his great shovel-hat was in his hand for everybody. He +was profuse of bows and compliments. He behaved to Esmond as if the +colonel had been a commander-in-chief; he dined at the hall that day, +being Sunday, and would not partake of pudding except under extreme +pressure. He deplored my lord's perversion, but drank his lordship's +health very devoutly; and an hour before at church sent the colonel to +sleep, with a long, learned, and refreshing sermon. + +Esmond's visit home was but for two days; the business he had in hand +calling him away and out of the country. Ere he went, he saw Beatrix but +once alone, and then she summoned him out of the long tapestry room, where +he and his mistress were sitting, quite as in old times, into the +adjoining chamber, that had been Viscountess Isabel's sleeping-apartment, +and where Esmond perfectly well remembered seeing the old lady sitting up +in the bed, in her night-rail, that morning when the troop of guard came +to fetch her. The most beautiful woman in England lay in that bed now, +whereof the great damask hangings were scarce faded since Esmond saw them +last. + +Here stood Beatrix in her black robes, holding a box in her hand; 'twas +that which Esmond had given her before her marriage, stamped with a +coronet which the disappointed girl was never to wear; and containing his +aunt's legacy of diamonds. + +"You had best take these with you, Harry," says she; "I have no need of +diamonds any more." There was not the least token of emotion in her quiet +low voice. She held out the black shagreen-case with her fair arm, that +did not shake in the least. Esmond saw she wore a black velvet bracelet on +it, with my lord duke's picture in enamel; he had given it her but three +days before he fell. + +Esmond said the stones were his no longer, and strove to turn off that +proffered restoration with a laugh: "Of what good," says he, "are they to +me? The diamond loop to his hat did not set off Prince Eugene, and will +not make my yellow face look any handsomer." + +"You will give them to your wife, cousin," says she. "My cousin, your wife +has a lovely complexion and shape." + +"Beatrix," Esmond burst out, the old fire flaming out as it would at +times, "will you wear those trinkets at your marriage? You whispered once +you did not know me: you know me better now: how I sought, what I have +sighed for, for ten years, what forgone!" + +"A price for your constancy, my lord!" says she; "such a _preux chevalier_ +wants to be paid. Oh fie, cousin!" + +"Again," Esmond spoke out, "if I do something you have at heart; something +worthy of me and you; something that shall make me a name with which to +endow you; will you take it? There was a chance for me once, you said; is +it impossible to recall it? Never shake your head, but hear me: say you +will hear me a year hence. If I come back to you and bring you fame, will +that please you? If I do what you desire most--what he who is dead desired +most--will that soften you?" + +"What is it, Henry?" says she, her face lighting up; "what mean you?" + +"Ask no questions," he said, "wait, and give me but time; if I bring back +that you long for, that I have a thousand times heard you pray for, will +you have no reward for him who has done you that service? Put away those +trinkets, keep them: it shall not be at my marriage, it shall not be at +yours, but if man can do it, I swear a day shall come when there shall be +a feast in your house, and you shall be proud to wear them. I say no more +now; put aside these words, and lock away yonder box until the day when I +shall remind you of both. All I pray of you now is, to wait and to +remember." + +"You are going out of the country?" says Beatrix, in some agitation. + +"Yes, to-morrow," says Esmond. + +"To Lorraine, cousin?" says Beatrix, laying her hand on his arm; 'twas the +hand on which she wore the duke's bracelet. "Stay, Harry!" continued she, +with a tone that had more despondency in it than she was accustomed to +show. "Hear a last word. I do love you. I do admire you--who would not, +that has known such love as yours has been for us all? But I think I have +no heart; at least, I have never seen the man that could touch it; and, +had I found him, I would have followed him in rags had he been a private +soldier, or to sea, like one of those buccaneers you used to read to us +about when we were children. I would do anything for such a man, bear +anything for him: but I never found one. You were ever too much of a slave +to win my heart; even my lord duke could not command it. I had not been +happy had I married him. I knew that three months after our engagement--and +was too vain to break it. O Harry! I cried once or twice, not for him, but +with tears of rage because I could not be sorry for him. I was frightened +to find I was glad of his death; and were I joined to you, I should have +the same sense of servitude, the same longing to escape. We should both be +unhappy, and you the most, who are as jealous as the duke was himself. I +tried to love him; I tried, indeed I did: affected gladness when he came: +submitted to hear when he was by me, and tried the wife's part I thought I +was to play for the rest of my days. But half an hour of that complaisance +wearied me, and what would a lifetime be? My thoughts were away when he +was speaking; and I was thinking, Oh that this man would drop my hand, and +rise up from before my feet! I knew his great and noble qualities, greater +and nobler than mine a thousand times, as yours are, cousin, I tell you, a +million and a million times better. But 'twas not for these I took him. I +took him to have a great place in the world, and I lost it. I lost it, and +do not deplore him--and I often thought, as I listened to his fond vows and +ardent words, Oh, if I yield to this man, and meet _the other_, I shall +hate him and leave him! I am not good, Harry: my mother is gentle and good +like an angel. I wonder how she should have had such a child. She is weak, +but she would die rather than do a wrong; I am stronger than she, but I +would do it out of defiance. I do not care for what the parsons tell me +with their droning sermons: I used to see them at Court as mean and as +worthless as the meanest woman there. Oh, I am sick and weary of the +world! I wait but for one thing, and when 'tis done, I will take Frank's +religion and your poor mother's, and go into a nunnery, and end like her. +Shall I wear the diamonds then?--they say the nuns wear their best trinkets +the day they take the veil. I will put them away as you bid me; farewell, +cousin, mamma is pacing the next room, racking her little head to know +what we have been saying. She is jealous, all women are. I sometimes think +that is the only womanly quality I have." + +"Farewell. Farewell, brother!" She gave him her cheek as a brotherly +privilege. The cheek was as cold as marble. + +Esmond's mistress showed no signs of jealousy when he returned to the room +where she was. She had schooled herself so as to look quite inscrutably, +when she had a mind. Amongst her other feminine qualities she had that of +being a perfect dissembler. + +He rid away from Castlewood to attempt the task he was bound on, and stand +or fall by it; in truth his state of mind was such, that he was eager for +some outward excitement to counteract that gnawing malady which he was +inwardly enduring. + + + +Chapter VIII. I Travel To France And Bring Home A Portrait Of Rigaud + + +Mr. Esmond did not think fit to take leave at Court, or to inform all the +world of Pall Mall and the coffee-houses, that he was about to quit +England; and chose to depart in the most private manner possible. He +procured a pass as for a Frenchman, through Dr. Atterbury, who did that +business for him, getting the signature even from Lord Bolingbroke's +office, without any personal application to the secretary. Lockwood, his +faithful servant, he took with him to Castlewood, and left behind there: +giving out ere he left London that he himself was sick, and gone to +Hampshire for country air, and so departed as silently as might be upon +his business. + +As Frank Castlewood's aid was indispensable for Mr. Esmond's scheme, his +first visit was to Bruxelles (passing by way of Antwerp, where the Duke of +Marlborough was in exile), and in the first-named place Harry found his +dear young Benedict, the married man, who appeared to be rather out of +humour with his matrimonial chain, and clogged with the obstinate embraces +which Clotilda kept round his neck. Colonel Esmond was not presented to +her; but Monsieur Simon was, a gentleman of the Royal Cravat (Esmond +bethought him of the regiment of his honest Irishman, whom he had seen +that day after Malplaquet, when he first set eyes on the young king); and +Monsieur Simon was introduced to the Viscountess Castlewood, _nee_ +Comptesse Wertheim; to the numerous counts, the Lady Clotilda's tall +brothers; to her father the chamberlain; and to the lady his wife, Frank's +mother-in-law, a tall and majestic person of large proportions, such as +became the mother of such a company of grenadiers as her warlike sons +formed. The whole race were at free quarters in the little castle nigh to +Bruxelles which Frank had taken; rode his horses; drank his wine; and +lived easily at the poor lad's charges. Mr. Esmond had always maintained a +perfect fluency in the French, which was his mother tongue; and if this +family (that spoke French with the twang which the Flemings use) +discovered any inaccuracy in Mr. Simon's pronunciation, 'twas to be +attributed to the latter's long residence in England, where he had married +and remained ever since he was taken prisoner at Blenheim. His story was +perfectly pat; there were none there to doubt it save honest Frank, and he +was charmed with his kinsman's scheme, when he became acquainted with it; +and, in truth, always admired Colonel Esmond with an affectionate +fidelity, and thought his cousin the wisest and best of all cousins and +men. Frank entered heart and soul into the plan, and liked it the better +as it was to take him to Paris, out of reach of his brothers, his father, +and his mother-in-law, whose attentions rather fatigued him. + +Castlewood, I have said, was born in the same year as the Prince of Wales; +had not a little of the prince's air, height, and figure; and, especially +since he had seen the Chevalier de St. George on the occasion before +named, took no small pride in his resemblance to a person so illustrious; +which likeness he increased by all the means in his power, wearing fair +brown periwigs, such as the prince wore, and ribbons, and so forth, of the +chevalier's colour. This resemblance was, in truth, the circumstance on +which Mr. Esmond's scheme was founded; and, having secured Frank's secrecy +and enthusiasm, he left him to continue his journey, and see the other +personages on whom its success depended. The place whither Mr. Simon next +travelled was Bar, in Lorraine, where that merchant arrived with a +consignment of broadcloths, valuable laces from Malines, and letters for +his correspondent there. + +Would you know how a prince, heroic from misfortunes, and descended from a +line of kings, whose race seemed to be doomed like the Atridae of +old--would you know how he was employed, when the envoy who came to him +through danger and difficulty beheld him for the first time? The young +king, in a flannel jacket, was at tennis with the gentlemen of his suite, +crying out after the balls, and swearing like the meanest of his subjects. +The next time Mr. Esmond saw him, 'twas when Monsieur Simon took a packet +of laces to Miss Oglethorpe; the prince's antechamber in those days, at +which ignoble door men were forced to knock for admission to his Majesty. +The admission was given, the envoy found the king and the mistress +together; the pair were at cards, and his Majesty was in liquor. He cared +more for three honours than three kingdoms; and a half-dozen glasses of +ratafia made him forget all his woes and his losses, his father's crown, +and his grandfather's head. + +Mr. Esmond did not open himself to the prince then. His Majesty was scarce +in a condition to hear him; and he doubted whether a king who drank so +much could keep a secret in his fuddled head; or whether a hand that shook +so, was strong enough to grasp at a crown. However at last, and after +taking counsel with the prince's advisers, amongst whom were many +gentlemen, honest and faithful, Esmond's plan was laid before the king, +and her actual Majesty Queen Oglethorpe, in council. The prince liked the +scheme well enough; 'twas easy and daring, and suited to his reckless +gaiety and lively youthful spirit. In the morning after he had slept his +wine off, he was very gay, lively, and agreeable. His manner had an +extreme charm of archness, and a kind simplicity; and, to do her justice, +her Oglethorpean Majesty was kind, acute, resolute, and of good counsel; +she gave the prince much good advice that he was too weak to follow, and +loved him with a fidelity which he returned with an ingratitude quite +royal. + +Having his own forebodings regarding his scheme should it ever be +fulfilled, and his usual sceptic doubts as to the benefit which might +accrue to the country by bringing a tipsy young monarch back to it, +Colonel Esmond had his audience of leave and quiet. Monsieur Simon took +his departure. At any rate the youth at Bar was as good as the older +Pretender at Hanover; if the worst came to the worst, the Englishman could +be dealt with as easy as the German. Monsieur Simon trotted on that long +journey from Nancy to Paris, and saw that famous town, stealthily and like +a spy, as in truth he was; and where, sure, more magnificence and more +misery is heaped together, more rags and lace, more filth and gilding, +than in any city in this world. Here he was put in communication with the +king's best friend, his half-brother, the famous Duke of Berwick; Esmond +recognized him as the stranger who had visited Castlewood now near twenty +years ago. His grace opened to him when he found that Mr. Esmond was one +of Webb's brave regiment, that had once been his grace's own. He was the +sword and buckler indeed of the Stuart cause: there was no stain on his +shield except the bar across it, which Marlborough's sister left him. Had +Berwick been his father's heir, James the Third had assuredly sat on the +English throne. He could dare, endure, strike, speak, be silent. The fire +and genius, perhaps, he had not (that were given to baser men), but except +these he had some of the best qualities of a leader. His grace knew +Esmond's father and history; and hinted at the latter in such a way as +made the colonel to think he was aware of the particulars of that story. +But Esmond did not choose to enter on it, nor did the duke press him. Mr. +Esmond said, "No doubt he should come by his name if ever greater people +came by theirs." + +What confirmed Esmond in his notion that the Duke of Berwick knew of his +case was, that when the colonel went to pay his duty at St. Germains, her +Majesty once addressed him by the title of Marquis. He took the queen the +dutiful remembrances of her goddaughter, and the lady whom, in the days of +her prosperity, her Majesty had befriended. The queen remembered Rachel +Esmond perfectly well, had heard of my Lord Castlewood's conversion, and +was much edified by that act of Heaven in his favour. She knew that others +of that family had been of the only true Church too: "Your father and your +mother, _monsieur le marquis_," her Majesty said (that was the only time +she used the phrase). Monsieur Simon bowed very low, and said he had found +other parents than his own who had taught him differently; but these had +only one king: on which her Majesty was pleased to give him a medal +blessed by the Pope, which had been found very efficacious in cases +similar to his own, and to promise she would offer up prayers for his +conversion and that of the family: which no doubt this pious lady did, +though up to the present moment, and after twenty-seven years, Colonel +Esmond is bound to say that neither the medal nor the prayers have had the +slightest known effect upon his religious convictions. + +As for the splendour of Versailles, Monsieur Simon, the merchant, only +beheld them as a humble and distant spectator, seeing the old king but +once, when he went to feed his carps; and asking for no presentation at +his Majesty's Court. + +By this time my Lord Viscount Castlewood was got to Paris, where, as the +London prints presently announced, her ladyship was brought to bed of a +son and heir. For a long while afterwards she was in a delicate state of +health, and ordered by the physicians not to travel; otherwise 'twas well +known that the Viscount Castlewood proposed returning to England, and +taking up his residence at his own seat. + +Whilst he remained at Paris, my Lord Castlewood had his picture done by +the famous French painter Monsieur Rigaud, a present for his mother in +London; and this piece Monsieur Simon took back with him when he returned +to that city, which he reached about May, in the year 1714, very soon +after which time my Lady Castlewood and her daughter, and their kinsman, +Colonel Esmond, who had been at Castlewood all this time, likewise +returned to London; her ladyship occupying her house at Kensington, Mr. +Esmond returning to his lodgings at Knightsbridge, nearer the town, and +once more making his appearance at all public places, his health greatly +improved by his long stay in the country. + +The portrait of my lord, in a handsome gilt frame, was hung up in the +place of honour in her ladyship's drawing-room. His lordship was +represented in his scarlet uniform of Captain of the Guard, with a +light-brown periwig, a cuirass under his coat, a blue ribbon, and a fall +of Bruxelles lace. Many of her ladyship's friends admired the piece beyond +measure, and flocked to see it; Bishop Atterbury, Mr. Lesly, good old Mr. +Collier, and others amongst the clergy, were delighted with the +performance, and many among the first quality examined and praised it; +only I must own that Dr. Tusher happening to come up to London, and seeing +the picture (it was ordinarily covered by a curtain, but on this day Miss +Beatrix happened to be looking at it when the doctor arrived), the Vicar +of Castlewood vowed he could not see any resemblance in the piece to his +old pupil, except perhaps, a little about the chin and the periwig; but we +all of us convinced him, that he had not seen Frank for five years or +more; that he knew no more about the fine arts than a ploughboy, and that +he must be mistaken; and we sent him home assured that the piece was an +excellent likeness. As for my Lord Bolingbroke, who honoured her ladyship +with a visit occasionally, when Colonel Esmond showed him the picture he +burst out laughing, and asked what devilry he was engaged on? Esmond owned +simply that the portrait was not that of Viscount Castlewood, besought the +secretary on his honour to keep the secret, said that the ladies of the +house were enthusiastic Jacobites, as was well known; and confessed that +the picture was that of the Chevalier St. George. + +The truth is, that Mr. Simon, waiting upon Lord Castlewood one day at +Monsieur Rigaud's, whilst his lordship was sitting for his picture, +affected to be much struck with a piece representing the chevalier, +whereof the head only was finished, and purchased it of the painter for a +hundred crowns. It had been intended the artist said, for Miss Oglethorpe, +the prince's mistress, but that young lady quitting Paris, had left the +work on the artist's hands; and taking this piece home, when my lord's +portrait arrived, Colonel Esmond, alias Monsieur Simon, had copied the +uniform and other accessories from my lord's picture to fill up Rigaud's +incomplete canvas: the colonel all his life having been a practitioner of +painting, and especially followed it during his long residence in the +cities of Flanders, among the masterpieces of Vandyck and Rubens. My +grandson hath the piece, such as it is, in Virginia now. + +At the commencement of the month of June, Miss Beatrix Esmond, and my lady +viscountess, her mother, arrived from Castlewood; the former to resume her +service at Court, which had been interrupted by the fatal catastrophe of +Duke Hamilton's death. She once more took her place, then, in her +Majesty's suite and at the maids' table, being always a favourite with +Mrs. Masham, the queen's chief woman, partly perhaps on account of her +bitterness against the Duchess of Marlborough, whom Miss Beatrix loved no +better than her rival did. The gentlemen about the Court, my Lord +Bolingbroke amongst others, owned that the young lady had come back +handsomer than ever, and that the serious and tragic air, which her face +now involuntarily wore, became her better than her former smiles and +archness. + +All the old domestics at the little house of Kensington Square were +changed; the old steward that had served the family any time these +five-and-twenty years, since the birth of the children of the house, was +dispatched into the kingdom of Ireland to see my lord's estate there: the +housekeeper, who had been my lady's woman time out of mind, and the +attendant of the young children, was sent away grumbling to Walcote, to +see to the new painting and preparing of that house, which my lady dowager +intended to occupy for the future, giving up Castlewood to her +daughter-in-law, that might be expected daily from France. Another servant +the viscountess had was dismissed too--with a gratuity--on the pretext that +her ladyship's train of domestics must be diminished; so, finally, there +was not left in the household a single person who had belonged to it +during the time my young Lord Castlewood was yet at home. + +For the plan which Colonel Esmond had in view, and the stroke he intended, +'twas necessary that the very smallest number of persons should be put in +possession of his secret. It scarce was known, except to three or four out +of his family, and it was kept to a wonder. + +On the 10th of June, 1714, there came by Mr. Prior's messenger from Paris, +a letter from my Lord Viscount Castlewood to his mother, saying that he +had been foolish in regard of money matters, that he was ashamed to own he +had lost at play, and by other extravagances; and that instead of having +great entertainments as he had hoped at Castlewood this year, he must live +as quiet as he could, and make every effort to be saving. So far every +word of poor Frank's letter was true, nor was there a doubt that he and +his tall brothers-in-law had spent a great deal more than they ought, and +engaged the revenues of the Castlewood property, which the fond mother had +husbanded and improved so carefully during the time of her guardianship. + +His "Clotilda", Castlewood went on to say, "was still delicate, and the +physicians thought her lying-in had best take place at Paris. He should +come without her ladyship, and be at his mother's house about the 17th or +18th day of June, proposing to take horse from Paris immediately, and +bringing but a single servant with him; and he requested that the lawyers +of Gray's Inn might be invited to meet him with their account, and the +land-steward come from Castlewood with his, so that he might settle with +them speedily, raise a sum of money whereof he stood in need, and be back +to his viscountess by the time of her lying-in." Then his lordship gave +some of the news of the town, sent his remembrance to kinsfolk, and so the +letter ended. 'Twas put in the common post, and no doubt the French police +and the English there had a copy of it, to which they were exceeding +welcome. + +Two days after another letter was dispatched by the public post of France, +in the same open way, and this, after giving news of the fashion at Court +there, ended by the following sentences, in which, but for those that had +the key, 'twould be difficult for any man to find any secret lurked at +all:-- + + + (The king will take) medicine on Thursday. His Majesty is better + than he hath been of late, though incommoded by indigestion from + his too great appetite. Madame Maintenon continues well. They have + performed a play of Mons. Racine at St. Cyr. The Duke of + Shrewsbury and Mr. Prior, our envoy, and all the English nobility + here were present at it. (The Viscount Castlewood's passports) + were refused to him, 'twas said; his lordship being sued by a + goldsmith for _Vaisselle plate_, and a pearl necklace supplied to + Mademoiselle Meruel of the French Comedy. 'Tis a pity such news + should get abroad (and travel to England) about our young nobility + here. Mademoiselle Meruel has been sent to the Fort l'Evesque; + they say she has ordered not only plate, but furniture, and a + chariot and horses (under that lord's name), of which extravagance + his unfortunate viscountess knows nothing. + + (His majesty will be) eighty-two years of age on his next + birthday. The Court prepares to celebrate it with a great feast. + Mr. Prior is in a sad way about their refusing at home to send him + his plate. All here admired my lord viscount's portrait, and said + it was a masterpiece of Rigaud. Have you seen it? It is (at the + Lady Castlewood's house in Kensington Square). I think no English + painter could produce such a piece. + + Our poor friend the abbe hath been at the Bastille, but is now + transported to the Conciergerie (where his friends may visit him. + They are to ask for) a remission of his sentence soon. Let us hope + the poor rogue will have repented in prison. + + (The Lord Castlewood) has had the affair of the plate made up, and + departs for England. + + Is not this a dull letter? I have a cursed headache with drinking + with Mat and some more overnight, and tipsy or sober am + + Thine ever ----. + + +All this letter, save some dozen of words which I have put above between +brackets, was mere idle talk, though the substance of the letter was as +important as any letter well could be. It told those that had the key, +that _the king will take the Viscount Castlewood's passports and travel to +England under that lord's name. His Majesty will be at the Lady +Castlewood's house in Kensington Square, where his friends may visit him; +they are to ask for the Lord Castlewood_. This note may have passed under +Mr. Prior's eyes, and those of our new allies the French, and taught them +nothing; though it explains sufficiently to persons in London what the +event was which was about to happen, as 'twill show those who read my +memoirs a hundred years hence, what was that errand on which Colonel +Esmond of late had been busy. Silently and swiftly to do that about which +others were conspiring, and thousands of Jacobites all over the country, +clumsily caballing; alone to effect that which the leaders here were only +talking about; to bring the Prince of Wales into the country openly in the +face of all, under Bolingbroke's very eyes, the walls placarded with the +proclamation signed with the secretary's name, and offering five hundred +pounds reward for his apprehension: this was a stroke, the playing and +winning of which might well give any adventurous spirit pleasure: the loss +of the stake might involve a heavy penalty, but all our family were eager +to risk that for the glorious chance of winning the game. + +Nor should it be called a game, save perhaps with the chief player, who +was not more or less sceptical than most public men with whom he had +acquaintance in that age. (Is there ever a public man in England that +altogether believes in his party? Is there one, however doubtful, that +will not fight for it?) Young Frank was ready to fight without much +thinking, he was a Jacobite as his father before him was; all the Esmonds +were Royalists. Give him but the word, he would cry, "God save King +James!" before the palace guard, or at the Maypole in the Strand; and with +respect to the women, as is usual with them, 'twas not a question of party +but of faith; their belief was a passion; either Esmond's mistress or her +daughter would have died for it cheerfully. I have laughed often, talking +of King William's reign, and said I thought Lady Castlewood was +disappointed the king did not persecute the family more; and those who +know the nature of women may fancy for themselves, what needs not here be +written down, the rapture with which these neophytes received the mystery +when made known to them; the eagerness with which they looked forward to +its completion; the reverence which they paid the minister who initiated +them into that secret Truth, now known only to a few, but presently to +reign over the world. Sure there is no bound to the trustingness of women. +Look at Arria worshipping the drunken clodpate of a husband who beats her; +look at Cornelia treasuring as a jewel in her maternal heart the oaf her +son; I have known a woman preach Jesuit's bark, and afterwards Dr. +Berkeley's tar-water, as though to swallow them were a divine decree, and +to refuse them no better than blasphemy. + +On his return from France Colonel Esmond put himself at the head of this +little knot of fond conspirators. No death or torture he knew would +frighten them out of their constancy. When he detailed his plan for +bringing the king back, his elder mistress thought that that restoration +was to be attributed under Heaven to the Castlewood family and to its +chief, and she worshipped and loved Esmond, if that could be, more than +ever she had done. She doubted not for one moment of the success of his +scheme, to mistrust which would have seemed impious in her eyes. And as +for Beatrix, when she became acquainted with the plan, and joined it, as +she did with all her heart, she gave Esmond one of her searching bright +looks: "Ah, Harry," says she, "why were you not the head of our house? You +are the only one fit to raise it; why do you give that silly boy the name +and the honour? But 'tis so in the world; those get the prize that don't +deserve or care for it. I wish I could give you _your_ silly prize, +cousin, but I can't; I have tried and I can't." And she went away, shaking +her head mournfully, but always, it seemed to Esmond, that her liking and +respect for him was greatly increased, since she knew what capability he +had both to act and bear; to do and to forgo. + + + +Chapter IX. The Original Of The Portrait Comes To England + + +'Twas announced in the family that my Lord Castlewood would arrive, having +a confidential French gentleman in his suite, who acted as secretary to +his lordship, and who being a Papist, and a foreigner of a good family, +though now in rather a menial place, would have his meals served in his +chamber, and not with the domestics of the house. The viscountess gave up +her bedchamber contiguous to her daughter's, and having a large convenient +closet attached to it, in which a bed was put up, ostensibly for Monsieur +Baptiste, the Frenchman; though, 'tis needless to say, when the doors of +the apartments were locked, and the two guests retired within it, the +young viscount became the servant of the illustrious prince whom he +entertained, and gave up gladly the more convenient and airy chamber and +bed to his master. Madam Beatrix also retired to the upper region, her +chamber being converted into a sitting-room for my lord. The better to +carry the deceit, Beatrix affected to grumble before the servants, and to +be jealous that she was turned out of her chamber to make way for my lord. + +No small preparations were made, you may be sure, and no slight tremor of +expectation caused the hearts of the gentle ladies of Castlewood to +flutter, before the arrival of the personages who were about to honour +their house. The chamber was ornamented with flowers; the bed covered with +the very finest of linen; the two ladies insisting on making it +themselves, and kneeling down at the bedside and kissing the sheets out of +respect for the web that was to hold the sacred person of a king. The +toilet was of silver and crystal; there was a copy of _Eikon Basilike_ +laid on the writing-table; a portrait of the martyred king hung always +over the mantel, having a sword of my poor Lord Castlewood underneath it, +and a little picture or emblem which the widow loved always to have before +her eyes on waking, and in which the hair of her lord and her two children +was worked together. Her books of private devotions, as they were all of +the English Church, she carried away with her to the upper apartment which +she destined for herself. The ladies showed Mr. Esmond, when they were +completed, the fond preparations they had made. 'Twas then Beatrix knelt +down and kissed the linen sheets. As for her mother, Lady Castlewood made +a curtsy at the door, as she would have done to the altar on entering a +church, and owned that she considered the chamber in a manner sacred. + +The company in the servants' hall never for a moment supposed that these +preparations were made for any other person than the young viscount, the +lord of the house, whom his fond mother had been for so many years without +seeing. Both ladies were perfect housewives, having the greatest skill in +the making of confections, scented waters, &c., and keeping a notable +superintendence over the kitchen. Calves enough were killed to feed an +army of prodigal sons, Esmond thought, and laughed when he came to wait on +the ladies, on the day when the guests were to arrive, to find two pairs +of the finest and roundest arms to be seen in England (my Lady Castlewood +was remarkable for this beauty of her person), covered with flour up above +the elbows, and preparing paste, and turning rolling-pins in the +housekeeper's closet. The guest would not arrive till supper-time, and my +lord would prefer having that meal in his own chamber. You may be sure the +brightest plate of the house was laid out there, and can understand why it +was that the ladies insisted that they alone would wait upon the young +chief of the family. + +Taking horse, Colonel Esmond rode rapidly to Rochester, and there awaited +the king in that very town where his father had last set his foot on the +English shore. A room had been provided at an inn there for my Lord +Castlewood and his servant; and Colonel Esmond timed his ride so well that +he had scarce been half an hour in the place, and was looking over the +balcony into the yard of the inn, when two travellers rode in at the +inn-gate, and the colonel running down, the next moment embraced his dear +young lord. + +My lord's companion, acting the part of a domestic, dismounted, and was +for holding the viscount's stirrup; but Colonel Esmond, calling to his own +man, who was in the court, bade him take the horses and settle with the +lad who had ridden the post along with the two travellers, crying out in a +cavalier tone in the French language to my lord's companion, and affecting +to grumble that my lord's fellow was a Frenchman, and did not know the +money or habits of the country:--"My man will see to the horses, Baptiste," +says Colonel Esmond: "do you understand English?" "Very leetle." "So, +follow my lord and wait upon him at dinner in his own room." The landlord +and his people came up presently bearing the dishes; 'twas well they made +a noise and stir in the gallery, or they might have found Colonel Esmond +on his knee before Lord Castlewood's servant, welcoming his Majesty to his +kingdom, and kissing the hand of the king. We told the landlord that the +Frenchman would wait on his master; and Esmond's man was ordered to keep +sentry in the gallery without the door. The prince dined with a good +appetite, laughing and talking very gaily, and condescendingly bidding his +two companions to sit with him at table. He was in better spirits than +poor Frank Castlewood, who Esmond thought might be wobegone on account of +parting with his divine Clotilda; but the prince wishing to take a short +siesta after dinner, and retiring to an inner chamber where there was a +bed, the cause of poor Frank's discomfiture came out; and bursting into +tears, with many expressions of fondness, friendship, and humiliation, the +faithful lad gave his kinsman to understand that he now knew all the +truth, and the sacrifices which Colonel Esmond had made for him. + +Seeing no good in acquainting poor Frank with that secret, Mr. Esmond had +entreated his mistress also not to reveal it to her son. The prince had +told the poor lad all as they were riding from Dover: "I had as lief he +had shot me, cousin," Frank said: "I knew you were the best and the +bravest, and the kindest of all men" (so the enthusiastic young fellow +went on); "but I never thought I owed you what I do, and can scarce bear +the weight of the obligation." + +"I stand in the place of your father," says Mr. Esmond kindly, "and sure a +father may dispossess himself in favour of his son. I abdicate the +twopenny crown, and invest you with the kingdom of Brentford; don't be a +fool and cry; you make a much taller and handsomer viscount than ever I +could." But the fond boy with oaths and protestations, laughter and +incoherent outbreaks of passionate emotion, could not be got, for some +little time, to put up with Esmond's raillery; wanted to kneel down to +him, and kissed his hand; asked him and implored him to order something, +to bid Castlewood give his own life up or take somebody else's; anything, +so that he might show his gratitude for the generosity Esmond showed him. + +"The k----, _he_ laughed," Frank said, pointing to the door where the +sleeper was, and speaking in a low tone, "I don't think he should have +laughed as he told me the story. As we rode along from Dover, talking in +French, he spoke about you, and your coming to him at Bar; he called you +'_le grand serieux_', Don Bellianis of Greece, and I don't know what +names; mimicking your manner" (here Castlewood laughed himself)--"and he +did it very well. He seems to sneer at everything. He is not like a king: +somehow, Harry, I fancy you are like a king. He does not seem to think +what a stake we are all playing. He would have stopped at Canterbury to +run after a barmaid there, had I not implored him to come on. He hath a +house at Chaillot where he used to go and bury himself for weeks away from +the queen, and with all sorts of bad company," says Frank, with a demure +look; "you may smile, but I am not the wild fellow I was; no, no, I have +been taught better," says Castlewood devoutly, making a sign on his +breast. + +"Thou art my dear brave boy," says Colonel Esmond, touched at the young +fellow's simplicity, "and there will be a noble gentleman at Castlewood so +long as my Frank is there." + +The impetuous young lad was for going down on his knees again, with +another explosion of gratitude, but that we heard the voice from the next +chamber of the august sleeper, just waking, calling out:--"_Eh, La-Fleur, +un verre d'eau_"; his Majesty came out yawning:--"A pest," says he, "upon +your English ale; 'tis so strong that, _ma foi_, it hath turned my head." + +The effect of the ale was like a spur upon our horses, and we rode very +quickly to London, reaching Kensington at nightfall. Mr. Esmond's servant +was left behind at Rochester, to take care of the tired horses, whilst we +had fresh beasts provided along the road. And galloping by the prince's +side the colonel explained to the Prince of Wales what his movements had +been; who the friends were that knew of the expedition; whom, as Esmond +conceived, the prince should trust; entreating him, above all, to maintain +the very closest secrecy until the time should come when his royal +highness should appear. The town swarmed with friends of the prince's +cause; there were scores of correspondents with St. Germains; Jacobites +known and secret; great in station and humble; about the Court and the +queen; in the Parliament, Church, and among the merchants in the City. The +prince had friends numberless in the army, in the Privy Council, and the +officers of state. The great object, as it seemed, to the small band of +persons who had concerted that bold stroke, who had brought the queen's +brother into his native country, was, that his visit should remain unknown +till the proper time came, when his presence should surprise friends and +enemies alike; and the latter should be found so unprepared and disunited, +that they should not find time to attack him. We feared more from his +friends than from his enemies. The lies, and tittle-tattle sent over to +St. Germains by the Jacobite agents about London, had done an incalculable +mischief to his cause, and wofully misguided him, and it was from these +especially, that the persons engaged in the present venture were anxious +to defend the chief actor in it.(16) + +The party reached London by nightfall, leaving their horses at the +Posting-House over against Westminster, and being ferried over the water +where Lady Esmond's coach was already in waiting. In another hour we were +all landed at Kensington, and the mistress of the house had that +satisfaction which her heart had yearned after for many years, once more +to embrace her son, who on his side, with all his waywardness, ever +retained a most tender affection for his parent. + +She did not refrain from this expression of her feeling, though the +domestics were by, and my Lord Castlewood's attendant stood in the hall. +Esmond had to whisper to him in French to take his hat off. Monsieur +Baptiste was constantly neglecting his part with an inconceivable levity: +more than once on the ride to London, little observations of the stranger, +light remarks, and words betokening the greatest ignorance of the country +the prince came to govern, had hurt the susceptibility of the two +gentlemen forming his escort; nor could either help owning in his secret +mind that they would have had his behaviour otherwise, and that the +laughter and the lightness, not to say licence, which characterized his +talk, scarce befitted such a great prince, and such a solemn occasion. Not +but that he could act at proper times with spirit and dignity. He had +behaved, as we all knew, in a very courageous manner on the field. Esmond +had seen a copy of the letter the prince writ with his own hand when urged +by his friends in England to abjure his religion, and admired that manly +and magnanimous reply by which he refused to yield to the temptation. +Monsieur Baptiste took off his hat, blushing at the hint Colonel Esmond +ventured to give him, and said:--"_Tenez, elle est jolie, la petite mere; +Foi-de-Chevalier! elle est charmante; mais l'autre, qui est cette nymphe, +cet astre qui brille, cette Diane qui descend sur nous?_" And he started +back, and pushed forward, as Beatrix was descending the stair. She was in +colours for the first time at her own house; she wore the diamonds Esmond +gave her; it had been agreed between them, that she should wear these +brilliants on the day when the king should enter the house, and a queen +she looked, radiant in charms, and magnificent and imperial in beauty. + +Castlewood himself was startled by that beauty and splendour; he stepped +back and gazed at his sister as though he had not been aware before (nor +was he, very likely) how perfectly lovely she was, and I thought blushed +as he embraced her. The prince could not keep his eyes off her; he quite +forgot his menial part, though he had been schooled to it, and a little +light portmanteau prepared expressly that he should carry it. He pressed +forward before my lord viscount. 'Twas lucky the servants' eyes were busy +in other directions, or they must have seen that this was no servant, or +at least a very insolent and rude one. + +Again Colonel Esmond was obliged to cry out, "Baptiste", in a loud +imperious voice, "have a care to the valise"; at which hint the wilful +young man ground his teeth together with something very like a curse +between them, and then gave a brief look of anything but pleasure to his +Mentor. Being reminded, however, he shouldered the little portmanteau, and +carried it up the stair, Esmond preceding him, and a servant with lighted +tapers. He flung down his burden sulkily in the bedchamber:--"A prince that +will wear a crown must wear a mask," says Mr. Esmond, in French. + +"_Ah, peste!_ I see how it is," says Monsieur Baptiste, continuing the +talk in French. "The Great Serious is seriously"--"alarmed for Monsieur +Baptiste," broke in the colonel. Esmond neither liked the tone with which +the prince spoke of the ladies, nor the eyes with which he regarded them. + +The bedchamber and the two rooms adjoining it, the closet and the +apartment which was to be called my lord's parlour, were already lighted +and awaiting their occupier; and the collation laid for my lord's supper. +Lord Castlewood and his mother and sister came up the stair a minute +afterwards, and, so soon as the domestics had quitted the apartment, +Castlewood and Esmond uncovered, and the two ladies went down on their +knees before the prince, who graciously gave a hand to each. He looked his +part of prince much more naturally than that of servant, which he had just +been trying, and raised them both with a great deal of nobility, as well +as kindness in his air. "Madam," says he, "my mother will thank your +ladyship for your hospitality to her son; for you, madam," turning to +Beatrix, "I cannot bear to see so much beauty in such a posture. You will +betray Monsieur Baptiste if you kneel to him; sure 'tis his place rather +to kneel to you." + +A light shone out of her eyes; a gleam bright enough to kindle passion in +any breast. There were times when this creature was so handsome, that she +seemed, as it were, like Venus revealing herself a goddess in a flash of +brightness. She appeared so now; radiant, and with eyes bright with a +wonderful lustre. A pang, as of rage and jealousy, shot through Esmond's +heart, as he caught the look she gave the prince; and he clenched his hand +involuntarily and looked across to Castlewood, whose eyes answered his +alarm-signal, and were also on the alert. The prince gave his subjects an +audience of a few minutes, and then the two ladies and Colonel Esmond +quitted the chamber. Lady Castlewood pressed his hand as they descended +the stair, and the three went down to the lower rooms, where they waited +awhile till the travellers above should be refreshed and ready for their +meal. + +Esmond looked at Beatrix, blazing with her jewels on her beautiful neck. +"I have kept my word," says he: "And I mine," says Beatrix, looking down +on the diamonds. + +"Were I the Mogul emperor," says the colonel, "you should have all that +were dug out of Golconda." + +"These are a great deal too good for me," says Beatrix, dropping her head +on her beautiful breast,--"so are you all, all:" and when she looked up +again, as she did in a moment, and after a sigh, her eyes, as they gazed +at her cousin, wore that melancholy and inscrutable look which 'twas +always impossible to sound. + +When the time came for the supper, of which we were advertised by a +knocking overhead, Colonel Esmond and the two ladies went to the upper +apartment, where the prince already was, and by his side the young +viscount, of exactly the same age, shape, and with features not +dissimilar, though Frank's were the handsomer of the two. The prince sat +down, and bade the ladies sit. The gentlemen remained standing; there was, +indeed, but one more cover laid at the table:--"Which of you will take it?" +says he. + +"The head of our house," says Lady Castlewood, taking her son's hand, and +looking towards Colonel Esmond with a bow and a great tremor of the voice; +"the Marquis of Esmond will have the honour of serving the king." + +"I shall have the honour of waiting on his royal highness," says Colonel +Esmond, filling a cup of wine, and, as the fashion of that day was, he +presented it to the king on his knee. + +"I drink to my hostess and her family," says the prince, with no very +well-pleased air; but the cloud passed immediately off his face, and he +talked to the ladies in a lively, rattling strain, quite undisturbed by +poor Mr. Esmond's yellow countenance, that I dare say looked very glum. + +When the time came to take leave, Esmond marched homewards to his +lodgings, and met Mr. Addison on the road that night, walking to a cottage +he had at Fulham, the moon shining on his handsome serene face:--"What +cheer, brother?" says Addison, laughing; "I thought it was a footpad +advancing in the dark, and behold 'tis an old friend. We may shake hands, +colonel, in the dark, 'tis better than fighting by daylight. Why should we +quarrel, because I am a Whig and thou art a Tory? Turn thy steps and walk +with me to Fulham, where there is a nightingale still singing in the +garden, and a cool bottle in a cave I know of; you shall drink to the +Pretender if you like, and I will drink my liquor my own way: I have had +enough of good liquor?--no, never! There is no such word as enough as a +stopper for good wine. Thou wilt not come? Come any day, come soon. You +know I remember _Simois_ and the _Sigeia tellus_, and the _praelia mixta +mero, mixta mero_," he repeated, with ever so slight a touch of _merum_ in +his voice, and walked back a little way on the road with Esmond, bidding +the other remember he was always his friend, and indebted to him for his +aid in the _Campaign_ poem. And very likely Mr. Under Secretary would have +stepped in and taken t'other bottle at the colonel's lodgings, had the +latter invited him, but Esmond's mood was none of the gayest, and he bade +his friend an inhospitable good-night at the door. + +"I have done the deed," thought he, sleepless, and looking out into the +night; "he is here, and I have brought him; he and Beatrix are sleeping +under the same roof now. Whom did I mean to serve in bringing him? Was it +the prince, was it Henry Esmond? Had I not best have joined the manly +creed of Addison yonder, that scouts the old doctrine of right divine, +that boldly declares that Parliament and people consecrate the sovereign, +not bishops, nor genealogies, nor oils, nor coronations." The eager gaze +of the young prince, watching every movement of Beatrix, haunted Esmond +and pursued him. The prince's figure appeared before him in his feverish +dreams many times that night. He wished the deed undone, for which he had +laboured so. He was not the first that has regretted his own act, or +brought about his own undoing. Undoing? Should he write that word in his +late years? No, on his knees before Heaven, rather be thankful for what +then he deemed his misfortune, and which hath caused the whole subsequent +happiness of his life. + +Esmond's man, honest John Lockwood, had served his master and the family +all his life, and the colonel knew that he could answer for John's +fidelity as for his own. John returned with the horses from Rochester +betimes the next morning, and the colonel gave him to understand that on +going to Kensington, where he was free of the servants' hall, and indeed +courting Mrs. Beatrix's maid, he was to ask no questions, and betray no +surprise, but to vouch stoutly that the young gentleman he should see in a +red coat there was my Lord Viscount Castlewood, and that his attendant in +grey was Monsieur Baptiste the Frenchman. He was to tell his friends in +the kitchen such stories as he remembered of my lord viscount's youth at +Castlewood; what a wild boy he was; how he used to drill Jack and cane +him, before ever he was a soldier; everything, in fine, he knew respecting +my lord viscount's early days. Jack's ideas of painting had not been much +cultivated during his residence in Flanders with his master; and, before +my young lord's return, he had been easily got to believe that the picture +brought over from Paris, and now hanging in Lady Castlewood's +drawing-room, was a perfect likeness of her son, the young lord. And the +domestics having all seen the picture many times, and catching but a +momentary imperfect glimpse of the two strangers on the night of their +arrival, never had a reason to doubt the fidelity of the portrait; and +next day, when they saw the original of the piece habited exactly as he +was represented in the painting, with the same periwig, ribbon, and +uniform of the Guard, quite naturally addressed the gentleman as my Lord +Castlewood, my lady viscountess's son. + +The secretary of the night previous was now the viscount; the viscount +wore the secretary's grey frock; and John Lockwood was instructed to hint +to the world below stairs that my lord being a Papist, and very devout in +that religion, his attendant might be no other than his chaplain from +Bruxelles; hence, if he took his meals in my lord's company there was +little reason for surprise. Frank was further cautioned to speak English +with a foreign accent, which task he performed indifferently well, and +this caution was the more necessary because the prince himself scarce +spoke our language like a native of the island; and John Lockwood laughed +with the folks below stairs at the manner in which my lord, after five +years abroad, sometimes forgot his own tongue and spoke it like a +Frenchman. "I warrant," says he, "that with the English beef and beer, his +lordship will soon get back the proper use of his mouth;" and, to do his +new lordship justice, he took to beer and beef very kindly. + +The prince drank so much, and was so loud and imprudent in his talk after +his drink, that Esmond often trembled for him. His meals were served as +much as possible in his own chamber, though frequently he made his +appearance in Lady Castlewood's parlour and drawing-room, calling Beatrix +"sister", and her ladyship "mother", or "madam", before the servants. And, +choosing to act entirely up to the part of brother and son, the prince +sometimes saluted Mrs. Beatrix and Lady Castlewood with a freedom which +his secretary did not like, and which, for his part, set Colonel Esmond +tearing with rage. + +The guests had not been three days in the house when poor Jack Lockwood +came with a rueful countenance to his master, and said: "My lord, that +is--the gentleman, has been tampering with Mrs. Lucy" (Jack's sweetheart), +"and given her guineas and a kiss." I fear that Colonel Esmond's mind was +rather relieved than otherwise, when he found that the ancillary beauty +was the one whom the prince had selected. His royal tastes were known to +lie that way, and continued so in after-life. The heir of one of the +greatest names, of the greatest kingdoms, and of the greatest misfortunes +in Europe, was often content to lay the dignity of his birth and grief at +the wooden shoes of a French chambermaid, and to repent afterwards (for he +was very devout) in ashes taken from the dustpan. 'Tis for mortals such as +these that nations suffer, that parties struggle, that warriors fight and +bleed. A year afterwards gallant heads were falling, and Nithsdale in +escape, and Derwentwater on the scaffold; whilst the heedless ingrate, for +whom they risked and lost all, was tippling with his seraglio of +mistresses in his _petite maison_ of Chaillot. + +Blushing to be forced to bear such an errand, Esmond had to go to the +prince and warn him that the girl whom his highness was bribing, was John +Lockwood's sweetheart, an honest resolute man, who had served in six +campaigns, and feared nothing, and who knew that the person, calling +himself Lord Castlewood, was not his young master: and the colonel +besought the prince to consider what the effect of a single man's jealousy +might be, and to think of other designs he had in hand, more important +than the seduction of a waiting-maid, and the humiliation of a brave man. +Ten times, perhaps, in the course of as many days, Mr. Esmond had to warn +the royal young adventurer of some imprudence or some freedom. He received +these remonstrances very testily, save perhaps in this affair of poor +Lockwood's, when he deigned to burst out a-laughing, and said, "What! the +_soubrette_ has peached to the _amoureux_, and Crispin is angry, and +Crispin has served, and Crispin has been a corporal, has he? Tell him we +will reward his valour with a pair of colours, and recompense his +fidelity." + +Colonel Esmond ventured to utter some other words of entreaty, but the +prince, stamping imperiously, cried out, "_Assez, milord: je m'ennuye a la +preche_; I am not come to London to go to the sermon." And he complained +afterwards to Castlewood, that "_le petit jaune, le noir colonel, le +Marquis Misanthrope_" (by which facetious names his royal highness was +pleased to designate Colonel Esmond), "fatigued him with his grand airs +and virtuous homilies." + +The Bishop of Rochester, and other gentlemen engaged in the transaction +which had brought the prince over, waited upon his royal highness, +constantly asking for my Lord Castlewood on their arrival at Kensington, +and being openly conducted to his royal highness in that character, who +received them either in my lady's drawing-room below, or above in his own +apartment; and all implored him to quit the house as little as possible, +and to wait there till the signal should be given for him to appear. The +ladies entertained him at cards, over which amusement he spent many hours +in each day and night. He passed many hours more in drinking, during which +time he would rattle and talk very agreeably, and especially if the +colonel was absent, whose presence always seemed to frighten him; and the +poor "_Colonel Noir_" took that hint as a command accordingly, and seldom +intruded his black face upon the convivial hours of this august young +prisoner. Except for those few persons of whom the porter had the list, +Lord Castlewood was denied to all friends of the house who waited on his +lordship. The wound he had received had broke out again from his journey +on horseback, so the world and the domestics were informed. And Doctor +A----,(17) his physician (I shall not mention his name, but he was physician +to the Queen, of the Scots nation, and a man remarkable for his +benevolence as well as his wit), gave orders that he should be kept +perfectly quiet until the wound should heal. With this gentleman, who was +one of the most active and influential of our party, and the others before +spoken of, the whole secret lay; and it was kept with so much +faithfulness, and the story we told so simple and natural, that there was +no likelihood of a discovery except from the imprudence of the prince +himself, and an adventurous levity that we had the greatest difficulty to +control. As for Lady Castlewood, although she scarce spoke a word, 'twas +easy to gather from her demeanour, and one or two hints she dropped, how +deep her mortification was at finding the hero whom she had chosen to +worship all her life (and whose restoration had formed almost the most +sacred part of her prayers), no more than a man, and not a good one. She +thought misfortune might have chastened him; but that instructress had +rather rendered him callous than humble. His devotion, which was quite +real, kept him from no sin he had a mind to. His talk showed good-humour, +gaiety, even wit enough; but there was a levity in his acts and words that +he had brought from among those libertine devotees with whom he had been +bred, and that shocked the simplicity and purity of the English lady, +whose guest he was. Esmond spoke his mind to Beatrix pretty freely about +the prince, getting her brother to put in a word of warning. Beatrix was +entirely of their opinion; she thought he was very light, very light and +reckless; she could not even see the good looks Colonel Esmond had spoken +of. The prince had bad teeth, and a decided squint. How could we say he +did not squint? His eyes were fine, but there was certainly a cast in +them. She rallied him at table with wonderful wit; she spoke of him +invariably as of a mere boy; she was more fond of Esmond than ever, +praised him to her brother, praised him to the prince, when his royal +highness was pleased to sneer at the colonel, and warmly espoused his +cause: "And if your Majesty does not give him the Garter his father had, +when the Marquis of Esmond comes to your Majesty's Court, I will hang +myself in my own garters, or will cry my eyes out." "Rather than lose +those," says the prince, "he shall be made archbishop and colonel of the +Guard" (it was Frank Castlewood who told me of this conversation over +their supper). + +"Yes," cries she, with one of her laughs,--(I fancy I hear it now; thirty +years afterwards I hear that delightful music)--"yes, he shall be +Archbishop of Esmond and Marquis of Canterbury." + +"And what will your ladyship be?" says the prince; "you have but to choose +your place." + +"I," says Beatrix, "will be mother of the maids to the queen of his +Majesty King James the Third--_Vive le Roy!_" and she made him a great +curtsy, and drank a part of a glass of wine in his honour. + +"The prince seized hold of the glass and drank the last drop of it," +Castlewood said, "and my mother, looking very anxious, rose up and asked +leave to retire. But that 'Trix is my mother's daughter, Harry," Frank +continued, "I don't know what a horrid fear I should have of her. I wish--I +wish this business were over. You are older than I am, and wiser, and +better, and I owe you everything, and would die for you--before George I +would; but I wish the end of this were come." + +Neither of us very likely passed a tranquil night; horrible doubts and +torments racked Esmond's soul; 'twas a scheme of personal ambition, a +daring stroke for a selfish end--he knew it. What cared he, in his heart, +who was king? Were not his very sympathies and secret convictions on the +other side--on the side of People, Parliament, Freedom? And here was he, +engaged for a prince, that had scarce heard the word "liberty"; that +priests and women, tyrants by nature both, made a tool of. The misanthrope +was in no better humour after hearing that story, and his grim face more +black and yellow than ever. + + + +Chapter X. We Entertain A Very Distinguished Guest At Kensington + + +Should any clue be found to the dark intrigues at the latter end of Queen +Anne's time, or any historian be inclined to follow it, 'twill be +discovered, I have little doubt, that not one of the great personages +about the queen had a defined scheme of policy, independent of that +private and selfish interest which each was bent on pursuing; St. John was +for St. John, and Harley for Oxford, and Marlborough for John Churchill, +always; and according as they could get help from St. Germains or Hanover, +they sent over proffers of allegiance to the princes there, or betrayed +one to the other: one cause, or one sovereign, was as good as another to +them, so that they could hold the best place under him; and like Lockit +and Peachem, the Newgate chiefs in the _Rogues' Opera_ Mr. Gay wrote +afterwards, had each in his hand documents and proofs of treason which +would hang the other, only he did not dare to use the weapon, for fear of +that one which his neighbour also carried in his pocket. Think of the +great Marlborough, the greatest subject in all the world, a conqueror of +princes, that had marched victorious over Germany, Flanders, and France, +that had given the law to sovereigns abroad, and been worshipped as a +divinity at home, forced to sneak out of England--his credit, honours, +places, all taken from him; his friends in the army broke and ruined; and +flying before Harley, as abject and powerless as a poor debtor before a +bailiff with a writ. A paper, of which Harley got possession, and showing +beyond doubt that the duke was engaged with the Stuart family, was the +weapon with which the treasurer drove Marlborough out of the kingdom. He +fled to Antwerp, and began intriguing instantly on the other side, and +came back to England, as all know, a Whig and a Hanoverian. + +Though the treasurer turned out of the army and office every man, military +or civil, known to be the duke's friend, and gave the vacant posts among +the Tory party; he, too, was playing the double game between Hanover and +St. Germains, awaiting the expected catastrophe of the queen's death to be +master of the state, and offer it to either family that should bribe him +best, or that the nation should declare for. Whichever the king was, +Harley's object was to reign over him; and to this end he supplanted the +former famous favourite, decried the actions of the war which had made +Marlborough's name illustrious, and disdained no more than the great +fallen competitor of his, the meanest arts, flatteries, intimidations, +that would secure his power. If the greatest satirist the world ever hath +seen had writ against Harley, and not for him, what a history had he left +behind of the last years of Queen Anne's reign! But Swift, that scorned +all mankind, and himself not the least of all, had this merit of a +faithful partisan, that he loved those chiefs who treated him well, and +stuck by Harley bravely in his fall, as he gallantly had supported him in +his better fortune. + +Incomparably more brilliant, more splendid, eloquent, accomplished, than +his rival, the great St. John could be as selfish as Oxford was, and could +act the double part as skilfully as ambidextrous Churchill. He whose talk +was always of liberty, no more shrunk from using persecution and the +pillory against his opponents, than if he had been at Lisbon and Grand +Inquisitor. This lofty patriot was on his knees at Hanover and St. +Germains too; notoriously of no religion, he toasted Church and queen as +boldly as the stupid Sacheverel, whom he used and laughed at; and to serve +his turn, and to overthrow his enemy, he could intrigue, coax, bully, +wheedle, fawn on the Court favourite, and creep up the back-stair as +silently as Oxford who supplanted Marlborough, and whom he himself +supplanted. The crash of my Lord Oxford happened at this very time whereat +my history is now arrived. He was come to the very last days of his power, +and the agent whom he employed to overthrow the conqueror of Blenheim, was +now engaged to upset the conqueror's conqueror, and hand over the staff of +government to Bolingbroke, who had been panting to hold it. + +In expectation of the stroke that was now preparing, the Irish regiments +in the French service were all brought round about Boulogne in Picardy, to +pass over if need were with the Duke of Berwick; the soldiers of France no +longer, but subjects of James the Third of England and Ireland King. The +fidelity of the great mass of the Scots (though a most active, resolute, +and gallant Whig party, admirably and energetically ordered and +disciplined, was known to be in Scotland too) was notoriously unshaken in +their king. A very great body of Tory clergy, nobility, and gentry, were +public partisans of the exiled prince; and the indifferents might be +counted on to cry King George or King James, according as either should +prevail. The queen, especially in her latter days, inclined towards her +own family. The prince was lying actually in London, within a stone's-cast +of his sister's palace; the first minister toppling to his fall, and so +tottering that the weakest push of a woman's finger would send him down; +and as for Bolingbroke, his successor, we know on whose side his power and +his splendid eloquence would be on the day when the queen should appear +openly before her council and say:--"This, my lords, is my brother; here is +my father's heir, and mine after me." + +During the whole of the previous year the queen had had many and repeated +fits of sickness, fever, and lethargy, and her death had been constantly +looked for by all her attendants. The Elector of Hanover had wished to +send his son, the Duke of Cambridge--to pay his court to his cousin the +queen, the Elector said;--in truth, to be on the spot when death should +close her career. Frightened perhaps to have such a _memento mori_ under +her royal eyes, her Majesty had angrily forbidden the young prince's +coming into England. Either she desired to keep the chances for her +brother open yet; or the people about her did not wish to close with the +Whig candidate till they could make terms with him. The quarrels of her +ministers before her face at the Council board, the pricks of conscience +very likely, the importunities of her ministers, and constant turmoil and +agitation round about her, had weakened and irritated the princess +extremely; her strength was giving way under these continual trials of her +temper, and from day to day it was expected she must come to a speedy end +of them. Just before Viscount Castlewood and his companion came from +France, her Majesty was taken ill. The St. Anthony's fire broke out on the +royal legs; there was no hurry for the presentation of the young lord at +Court, or that person who should appear under his name; and my lord +viscount's wound breaking out opportunely, he was kept conveniently in his +chamber until such time as his physician should allow him to bend his knee +before the queen. At the commencement of July, that influential lady, with +whom it has been mentioned that our party had relations, came frequently +to visit her young friend, the maid of honour, at Kensington, and my lord +viscount (the real or supposititious), who was an invalid at Lady +Castlewood's house. + +On the 27th day of July, the lady in question, who held the most intimate +post about the queen, came in her chair from the palace hard by, bringing +to the little party in Kensington Square, intelligence of the very highest +importance. The final blow had been struck, and my Lord of Oxford and +Mortimer was no longer treasurer. The staff was as yet given to no +successor, though my Lord Bolingbroke would undoubtedly be the man. And +now the time was come, the queen's Abigail said: and now my Lord +Castlewood ought to be presented to the sovereign. + +After that scene which Lord Castlewood witnessed and described to his +cousin, who passed such a miserable night of mortification and jealousy as +he thought over the transaction; no doubt the three persons who were set +by nature as protectors over Beatrix came to the same conclusion, that she +must be removed from the presence of a man whose desires towards her were +expressed only too clearly; and who was no more scrupulous in seeking to +gratify them than his father had been before him. I suppose Esmond's +mistress, her son, and the colonel himself, had been all secretly debating +this matter in their minds, for when Frank broke out, in his blunt way, +with:--"I think Beatrix had best be anywhere but here,"--Lady Castlewood +said:--"I thank you, Frank, I have thought so too"; and Mr. Esmond, though +he only remarked that it was not for him to speak, showed plainly, by the +delight on his countenance, how very agreeable that proposal was to him. + +"One sees that you think with us, Henry," says the viscountess, with ever +so little of sarcasm in her tone: "Beatrix is best out of this house +whilst we have our guest in it, and as soon as this morning's business is +done, she ought to quit London." + +"What morning's business?" asked Colonel Esmond, not knowing what had been +arranged, though in fact the stroke next in importance to that of bringing +the prince, and of having him acknowledged by the queen, was now being +performed at the very moment we three were conversing together. + +The Court-lady with whom our plan was concerted, and who was a chief agent +in it, the Court-physician, and the Bishop of Rochester, who were the +other two most active participators in our plan, had held many councils in +our house at Kensington and elsewhere, as to the means best to be adopted +for presenting our young adventurer to his sister the queen. The simple +and easy plan proposed by Colonel Esmond had been agreed to by all +parties, which was that on some rather private day, when there were not +many persons about the Court, the prince should appear there as my Lord +Castlewood, should be greeted by his sister-in-waiting, and led by that +other lady into the closet of the queen. And according to her Majesty's +health or humour, and the circumstances that might arise during the +interview; it was to be left to the discretion of those present at it, and +to the prince himself, whether he should declare that it was the queen's +own brother, or the brother of Beatrix Esmond, who kissed her royal hand. +And this plan being determined on, we were all waiting in very much +anxiety for the day and signal of execution. + +Two mornings after that supper, it being the 27th day of July, the Bishop +of Rochester breakfasting with Lady Castlewood and her family, and the +meal scarce over, Dr. A----'s coach drove up to our house at Kensington, and +the doctor appeared amongst the party there, enlivening a rather gloomy +company; for the mother and daughter had had words in the morning in +respect to the transactions of that supper, and other adventures perhaps, +and on the day succeeding. Beatrix's haughty spirit brooked remonstrances +from no superior, much less from her mother, the gentlest of creatures, +whom the girl commanded rather than obeyed. And feeling she was wrong, and +that by a thousand coquetries (which she could no more help exercising on +every man that came near her, than the sun can help shining on great and +small) she had provoked the prince's dangerous admiration, and allured him +to the expression of it, she was only the more wilful and imperious the +more she felt her error. + +To this party, the prince being served with chocolate in his bedchamber, +where he lay late sleeping away the fumes of his wine, the doctor came, +and by the urgent and startling nature of his news, dissipated instantly +that private and minor unpleasantry under which the family of Castlewood +was labouring. + +He asked for the guest; the guest was above in his own apartment: he bade +_Monsieur Baptiste_ go up to his master instantly, and requested that _my +Lord Viscount Castlewood_ would straightway put his uniform on, and come +away in the doctor's coach now at the door. + +He then informed Madam Beatrix what her part of the comedy was to be:--"In +half an hour," says he, "her Majesty and her favourite lady will take the +air in the cedar-walk behind the new banqueting-house. Her Majesty will be +drawn in a garden-chair, Madam Beatrix Esmond and _her brother_, _my Lord +Viscount Castlewood_, will be walking in the private garden (here is Lady +Masham's key), and will come unawares upon the royal party. The man that +draws the chair will retire, and leave the queen, the favourite, and the +maid of honour and her brother together; Mrs. Beatrix will present her +brother, and then!--and then, my lord bishop will pray for the result of +the interview, and his Scots clerk will say Amen! Quick, put on your hood, +Madam Beatrix; why doth not his Majesty come down? Such another chance may +not present itself for months again." + +The prince was late and lazy, and indeed had all but lost that chance +through his indolence. The queen was actually about to leave the garden +just when the party reached it; the doctor, the bishop, the maid of honour +and her brother went off together in the physician's coach, and had been +gone half an hour when Colonel Esmond came to Kensington Square. + +The news of this errand, on which Beatrix was gone, of course for a moment +put all thoughts of private jealousy out of Colonel Esmond's head. In half +an hour more the coach returned; the bishop descended from it first, and +gave his arm to Beatrix, who now came out. His lordship went back into the +carriage again, and the maid of honour entered the house alone. We were +all gazing at her from the upper window, trying to read from her +countenance the result of the interview from which she had just come. + +She came into the drawing-room in a great tremor and very pale; she asked +for a glass of water as her mother went to meet her, and after drinking +that and putting off her hood, she began to speak:--"We may all hope for +the best," says she; "it has cost the queen a fit. Her Majesty was in her +chair in the cedar-walk accompanied only by Lady ----, when we entered by +the private wicket from the west side of the garden, and turned towards +her, the doctor following us. They waited in a side-walk hidden by the +shrubs, as we advanced towards the chair. My heart throbbed so I scarce +could speak; but my prince whispered, 'Courage, Beatrix', and marched on +with a steady step. His face was a little flushed, but he was not afraid +of the danger. He who fought so bravely at Malplaquet fears nothing." +Esmond and Castlewood looked at each other at this compliment, neither +liking the sound of it. + +"The prince uncovered," Beatrix continued, "and I saw the queen turning +round to Lady Masham, as if asking who these two were. Her Majesty looked +very pale and ill, and then flushed up; the favourite made us a signal to +advance, and I went up, leading my prince by the hand, quite close to the +chair: 'Your Majesty will give my lord viscount your hand to kiss,' says +her lady, and the queen put out her hand, which the prince kissed, +kneeling on his knee, he who should kneel to no mortal man or woman. + +" 'You have been long from England, my lord,' says the queen: 'why were +you not here to give a home to your mother and sister?' + +" 'I am come, madam, to stay now, if the queen desires me,' says the +prince, with another low bow. + +" 'You have taken a foreign wife, my lord, and a foreign religion; was not +that of England good enough for you?' + +" 'In returning to my father's Church,' says the prince, 'I do not love my +mother the less, nor am I the less faithful servant of your Majesty.' + +"Here," says Beatrix, "the favourite gave me a little signal with her hand +to fall back, which I did, though I died to hear what should pass; and +whispered something to the queen, which made her Majesty start and utter +one or two words in a hurried manner, looking towards the prince, and +catching hold with her hand of the arm of her chair. He advanced still +nearer towards it; he began to speak very rapidly; I caught the words, +'Father, blessing, forgiveness,'--and then presently the prince fell on his +knees; took from his breast a paper he had there, handed it to the queen, +who, as soon as she saw it, flung up both her arms with a scream, and took +away that hand nearest the prince, and which he endeavoured to kiss. He +went on speaking with great animation of gesture, now clasping his hands +together on his heart, now opening them as though to say: 'I am here, your +brother, in your power.' Lady Masham ran round on the other side of the +chair, kneeling too, and speaking with great energy. She clasped the +queen's hand on her side, and picked up the paper her Majesty had let +fall. The prince rose and made a further speech as though he would go; the +favourite on the other hand urging her mistress, and then, running back to +the prince, brought him back once more close to the chair. Again he knelt +down and took the queen's hand, which she did not withdraw, kissing it a +hundred times; my lady all the time, with sobs and supplications, speaking +over the chair. This while the queen sat with a stupefied look, crumpling +the paper with one hand, as my prince embraced the other; then of a sudden +she uttered several piercing shrieks, and burst into a great fit of +hysteric tears and laughter. 'Enough, enough, sir, for this time,' I heard +Lady Masham say; and the chairman, who had withdrawn round the +banqueting-room, came back, alarmed by the cries: 'Quick,' says Lady +Masham, 'get some help,' and I ran towards the doctor, who, with the +Bishop of Rochester, came up instantly. Lady Masham whispered the prince +he might hope for the very best; and to be ready to-morrow; and he hath +gone away to the Bishop of Rochester's house, to meet several of his +friends there. And so the great stroke is struck," says Beatrix, going +down on her knees, and clasping her hands, "God save the King: God save +the King!" + +Beatrix's tale told, and the young lady herself calmed somewhat of her +agitation, we asked with regard to the prince, who was absent with Bishop +Atterbury, and were informed that 'twas likely he might remain abroad the +whole day. Beatrix's three kinsfolk looked at one another at this +intelligence; 'twas clear the same thought was passing through the minds +of all. + +But who should begin to break the news? Monsieur Baptiste, that is Frank +Castlewood, turned very red, and looked towards Esmond; the colonel bit +his lips, and fairly beat a retreat into the window: it was Lady +Castlewood that opened upon Beatrix with the news which we knew would do +anything but please her. + +"We are glad," says she, taking her daughter's hand, and speaking in a +gentle voice, "that the guest is away." + +Beatrix drew back in an instant, looking round her at us three, and as if +divining a danger. "Why glad?" says she, her breast beginning to heave; +"are you so soon tired of him?" + +"We think one of us is devilishly too fond of him," cries out Frank +Castlewood. + +"And which is it--you, my lord, or is it mamma, who is jealous because he +drinks my health? or is it the head of the family" (here she turned with +an imperious look towards Colonel Esmond), "who has taken of late to +preach the king sermons?" + +"We do not say you are too free with his Majesty." + +"I thank you, madam," says Beatrix, with a toss of the head and a curtsy. + +But her mother continued, with very great calmness and dignity--"At least +we have not said so, though we might, were it possible for a mother to say +such words to her own daughter, your father's daughter." + +"_Eh! mon pere_," breaks out Beatrix, "was no better than other persons' +fathers;" and again she looked towards the colonel. + +We all felt a shock as she uttered those two or three French words; her +manner was exactly imitated from that of our foreign guest. + +"You had not learned to speak French a month ago, Beatrix," says her +mother, sadly, "nor to speak ill of your father." + +Beatrix, no doubt, saw that slip she had made in her flurry, for she +blushed crimson: "I have learnt to honour the king," says she, drawing up, +"and 'twere as well that others suspected neither his Majesty nor me." + +"If you respected your mother a little more," Frank said, "'Trix, you +would do yourself no hurt." + +"I am no child," says she, turning round on him; "we have lived very well +these five years without the benefit of your advice or example, and I +intend to take neither now. Why does not the head of the house speak?" she +went on; "he rules everything here. When his chaplain has done singing the +psalms, will his lordship deliver the sermon? I am tired of the psalms." +The prince had used almost the very same words, in regard to Colonel +Esmond, that the imprudent girl repeated in her wrath. + +"You show yourself a very apt scholar, madam," says the colonel; and, +turning to his mistress, "Did your guest use these words in your +ladyship's hearing, or was it to Beatrix in private that he was pleased to +impart his opinion regarding my tiresome sermon?" + +"Have you seen him alone?" cries my lord, starting up with an oath: "by +God, have you seen him alone?" + +"Were he here, you wouldn't dare so to insult me; no, you would not dare!" +cries Frank's sister. "Keep your oaths, my lord, for your wife; we are not +used here to such language. 'Till you came, there used to be kindness +between me and mamma, and I cared for her when you never did, when you +were away for years with your horses, and your mistress, and your Popish +wife." + +"By ----," says my lord, rapping out another oath, "Clotilda is an angel; +how dare you say a word against Clotilda?" + +Colonel Esmond could not refrain from a smile, to see how easy Frank's +attack was drawn off by that feint:--"I fancy Clotilda is not the subject +in hand," says Mr. Esmond, rather scornfully; "her ladyship is at Paris, a +hundred leagues off, preparing baby-linen. It is about my Lord +Castlewood's sister, and not his wife, the question is." + +"He is not my Lord Castlewood," says Beatrix, "and he knows he is not; he +is Colonel Francis Esmond's son, and no more, and he wears a false title; +and he lives on another man's land, and he knows it." Here was another +desperate sally of the poor beleaguered garrison, and an _alerte_ in +another quarter. "Again, I beg your pardon," says Esmond. "If there are no +proofs of my claim, I have no claim. If my father acknowledged no heir, +yours was his lawful successor, and my Lord Castlewood hath as good a +right to his rank and small estate as any man in England. But that again +is not the question, as you know very well: let us bring our talk back to +it, as you will have me meddle in it. And I will give you frankly my +opinion, that a house where a prince lies all day, who respects no woman, +is no house for a young unmarried lady; that you were better in the +country than here; that he is here on a great end, from which no folly +should divert him; and that having nobly done your part of this morning, +Beatrix, you should retire off the scene awhile, and leave it to the other +actors of the play." + +As the colonel spoke with a perfect calmness and politeness, such as 'tis +to be hoped he hath always shown to women,(18) his mistress stood by him +on one side of the table, and Frank Castlewood on the other, hemming in +poor Beatrix, that was behind it, and, as it were, surrounding her with +our approaches. + +Having twice sallied out and been beaten back, she now, as I expected, +tried the _ultima ratio_ of women, and had recourse to tears. Her +beautiful eyes filled with them; I never could bear in her, nor in any +woman, that expression of pain:--"I am alone," sobbed she; "you are three +against me--my brother, my mother, and you. What have I done, that you +should speak and look so unkindly at me? Is it my fault that the prince +should, as you say, admire me? Did I bring him here? Did I do aught but +what you bade me, in making him welcome? Did you not tell me that our duty +was to die for him? Did you not teach me, mother, night and morning, to +pray for the king, before even ourselves? What would you have of me, +cousin, for you are the chief of the conspiracy against me; I know you +are, sir, and that my mother and brother are acting but as you bid them; +whither would you have me go?" + +"I would but remove from the prince," says Esmond gravely, "a dangerous +temptation; Heaven forbid I should say you would yield: I would only have +him free of it. Your honour needs no guardian, please God, but his +imprudence doth. He is so far removed from all women by his rank, that his +pursuit of them cannot but be unlawful. We would remove the dearest and +fairest of our family from the chance of that insult, and that is why we +would have you go, dear Beatrix." + +"Harry speaks like a book," says Frank, with one of his oaths, "and, by +----, every word he saith is true. You can't help being handsome, 'Trix; no +more can the prince help following you. My council is that you go out of +harm's way; for, by the Lord, were the prince to play any tricks with you, +king as he is, or is to be, Harry Esmond and I would have justice of him." + +"Are not two such champions enough to guard me?" says Beatrix, something +sorrowfully; "sure, with you two watching, no evil could happen to me." + +"In faith, I think not, Beatrix," says Colonel Esmond; "nor if the prince +knew us would he try." + +"But does he know you?" interposed Lady Esmond, very quiet: "he comes of a +country where the pursuit of kings is thought no dishonour to a woman. Let +us go, dearest Beatrix. Shall we go to Walcote or to Castlewood? We are +best away from the city; and when the prince is acknowledged, and our +champions have restored him, and he hath his own house at St. James's or +Windsor, we can come back to ours here. Do you not think so, Harry and +Frank?" + +Frank and Harry thought with her, you may be sure. + +"We will go, then," says Beatrix, turning a little pale; "Lady Masham is +to give me warning to-night how her Majesty is, and to-morrow----" + +"I think we had best go to-day, my dear," says my Lady Castlewood; "we +might have the coach and sleep at Hounslow, and reach home to-morrow. 'Tis +twelve o'clock; bid the coach, cousin, be ready at one." + +"For shame!" burst out Beatrix, in a passion of tears and mortification. +"You disgrace me by your cruel precautions; my own mother is the first to +suspect me, and would take me away as my gaoler. I will not go with you, +mother; I will go as no one's prisoner. If I wanted to deceive, do you +think I could find no means of evading you? My family suspects me. As +those mistrust me that ought to love me most, let me leave them; I will +go, but I will go alone: to Castlewood, be it. I have been unhappy there +and lonely enough; let me go back, but spare me at least the humiliation +of setting a watch over my misery, which is a trial I can't bear. Let me +go when you will, but alone, or not at all. You three can stay and triumph +over my unhappiness, and I will bear it as I have borne it before. Let my +gaoler-in-chief go order the coach that is to take me away. I thank you, +Henry Esmond, for your share in the conspiracy. All my life long I'll +thank you, and remember you; and you, brother, and you, mother, how shall +I show my gratitude to you for your careful defence of my honour?" + +She swept out of the room with the air of an empress, flinging glances of +defiance at us all, and leaving us conquerors of the field, but scared, +and almost ashamed of our victory. It did indeed seem hard and cruel that +we three should have conspired the banishment and humiliation of that fair +creature. We looked at each other in silence; 'twas not the first stroke +by many of our actions in that unlucky time, which, being done, we wished +undone. We agreed it was best she should go alone, speaking stealthily to +one another, and under our breaths, like persons engaged in an act they +felt ashamed in doing. + +In a half-hour, it might be, after our talk she came back, her countenance +wearing the same defiant air which it had borne when she left us. She held +a shagreen-case in her hand; Esmond knew it as containing his diamonds +which he had given to her for her marriage with Duke Hamilton, and which +she had worn so splendidly on the inauspicious night of the prince's +arrival. "I have brought back," says she, "to the Marquis of Esmond the +present he deigned to make me in days when he trusted me better than now. +I will never accept a benefit or a kindness from Henry Esmond more, and I +give back these family diamonds, which belonged to one king's mistress, to +the gentleman that suspected I would be another. Have you been upon your +message of coach-caller, my lord marquis; will you send your valet to see +that I do not run away?" We were right, yet, by her manner, she had put us +all in the wrong; we were conquerors, yet the honours of the day seemed to +be with the poor oppressed girl. + +That luckless box containing the stones had first been ornamented with a +baron's coronet, when Beatrix was engaged to the young gentleman from whom +she parted, and afterwards the gilt crown of a duchess figured on the +cover, which also poor Beatrix was destined never to wear. Lady Castlewood +opened the case mechanically and scarce thinking what she did; and behold, +besides the diamonds, Esmond's present, there lay in the box the enamelled +miniature of the late duke, which Beatrix had laid aside with her mourning +when the king came into the house; and which the poor heedless thing very +likely had forgotten. + +"Do you leave this, too, Beatrix?" says her mother, taking the miniature +out and with a cruelty she did not very often show; but there are some +moments when the tenderest women are cruel, and some triumphs which angels +can't forgo.(19) + +Having delivered this stab, Lady Esmond was frightened at the effect of +her blow. It went to poor Beatrix's heart; she flushed up and passed a +handkerchief across her eyes, and kissed the miniature, and put it into +her bosom:--"I had forgot it," says she; "my injury made me forget my +grief, my mother has recalled both to me. Farewell, mother, I think I +never can forgive you; something hath broke between us that no tears nor +years can repair. I always said I was alone; you never loved me, never--and +were jealous of me from the time I sat on my father's knee. Let me go +away, the sooner the better; I can bear to be with you no more." + +"Go, child," says her mother, still very stern; "go and bend your proud +knees and ask forgiveness; go, pray in solitude for humility and +repentance. 'Tis not your reproaches that make me unhappy, 'tis your hard +heart, my poor Beatrix; may God soften it, and teach you one day to feel +for your mother!" + +If my mistress was cruel, at least she never could be got to own as much. +Her haughtiness quite overtopped Beatrix's; and, if the girl had a proud +spirit, I very much fear it came to her by inheritance. + + + +Chapter XI. Our Guest Quits Us As Not Being Hospitable Enough + + +Beatrix's departure took place within an hour, her maid going with her in +the post-chaise, and a man armed on the coach-box to prevent any danger of +the road. Esmond and Frank thought of escorting the carriage, but she +indignantly refused their company, and another man was sent to follow the +coach, and not to leave it till it had passed over Hounslow Heath on the +next day. And these two forming the whole of Lady Castle wood's male +domestics, Mr. Esmond's faithful John Lockwood came to wait on his +mistress during their absence, though he would have preferred to escort +Mrs. Lucy, his sweetheart, on her journey into the country. + +We had a gloomy and silent meal; it seemed as if a darkness was over the +house, since the bright face of Beatrix had been withdrawn from it. In the +afternoon came a message from the favourite to relieve us somewhat from +this despondency. "The queen hath been much shaken," the note said; "she +is better now, and all things will go well. Let _my Lord Castlewood_ be +ready against we send for him." + +At night there came a second billet: "There hath been a great battle in +Council; lord treasurer hath broke his staff, and hath fallen never to +rise again; no successor is appointed. Lord B---- receives a great Whig +company to-night at Golden Square. If he is trimming, others are true; the +queen hath no more fits, but is abed now, and more quiet. Be ready against +morning, when I still hope all will be well." + +The prince came home shortly after the messenger who bore this billet had +left the house. His royal highness was so much the better for the bishop's +liquor, that to talk affairs to him now was of little service. He was +helped to the royal bed; he called Castlewood familiarly by his own name; +he quite forgot the part upon the acting of which his crown, his safety, +depended. 'Twas lucky that my Lady Castlewood's servants were out of the +way, and only those heard him who would not betray him. He inquired after +the adorable Beatrix, with a royal hiccup in his voice; he was easily got +to bed, and in a minute or two plunged in that deep slumber and +forgetfulness with which Bacchus rewards the votaries of that god. We +wished Beatrix had been there to see him in his cups. We regretted, +perhaps, that she was gone. + +One of the party at Kensington Square was fool enough to ride to Hounslow +that night, _coram latronibus_, and to the inn which the family used +ordinarily in their journeys out of London. Esmond desired my landlord not +to acquaint Madam Beatrix with his coming, and had the grim satisfaction +of passing by the door of the chamber where she lay with her maid, and of +watching her chariot set forth in the early morning. He saw her smile and +slip money into the man's hand who was ordered to ride behind the coach as +far as Bagshot. The road being open, and the other servant armed, it +appeared she dispensed with the escort of a second domestic; and this +fellow, bidding his young mistress adieu with many bows, went and took a +pot of ale in the kitchen, and returned in company with his brother +servant, John Coachman, and his horses, back to London. + +They were not a mile out of Hounslow when the two worthies stopped for +more drink, and here they were scared by seeing Colonel Esmond gallop by +them. The man said in reply to Colonel Esmond's stern question, that his +young mistress had sent her duty; only that, no other message: she had had +a very good night, and would reach Castlewood by nightfall. The colonel +had no time for further colloquy, and galloped on swiftly to London, +having business of great importance there, as my reader very well knoweth. +The thought of Beatrix riding away from the danger soothed his mind not a +little. His horse was at Kensington Square (honest Dapple knew the way +thither well enough) before the tipsy guest of last night was awake and +sober. + +The account of the previous evening was known all over the town early next +day. A violent altercation had taken place before the queen in the +Council-chamber; and all the coffee-houses had their version of the +quarrel. The news brought my lord bishop early to Kensington Square, where +he awaited the waking of his royal master above stairs, and spoke +confidently of having him proclaimed as Prince of Wales and heir to the +throne before that day was over. The bishop had entertained on the +previous afternoon certain of the most influential gentlemen of the true +British party. His royal highness had charmed all, both Scots and English, +Papists and Churchmen: "Even Quakers," says he, "were at our meeting; and, +if the stranger took a little too much British punch and ale, he will soon +grow more accustomed to those liquors; and my Lord Castlewood," says the +bishop, with a laugh, "must bear the cruel charge of having been for once +in his life a little tipsy. He toasted your lovely sister a dozen times, +at which we all laughed," says the bishop, "admiring so much fraternal +affection.--Where is that charming nymph, and why doth she not adorn your +ladyship's tea-table with her bright eyes?" Her ladyship said, drily, that +Beatrix was not at home that morning; my lord bishop was too busy with +great affairs to trouble himself much about the presence or absence of any +lady, however beautiful. + +We were yet at table when Dr. A---- came from the Palace with a look of +great alarm; the shocks the queen had had the day before had acted on her +severely; he had been sent for, and had ordered her to be blooded. The +surgeon of Long Acre had come to cup the queen, and her Majesty was now +more easy and breathed more freely. What made us start at the name of Mr. +Ayme? "_Il faut etre aimable pour etre aime_," says the merry doctor; +Esmond pulled his sleeve, and bade him hush. It was to Ayme's house, after +his fatal duel, that my dear Lord Castlewood, Frank's father, had been +carried to die. + +No second visit could be paid to the queen on that day at any rate; and +when our guest above gave his signal that he was awake, the doctor, the +bishop, and Colonel Esmond waited upon the prince's levee, and brought him +their news, cheerful or dubious. The doctor had to go away presently, but +promised to keep the prince constantly acquainted with what was taking +place at the palace hard by. His counsel was, and the bishop's, that as +soon as ever the queen's malady took a favourable turn, the prince should +be introduced to her bedside; the Council summoned; the guard at +Kensington and St. James's, of which two regiments were to be entirely +relied on, and one known not to be hostile, would declare for the prince, +as the queen would before the lords of her Council, designating him as the +heir to her throne. + +With locked doors, and Colonel Esmond acting as secretary, the prince and +his lordship of Rochester passed many hours of this day composing +Proclamations and Addresses to the Country, to the Scots, to the Clergy, +to the People of London and England; announcing the arrival of the exile +descendant of three sovereigns, and his acknowledgement by his sister as +heir to the throne. Every safeguard for their liberties the Church and +People could ask was promised to them. The bishop could answer for the +adhesion of very many prelates, who besought of their flocks and brother +ecclesiastics to recognize the sacred right of the future sovereign, and +to purge the country of the sin of rebellion. + +During the composition of these papers, more messengers than one came from +the Palace regarding the state of the august patient there lying. At +midday she was somewhat better; at evening the torpor again seized her, +and she wandered in her mind. At night Dr. A---- was with us again, with a +report rather more favourable: no instant danger at any rate was +apprehended. In the course of the last two years her Majesty had had many +attacks similar, but more severe. + +By this time we had finished a half-dozen of Proclamations (the wording of +them so as to offend no parties, and not to give umbrage to Whigs or +Dissenters, required very great caution), and the young prince, who had +indeed shown, during a long day's labour, both alacrity at seizing the +information given him, and ingenuity and skill in turning the phrases +which were to go out signed by his name, here exhibited a good humour and +thoughtfulness that ought to be set down to his credit. + +"Were these papers to be mislaid," says he, "or our scheme to come to +mishap, my Lord Esmond's writing would bring him to a place where I +heartily hope never to see him; and so, by your leave, I will copy the +papers myself, though I am not very strong in spelling; and if they are +found they will implicate none but the person they most concern;" and so, +having carefully copied the Proclamations out, the prince burned those in +Colonel Esmond's handwriting: "And now, and now, gentlemen," says he, "let +us go to supper, and drink a glass with the ladies. My Lord Esmond, you +will sup with us to-night; you have given us of late too little of your +company." + +The prince's meals were commonly served in the chamber which had been +Beatrix's bedroom, adjoining that in which he slept. And the dutiful +practice of his entertainers was to wait until their royal guest bade them +take their places at table before they sat down to partake of the meal. On +this night, as you may suppose, only Frank Castlewood and his mother were +in waiting when the supper was announced to receive the prince; who had +passed the whole of the day in his own apartment, with the bishop as his +minister of state, and Colonel Esmond officiating as secretary of his +Council. + +The prince's countenance wore an expression by no means pleasant; when +looking towards the little company assembled, and waiting for him, he did +not see Beatrix's bright face there as usual to greet him. He asked Lady +Esmond for his fair introducer of yesterday: her ladyship only cast her +eyes down, and said quietly, Beatrix could not be of the supper that +night; nor did she show the least sign of confusion, whereas Castlewood +turned red, and Esmond was no less embarrassed. I think women have an +instinct of dissimulation; they know by nature how to disguise their +emotions far better than the most consummate male courtiers can do. Is not +the better part of the life of many of them spent in hiding their +feelings, in cajoling their tyrants, in masking over with fond smiles and +artful gaiety their doubt, or their grief, or their terror? + +Our guest swallowed his supper very sulky; it was not till the second +bottle his highness began to rally. When Lady Castlewood asked leave to +depart, he sent a message to Beatrix, hoping she would be present at the +next day's dinner, and applied himself to drink, and to talk afterwards, +for which there was subject in plenty. + +The next day, we heard from our informer at Kensington that the queen was +somewhat better, and had been up for an hour, though she was not well +enough yet to receive any visitor. + +At dinner a single cover was laid for his royal highness; and the two +gentlemen alone waited on him. We had had a consultation in the morning +with Lady Castlewood, in which it had been determined that, should his +highness ask further questions about Beatrix, he should be answered by the +gentlemen of the house. + +He was evidently disturbed and uneasy, looking towards the door +constantly, as if expecting some one. There came, however, nobody, except +honest John Lockwood, when he knocked with a dish, which those within took +from him; so the meals were always arranged, and I believe the council in +the kitchen were of opinion that my young lord had brought over a priest, +who had converted us all into Papists, and that Papists were like Jews, +eating together, and not choosing to take their meals in the sight of +Christians. + +The prince tried to cover his displeasure; he was but a clumsy dissembler +at that time, and when out of humour could with difficulty keep a serene +countenance; and having made some foolish attempts at trivial talk, he +came to his point presently, and in as easy a manner as he could, saying +to Lord Castlewood, he hoped, he requested, his lordship's mother and +sister would be of the supper that night. As the time hung heavy on him, +and he must not go abroad, would not Miss Beatrix hold him company at a +game of cards? + +At this, looking up at Esmond, and taking the signal from him, Lord +Castlewood informed his royal highness(20) that his sister Beatrix was not +at Kensington; and that her family had thought it best she should quit the +town. + +"Not at Kensington!" says he; "is she ill? she was well yesterday; +wherefore should she quit the town? Is it at your orders, my lord, or +Colonel Esmond's, who seems the master of this house?" + +"Not of this, sir," says Frank very nobly, "only of our house in the +country, which he hath given to us. This is my mother's house, and Walcote +is my father's, and the Marquis of Esmond knows he hath but to give his +word, and I return his to him." + +"The Marquis of Esmond!--the Marquis of Esmond," says the prince, tossing +off a glass, "meddles too much with my affairs, and presumes on the +service he hath done me. If you want to carry your suit with Beatrix, my +lord, by blocking her up in gaol, let me tell you that is not the way to +win a woman." + +"I was not aware, sir, that I had spoken of my suit to Madam Beatrix to +your royal highness." + +"Bah, bah, monsieur! we need not be a conjurer to see that. It makes +itself seen at all moments. You are jealous, my lord, and the maid of +honour cannot look at another face without yours beginning to scowl. That +which you do is unworthy, monsieur; is inhospitable--is, is _lache_, yes +_lache_:" (he spoke rapidly in French, his rage carrying him away with +each phrase:) "I come to your house; I risk my life; I pass it in ennui; I +repose myself on your fidelity; I have no company but your lordship's +sermons or the conversations of that adorable young lady, and you take her +from me; and you, you rest! _Merci, monsieur!_ I shall thank you when I +have the means; I shall know to recompense a devotion a little +importunate, my lord--a little importunate. For a month past your airs of +protector have annoyed me beyond measure. You deign to offer me the crown, +and bid me take it on my knees like King John--eh! I know my history, +monsieur, and mock myself of frowning barons. I admire your mistress, and +you send her to a Bastile of the Province; I enter your house, and you +mistrust me. I will leave it, monsieur; from to-night I will leave it. I +have other friends whose loyalty will not be so ready to question mine. If +I have Garters to give away, 'tis to noblemen who are not so ready to +think evil. Bring me a coach and let me quit this place, or let the fair +Beatrix return to it. I will not have your hospitality at the expense of +the freedom of that fair creature." + +This harangue was uttered with rapid gesticulations such as the French +use, and in the language of that nation. The prince striding up and down +the room; his face flushed, and his hands trembling with anger. He was +very thin and frail from repeated illness and a life of pleasure. Either +Castlewood or Esmond could have broke him across their knee, and in half a +minute's struggle put an end to him; and here he was insulting us both, +and scarce deigning to hide from the two, whose honour it most concerned, +the passion he felt for the young lady of our family. My Lord Castlewood +replied to the prince's tirade very nobly and simply. + +"Sir," says he, "your royal highness is pleased to forget that others risk +their lives, and for your cause. Very few Englishmen, please God, would +dare to lay hands on your sacred person, though none would ever think of +respecting ours. Our family's lives are at your service, and everything we +have except our honour." + +"Honour! bah, sir, who ever thought of hurting your honour?" says the +prince, with a peevish air. + +"We implore your royal highness never to think of hurting it," says Lord +Castlewood, with a low bow. The night being warm, the windows were open +both towards the gardens and the square. Colonel Esmond heard through the +closed door the voice of the watchman calling the hour, in the square on +the other side. He opened the door communicating with the prince's room; +Martin, the servant that had rode with Beatrix to Hounslow, was just going +out of the chamber as Esmond entered it, and when the fellow was gone, and +the watchman again sang his cry of "Past ten o'clock, and a starlight +night," Esmond spoke to the prince in a low voice, and said--"Your royal +highness hears that man?" + +"_Apres, monsieur?_" says the prince. + +"I have but to beckon him from the window, and send him fifty yards, and +he returns with a guard of men, and I deliver up to him the body of the +person calling himself James the Third, for whose capture Parliament hath +offered a reward of 5,000_l._, as your royal highness saw on our ride from +Rochester. I have but to say the word, and, by the Heaven that made me, I +would say it if I thought the prince, for his honour's sake, would not +desist from insulting ours. But the first gentleman of England knows his +duty too well to forget himself with the humblest, or peril his crown for +a deed that were shameful if it were done." + +"Has your lordship anything to say," says the prince, turning to Frank +Castlewood, and quite pale with anger; "any threat or any insult, with +which you would like to end this agreeable night's entertainment?" + +"I follow the head of our house," says Castlewood, bowing gravely. "At +what time shall it please the prince that we should wait upon him in the +morning?" + +"You will wait on the Bishop of Rochester early, you will bid him bring +his coach hither; and prepare an apartment for me in his own house, or in +a place of safety. The king will reward you handsomely, never fear, for +all you have done in his behalf. I wish you a good night, and shall go to +bed, unless it pleases the Marquis of Esmond to call his colleague, the +watchman, and that I should pass the night with the Kensington guard. Fare +you well, be sure I will remember you. My Lord Castlewood, I can go to bed +to-night without need of a chamberlain." And the prince dismissed us with +a grim bow, locking one door as he spoke, that into the supping-room, and +the other through which we passed, after us. It led into the small chamber +which Frank Castlewood or _Monsieur Baptiste_ occupied, and by which +Martin entered when Colonel Esmond but now saw him in the chamber. + +At an early hour next morning the bishop arrived, and was closeted for +some time with his master in his own apartment, where the prince laid open +to his counsellor the wrongs which, according to his version, he had +received from the gentlemen of the Esmond family. The worthy prelate came +out from the conference with an air of great satisfaction; he was a man +full of resources, and of a most assured fidelity, and possessed of +genius, and a hundred good qualities; but captious and of a most jealous +temper, that could not help exulting at the downfall of any favourite; and +he was pleased in spite of himself to hear that the Esmond ministry was at +an end. + +"I have soothed your guest," says he, coming out to the two gentlemen and +the widow, who had been made acquainted with somewhat of the dispute of +the night before. (By the version we gave her, the prince was only made to +exhibit anger because we doubted of his intentions in respect to Beatrix; +and to leave us, because we questioned his honour.) "But I think, all +things considered, 'tis as well he should leave this house; and then, my +Lady Castlewood," says the bishop, "my pretty Beatrix may come back to +it." + +"She is quite as well at home at Castlewood," Esmond's mistress said, +"till everything is over." + +"You shall have your title, Esmond, that I promise you," says the good +bishop, assuming the airs of a prime minister. "The prince hath expressed +himself most nobly in regard of the little difference of last night, and I +promise you he hath listened to my sermon, as well as to that of other +folks," says the doctor archly; "he hath every great and generous quality, +with perhaps a weakness for the sex which belongs to his family, and hath +been known in scores of popular sovereigns from King David downwards." + +"My lord, my lord," breaks out Lady Esmond, "the levity with which you +speak of such conduct towards our sex shocks me, and what you call +weakness I call deplorable sin." + +"Sin it is, my dear creature," says the bishop, with a shrug, taking +snuff; "but consider what a sinner King Solomon was, and in spite of a +thousand of wives too." + +"Enough of this, my lord," says Lady Castlewood, with a fine blush, and +walked out of the room very stately. + +The prince entered it presently with a smile on his face, and if he felt +any offence against us on the previous night, at present exhibited none. +He offered a hand to each gentleman with great courtesy. "If all your +bishops preach so well as Dr. Atterbury," says he, "I don't know, +gentlemen, what may happen to me. I spoke very hastily, my lords, last +night, and ask pardon of both of you. But I must not stay any longer," +says he, "giving umbrage to good friends, or keeping pretty girls away +from their homes. My lord bishop hath found a safe place for me, hard by +at a curate's house, whom the bishop can trust, and whose wife is so ugly +as to be beyond all danger; we will decamp into those new quarters, and I +leave you, thanking you for a hundred kindnesses here. Where is my +hostess, that I may bid her farewell? to welcome her in a house of my own, +soon I trust, where my friends shall have no cause to quarrel with me." + +Lady Castlewood arrived presently, blushing with great grace, and tears +filling her eyes as the prince graciously saluted her. She looked so +charming and young, that the doctor, in his bantering way, could not help +speaking of her beauty to the prince; whose compliment made her blush, and +look more charming still. + + + +Chapter XII. A Great Scheme, And Who Balked It + + +As characters written with a secret ink come out with the application of +fire, and disappear again and leave the paper white, so soon as it is +cool, a hundred names of men, high in repute and favouring the prince's +cause, that were writ in our private lists, would have been visible enough +on the great roll of the conspiracy, had it ever been laid open under the +sun. What crowds would have pressed forward, and subscribed their names +and protested their loyalty, when the danger was over! What a number of +Whigs, now high in place and creatures of the all-powerful minister, +scorned Mr. Walpole then! If ever a match was gained by the manliness and +decision of a few at a moment of danger; if ever one was lost by the +treachery and imbecility of those that had the cards in their hands, and +might have played them, it was in that momentous game which was enacted in +the next three days, and of which the noblest crown in the world was the +stake. + +From the conduct of my Lord Bolingbroke, those who were interested in the +scheme we had in hand, saw pretty well that he was not to be trusted. +Should the prince prevail, it was his lordship's gracious intention to +declare for him: should the Hanoverian party bring in their sovereign, who +more ready to go on his knee, and cry "God save King George"? And he +betrayed the one prince and the other; but exactly at the wrong time. When +he should have struck for King James, he faltered and coquetted with the +Whigs; and having committed himself by the most monstrous professions of +devotion, which the Elector rightly scorned, he proved the justness of +their contempt for him by flying and taking renegado service with St. +Germains, just when he should have kept aloof: and that Court despised +him, as the manly and resolute men who established the Elector in England +had before done. He signed his own name to every accusation of insincerity +his enemies made against him; and the king and the pretender alike could +show proofs of St. John's treachery under his own hand and seal. + +Our friends kept a pretty close watch upon his motions, as on those of the +brave and hearty Whig party, that made little concealment of theirs. They +would have in the Elector, and used every means in their power to effect +their end. My Lord Marlborough was now with them. His expulsion from power +by the Tories had thrown that great captain at once on the Whig side. We +heard he was coming from Antwerp; and in fact, on the day of the queen's +death, he once more landed on English shore. A great part of the army was +always with their illustrious leader; even the Tories in it were indignant +at the injustice of the persecution which the Whig officers were made to +undergo. The chiefs of these were in London, and at the head of them one +of the most intrepid men in the world, the Scots Duke of Argyle, whose +conduct, on the second day after that to which I have now brought down my +history, ended, as such honesty and bravery deserved to end, by +establishing the present royal race on the English throne. + +Meanwhile there was no slight difference of opinion amongst the +councillors surrounding the prince, as to the plan his highness should +pursue. His female minister at Court, fancying she saw some amelioration +in the queen, was for waiting a few days, or hours it might be, until he +could be brought to her bedside, and acknowledged as her heir. Mr. Esmond +was for having him march thither, escorted by a couple of troops of Horse +Guards, and openly presenting himself to the Council. During the whole of +the night of the 29th-30th July, the colonel was engaged with gentlemen of +the military profession, whom 'tis needless here to name; suffice it to +say that several of them had exceeding high rank in the army, and one of +them in especial was a general, who, when he heard the Duke of Marlborough +was coming on the other side, waved his crutch over his head with a +huzzah, at the idea that he should march out and engage him. Of the three +secretaries of state, we knew that one was devoted to us. The Governor of +the Tower was ours: the two companies on duty at Kensington barrack were +safe; and we had intelligence, very speedy and accurate, of all that took +place at the Palace within. + +At noon, on the 30th of July, a message came to the prince's friends that +the Committee of Council was sitting at Kensington Palace, their graces of +Ormonde and Shrewsbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the three +Secretaries of State, being there assembled. In an hour afterwards, +hurried news was brought that the two great Whig dukes, Argyle and +Somerset, had broke into the Council-chamber without a summons, and taken +their seat at table. After holding a debate there, the whole party +proceeded to the chamber of the queen, who was lying in great weakness, +but still sensible, and the lords recommended his grace of Shrewsbury as +the fittest person to take the vacant place of lord treasurer; her Majesty +gave him the staff, as all know. "And now," writ my messenger from Court, +"_now or never is the time_." + +Now or never was the time indeed. In spite of the Whig dukes, our side had +still the majority in the Council, and Esmond, to whom the message had +been brought (the personage at Court not being aware that the prince had +quitted his lodging in Kensington Square), and Esmond's gallant young aide +de camp, Frank Castlewood, putting on sword and uniform, took a brief +leave of their dear lady, who embraced and blessed them both; and went to +her chamber to pray for the issue of the great event which was then +pending. + +Castlewood sped to the barrack to give warning to the captain of the guard +there; and then went to the "King's Arms" tavern at Kensington, where our +friends were assembled, having come by parties of twos and threes, riding +or in coaches, and were got together in the upper chamber, fifty-three of +them; their servants, who had been instructed to bring arms likewise, +being below in the garden of the tavern, where they were served with +drink. Out of this garden is a little door that leads into the road of the +Palace, and through this it was arranged that masters and servants were to +march; when that signal was given, and that Personage appeared, for whom +all were waiting. There was in our company the famous officer next in +command to the Captain-General of the Forces, his grace the Duke of +Ormonde, who was within at the Council. There were with him two more +lieutenant-generals, nine major-generals and brigadiers, seven colonels, +eleven peers of Parliament, and twenty-one members of the House of +Commons. The guard was with us within and without the Palace: the queen +was with us; the Council (save the two Whig dukes, that must have +succumbed); the day was our own, and with a beating heart Esmond walked +rapidly to the Mall of Kensington, where he had parted with the prince on +the night before. For three nights the colonel had not been to bed: the +last had been passed summoning the prince's friends together, of whom the +great majority had no sort of inkling of the transaction pending until +they were told that he was actually on the spot, and were summoned to +strike the blow. The night before and after the altercation with the +prince, my gentleman, having suspicions of his royal highness, and fearing +lest he should be minded to give us the slip, and fly off after his +fugitive beauty, had spent, if the truth must be told, at the "Greyhound" +tavern, over against my Lady Esmond's house in Kensington Square, with an +eye on the door, lest the prince should escape from it. The night before +that he had passed in his boots at the "Crown" at Hounslow, where he must +watch forsooth all night, in order to get one moment's glimpse of Beatrix +in the morning. And fate had decreed that he was to have a fourth night's +ride and wakefulness before his business was ended. + +He ran to the curate's house in Kensington Mall, and asked for Mr. Bates, +the name the prince went by. The curate's wife said Mr. Bates had gone +abroad very early in the morning in his boots, saying he was going to the +Bishop of Rochester's house at Chelsea. But the bishop had been at +Kensington himself two hours ago to seek for Mr. Bates, and had returned +in his coach to his own house, when he heard that the gentleman was gone +thither to seek him. + +This absence was most unpropitious, for an hour's delay might cost a +kingdom; Esmond had nothing for it but to hasten to the "King's Arms", and +tell the gentlemen there assembled that Mr. George (as we called the +prince there) was not at home, but that Esmond would go fetch him; and +taking a general's coach that happened to be there, Esmond drove across +the country to Chelsea, to the bishop's house there. + +The porter said two gentlemen were with his lordship, and Esmond ran past +this sentry up to the locked door of the bishop's study, at which he +rattled, and was admitted presently. Of the bishop's guests one was a +brother prelate, and the other the Abbe G----. + +"Where is Mr. George?" says Mr. Esmond; "now is the time." The bishop +looked scared; "I went to his lodging," he said, "and they told me he was +come hither. I returned as quick as coach would carry me; and he hath not +been here." + +The colonel burst out with an oath; that was all he could say to their +reverences; ran down the stairs again, and bidding the coachman, an old +friend and fellow-campaigner, drive as if he was charging the French with +his master at Wynendael--they were back at Kensington in half an hour. + +Again Esmond went to the curate's house. Mr. George had not returned. The +colonel had to go with this blank errand to the gentlemen at the "King's +Arms", that were grown very impatient by this time. + +Out of the window of the tavern, and looking over the garden-wall, you can +see the green before Kensington Palace, the Palace gate (round which the +ministers' coaches were standing), and the barrack building. As we were +looking out from this window in gloomy discourse, we heard presently +trumpets blowing, and some of us ran to the window of the front room, +looking into the High Street of Kensington, and saw a regiment of horse +coming. + +"It's Ormonde's Guards," says one. + +"No, by God, it's Argyle's old regiment!" says my general, clapping down +his crutch. + +It was, indeed, Argyle's regiment that was brought from Westminster, and +that took the place of the regiment at Kensington on which we could rely. + +"Oh, Harry!" says one of the generals there present, "you were born under +an unlucky star; I begin to think that there's no Mr. George, nor Mr. +Dragon either. 'Tis not the peerage I care for, for our name is so ancient +and famous, that merely to be called Lord Lydiard would do me no good; but +'tis the chance you promised me of fighting Marlborough." + +As we were talking, Castlewood entered the room with a disturbed air. + +"What news, Frank?" says the colonel, "is Mr. George coming at last?" + +"Damn him, look here!" says Castlewood, holding out a paper. "I found it +in the book--the what you call it, _Eikum Basilikum_,--that villain Martin +put it there--he said his young mistress bade him. It was directed to me, +but it was meant for him I know, and I broke the seal and read it." + +The whole assembly of officers seemed to swim away before Esmond's eyes as +he read the paper; all that was written on it was:--"Beatrix Esmond is sent +away to prison, to Castlewood, where she will pray for happier days." + +"Can you guess where he is?" says Castlewood. + +"Yes," says Colonel Esmond. He knew full well, Frank knew full well: our +instinct told whither that traitor had fled. + +He had courage to turn to the company and say, "Gentlemen, I fear very +much that Mr. George will not be here to-day; something hath +happened--and--and--I very much fear some accident may befall him, which must +keep him out of the way. Having had your noon's draught, you had best pay +the reckoning and go home; there can be no game where there is no one to +play it." + +Some of the gentlemen went away without a word, others called to pay their +duty to her Majesty and ask for her health. The little army disappeared +into the darkness out of which it had been called; there had been no +writings, no paper to implicate any man. Some few officers and members of +Parliament had been invited overnight to breakfast at the "King's Arms", +at Kensington; and they had called for their bill and gone home. + + + +Chapter XIII. August 1st, 1714 + + +"Does my mistress know of this?" Esmond asked of Frank, as they walked +along. + +"My mother found the letter in the book, on the toilet-table. She had writ +it ere she had left home," Frank said. "Mother met her on the stairs, with +her hand upon the door, trying to enter, and never left her after that +till she went away. He did not think of looking at it there, nor had +Martin the chance of telling him. I believe the poor devil meant no harm, +though I half killed him; he thought 'twas to Beatrix's brother he was +bringing the letter." + +Frank never said a word of reproach to me, for having brought the villain +amongst us. As we knocked at the door I said; "When will the horses be +ready?" Frank pointed with his cane, they were turning the street that +moment. + +We went up and bade adieu to our mistress; she was in a dreadful state of +agitation by this time, and that bishop was with her whose company she was +so fond of. + +"Did you tell him, my lord," says Esmond, "that Beatrix was at +Castlewood?" The bishop blushed and stammered: + +"Well," says he, "I----" + +"You served the villain right," broke out Mr. Esmond, "and he has lost a +crown by what you told him." + +My mistress turned quite white. "Henry, Henry," says she, "do not kill +him." + +"It may not be too late," says Esmond; "he may not have gone to +Castlewood; pray God, it is not too late." The bishop was breaking out +with some _banales_ phrases about loyalty and the sacredness of the +sovereign's person; but Esmond sternly bade him hold his tongue, burn all +papers, and take care of Lady Castlewood; and in five minutes he and Frank +were in the saddle, John Lockwood behind them, riding towards Castlewood +at a rapid pace. + +We were just got to Alton, when who should meet us but old Lockwood, the +porter from Castlewood, John's father, walking by the side of the Hexham +flying-coach, who slept the night at Alton. Lockwood said his young +mistress had arrived at home on Wednesday night, and this morning, Friday, +had dispatched him with a packet for my lady at Kensington, saying the +letter was of great importance. + +We took the freedom to break it, while Lockwood stared with wonder, and +cried out his "Lord bless me's", and "Who'd a thought it's", at the sight +of his young lord, whom he had not seen these seven years. + +The packet from Beatrix contained no news of importance at all. It was +written in a jocular strain, affecting to make light of her captivity. She +asked whether she might have leave to visit Mrs. Tusher, or to walk beyond +the court and the garden-wall. She gave news of the peacocks, and a fawn +she had there. She bade her mother send her certain gowns and smocks by +old Lockwood; she sent her duty to a certain person, if certain other +persons permitted her to take such a freedom; how that, as she was not +able to play cards with him, she hoped he would read good books, such as +Dr. Atterbury's sermons and _Eikon Basilike_: she was going to read good +books: she thought her pretty mamma would like to know she was not crying +her eyes out. + +"Who is in the house besides you, Lockwood?" says the colonel. + +"There be the laundry-maid, and the kitchen-maid, Madam Beatrix's maid, +the man from London, and that be all; and he sleepeth in my lodge away +from the maids," says old Lockwood. + +Esmond scribbled a line with a pencil on the note, giving it to the old +man, and bidding him go on to his lady. We knew why Beatrix had been so +dutiful on a sudden, and why she spoke of _Eikon Basilike_. She writ this +letter to put the prince on the scent, and the porter out of the way. + +"We have a fine moonlight night for riding on," says Esmond; "Frank, we +may reach Castlewood in time yet." All the way along they made inquiries +at the post-houses, when a tall young gentleman in a grey suit, with a +light-brown periwig, just the colour of my lord's, had been seen to pass. +He had set off at six that morning, and we at three in the afternoon. He +rode almost as quickly as we had done; he was seven hours ahead of us +still when we reached the last stage. + +We rode over Castlewood Downs before the breaking of dawn. We passed the +very spot where the car was upset fourteen years since; and Mohun lay. The +village was not up yet, nor the forge lighted, as we rode through it, +passing by the elms, where the rooks were still roosting, and by the +church, and over the bridge. We got off our horses at the bridge and +walked up to the gate. + +"If she is safe," says Frank, trembling, and his honest eyes filling with +tears, "a silver statue to Our Lady!" He was going to rattle at the great +iron knocker on the oak gate; but Esmond stopped his kinsman's hand. He +had his own fears, his own hopes, his own despairs and griefs, too: but he +spoke not a word of these to his companion, or showed any signs of +emotion. + +He went and tapped at the little window at the porter's lodge, gently, but +repeatedly, until the man came to the bars. + +"Who's there?" says he, looking out; it was the servant from Kensington. + +"My Lord Castlewood and Colonel Esmond," we said, from below. "Open the +gate and let us in without any noise." + +"My Lord Castlewood?" says the other; "my lord's here, and in bed." + +"Open, d--n you," says Castlewood, with a curse. + +"I shall open to no one," says the man, shutting the glass window as Frank +drew a pistol. He would have fired at the porter, but Esmond again held +his hand. + +"There are more ways than one," says he, "of entering such a great house +as this." Frank grumbled that the west gate was half a mile round. "But I +know of a way that's not a hundred yards off," says Mr. Esmond; and +leading his kinsman close along the wall, and by the shrubs, which had now +grown thick on what had been an old moat about the house, they came to the +buttress, at the side of which the little window was, which was Father +Holt's private door. Esmond climbed up to this easily, broke a pane that +had been mended, and touched the spring inside, and the two gentlemen +passed in that way, treading as lightly as they could; and so going +through the passage into the court, over which the dawn was now reddening, +and where the fountain plashed in the silence. + +They sped instantly to the porter's lodge, where the fellow had not +fastened his door that led into the court; and pistol in hand came upon +the terrified wretch, and bade him be silent. Then they asked him +(Esmond's head reeled, and he almost fell as he spoke) when Lord +Castlewood had arrived? He said on the previous evening, about eight of +the clock.--"And what then?"--His lordship supped with his sister.--"Did the +man wait?" Yes, he and my lady's maid both waited: the other servants made +the supper; and there was no wine, and they could give his lordship but +milk, at which he grumbled; and--and Madam Beatrix kept Miss Lucy always in +the room with her. And there being a bed across the court in the +chaplain's room, she had arranged my lord was to sleep there. Madam +Beatrix had come downstairs laughing with the maids, and had locked +herself in, and my lord had stood for a while talking to her through the +door, and she laughing at him. And then he paced the court awhile, and she +came again to the upper window; and my lord implored her to come down and +walk in the room; but she would not, and laughed at him again, and shut +the window; and so my lord uttering what seemed curses, but in a foreign +language, went to the chaplain's room to bed. + +"Was this all?"--"All," the man swore upon his honour; "all as he hoped to +be saved.--Stop, there was one thing more. My lord, on arriving, and once +or twice during supper, did kiss his sister as was natural, and she kissed +him." At this Esmond ground his teeth with rage, and wellnigh throttled +the amazed miscreant who was speaking, whereas Castlewood, seizing hold of +his cousin's hand, burst into a great fit of laughter. + +"If it amuses thee," says Esmond in French, "that your sister should be +exchanging of kisses with a stranger, I fear poor Beatrix will give thee +plenty of sport."--Esmond darkly thought, how Hamilton, Ashburnham, had +before been masters of those roses that the young prince's lips were now +feeding on. He sickened at that notion. Her cheek was desecrated, her +beauty tarnished; shame and honour stood between it and him. The love was +dead within him; had she a crown to bring him with her love, he felt that +both would degrade him. + +But this wrath against Beatrix did not lessen the angry feelings of the +colonel against the man who had been the occasion if not the cause of the +evil. Frank sat down on a stone bench in the courtyard, and fairly fell +asleep, while Esmond paced up and down the court, debating what should +ensue. What mattered how much or how little had passed between the prince +and the poor faithless girl? They were arrived in time perhaps to rescue +her person, but not her mind; had she not instigated the young prince to +come to her; suborned servants, dismissed others, so that she might +communicate with him? The treacherous heart within her had surrendered, +though the place was safe; and it was to win this that he had given a +life's struggle and devotion; this, that she was ready to give away for +the bribe of a coronet or a wink of the prince's eye. + +When he had thought his thoughts out he shook up poor Frank from his +sleep, who rose yawning, and said he had been dreaming of Clotilda. "You +must back me," says Esmond, "in what I am going to do. I have been +thinking that yonder scoundrel may have been instructed to tell that +story, and that the whole of it may be a lie; if it be, we shall find it +out from the gentleman who is asleep yonder. See if the door leading to my +lady's rooms" (so we called the rooms at the north-west angle of the +house), "see if the door is barred as he saith." We tried; it was indeed +as the lackey had said, closed within. + +"It may have been open and shut afterwards," says poor Esmond; "the +foundress of our family let our ancestor in that way." + +"What will you do, Harry, if--if what that fellow saith should turn out +untrue?" The young man looked scared and frightened into his kinsman's +face; I dare say it wore no very pleasant expression. + +"Let us first go see whether the two stories agree," says Esmond; and went +in at the passage and opened the door into what had been his own chamber +now for wellnigh five-and-twenty years. A candle was still burning, and +the prince asleep dressed on the bed--Esmond did not care for making a +noise. The prince started up in his bed, seeing two men in his chamber: +"_Qui est la?_" says he, and took a pistol from under his pillow. + +"It is the Marquis of Esmond," says the colonel, "come to welcome his +Majesty to his house of Castlewood, and to report of what hath happened in +London. Pursuant to the king's orders, I passed the night before last, +after leaving his Majesty, in waiting upon the friends of the king. It is +a pity that his Majesty's desire to see the country and to visit our poor +house should have caused the king to quit London without notice yesterday, +when the opportunity happened which in all human probability may not occur +again; and had the king not chosen to ride to Castlewood, the Prince of +Wales might have slept at St. James's." + +"'Sdeath! gentlemen," says the prince, starting off his bed, whereon he +was lying in his clothes, "the doctor was with me yesterday morning, and +after watching by my sister all night, told me I might not hope to see the +queen." + +"It would have been otherwise," says Esmond, with another bow; "as, by +this time, the queen may be dead in spite of the doctor. The Council was +met, a new treasurer was appointed, the troops were devoted to the king's +cause; and fifty loyal gentlemen of the greatest names of this kingdom +were assembled to accompany the Prince of Wales, who might have been the +acknowledged heir of the throne, or the possessor of it by this time, had +your Majesty not chosen to take the air. We were ready; there was only one +person that failed us, your Majesty's gracious----" + +"_Morbleu! monsieur_, you give me too much Majesty," said the prince; who +had now risen up and seemed to be looking to one of us to help him to his +coat. But neither stirred. + +"We shall take care," says Esmond, "not much oftener to offend in that +particular." + +"What mean you, my lord?" says the prince, and muttered something about a +_guet-a-pens_, which Esmond caught up. + +"The snare, sir," said he, "was not of our laying; it is not we that +invited you. We came to avenge, and not to compass, the dishonour of our +family." + +"Dishonour! _Morbleu!_ there has been no dishonour," says the prince, +turning scarlet, "only a little harmless playing." + +"That was meant to end seriously." + +"I swear," the prince broke out impetuously, "upon the honour of a +gentleman, my lords----" + +"That we arrived in time. No wrong hath been done, Frank," says Colonel +Esmond, turning round to young Castlewood, who stood at the door as the +talk was going on. "See! here is a paper whereon his Majesty hath deigned +to commence some verses in honour, or dishonour, of Beatrix. Here is +_madame_ and _flamme_, _cruelle_ and _rebelle_, and _amour_ and _jour_, in +the royal writing and spelling. Had the gracious lover been happy, he had +not passed his time in sighing." In fact, and actually as he was speaking, +Esmond cast his eyes down towards the table, and saw a paper on which my +young prince had been scrawling a madrigal, that was to finish his charmer +on the morrow. + +"Sir," says the prince, burning with rage (he had assumed his royal coat +unassisted by this time), "did I come here to receive insults?" + +"To confer them, may it please your Majesty," says the colonel, with a +very low bow, "and the gentlemen of our family are come to thank you." + +"_Malediction!_" says the young man, tears starting into his eyes with +helpless rage and mortification. "What will you with me, gentlemen?" + +"If your Majesty will please to enter the next apartment," says Esmond, +preserving his grave tone, "I have some papers there which I would gladly +submit to you, and by your permission I will lead the way;" and, taking +the taper up, and backing before the prince with very great ceremony, Mr. +Esmond passed into the little chaplain's room, through which we had just +entered into the house:--"Please to set a chair for his Majesty, Frank," +says the colonel to his companion, who wondered almost as much at this +scene, and was as much puzzled by it, as the other actor in it. Then going +to the crypt over the mantelpiece, the colonel opened it, and drew thence +the papers which so long had lain there. + +"Here, may it please your Majesty," says he, "is the patent of Marquis +sent over by your royal father at St. Germains to Viscount Castlewood, my +father: here is the witnessed certificate of my father's marriage to my +mother, and of my birth and christening; I was christened of that religion +of which your sainted sire gave all through life so shining example. These +are my titles, dear Frank, and this what I do with them: here go baptism +and marriage, and here the marquisate and the august sign-manual, with +which your predecessor was pleased to honour our race." And as Esmond +spoke he set the papers burning in the brasier. "You will please, sir, to +remember," he continued, "that our family hath ruined itself by fidelity +to yours: that my grandfather spent his estate, and gave his blood and his +son to die for your service; that my dear lord's grandfather (for lord you +are now, Frank, by right and title too) died for the same cause; that my +poor kinswoman, my father's second wife, after giving away her honour to +your wicked perjured race, sent all her wealth to the king; and got in +return that precious title that lies in ashes, and this inestimable yard +of blue ribbon. I lay this at your feet and stamp upon it: I draw this +sword, and break it and deny you; and, had you completed the wrong you +designed us, by Heaven I would have driven it through your heart, and no +more pardoned you than your father pardoned Monmouth. Frank will do the +same, won't you, cousin?" + +Frank, who had been looking on with a stupid air at the papers as they +flamed in the old brasier, took out his sword and broke it, holding his +head down:--"I go with my cousin," says he, giving Esmond a grasp of the +hand. "Marquis or not, by ----, I stand by him any day. I beg your Majesty's +pardon for swearing; that is--that is--I'm for the Elector of Hanover. It's +all your Majesty's own fault. The queen's dead most likely by this time. +And you might have been king if you hadn't come dangling after 'Trix". + +"Thus to lose a crown," says the young prince, starting up, and speaking +French in his eager way; "to lose the loveliest woman in the world; to +lose the loyalty of such hearts as yours, is not this, my lords, enough of +humiliation?--Marquis, if I go on my knees will you pardon me?--No, I can't +do that, but I can offer you reparation, that of honour, that of +gentlemen. Favour me by crossing the sword with mine: yours is broke--see, +yonder in the armoire are two;" and the prince took them out as eager as a +boy, and held them towards Esmond:--"Ah! you will? _Merci, monsieur, +merci!_" + +Extremely touched by this immense mark of condescension and repentance for +wrong done, Colonel Esmond bowed down so low as almost to kiss the +gracious young hand that conferred on him such an honour, and took his +guard in silence. The swords were no sooner met, than Castlewood knocked +up Esmond's with the blade of his own, which he had broke off short at the +shell; and the colonel falling back a step dropped his point with another +very low bow, and declared himself perfectly satisfied. + +"_Eh bien, vicomte_," says the young prince, who was a boy, and a French +boy, "_il ne nous reste qu'une chose a faire_:" he placed his sword upon +the table, and the fingers of his two hands upon his breast:--"We have one +more thing to do," says he; "you do not divine it?" He stretched out his +arms:--"_Embrassons nous!_" + +The talk was scarce over when Beatrix entered the room:--What came she to +seek there? She started and turned pale at the sight of her brother and +kinsman, drawn swords, broken sword-blades, and papers yet smouldering in +the brasier. + +"Charming Beatrix," says the prince, with a blush which became him very +well, "these lords have come a-horseback from London, where my sister lies +in a despaired state, and where her successor makes himself desired. +Pardon me for my escapade of last evening. I had been so long a prisoner, +that I seized the occasion of a promenade on horseback, and my horse +naturally bore me towards you. I found you a queen in your little court, +where you deigned to entertain me. Present my homages to your maids of +honour. I sighed as you slept, under the window of your chamber, and then +retired to seek rest in my own. It was there that these gentlemen +agreeably roused me. Yes, milords, for that is a happy day that makes a +prince acquainted, at whatever cost to his vanity, with such a noble heart +as that of the Marquis of Esmond. Mademoiselle, may we take your coach to +town? I saw it in the hangar, and this poor marquis must be dropping with +sleep." + +"Will it please the king to breakfast before he goes?" was all Beatrix +could say. The roses had shuddered out of her cheeks; her eyes were +glaring; she looked quite old. She came up to Esmond and hissed out a word +or two:--"If I did not love you before, cousin," says she, "think how I +love you now." If words could stab, no doubt she would have killed Esmond; +she looked at him as if she could. + +But her keen words gave no wound to Mr. Esmond; his heart was too hard. As +he looked at her, he wondered that he could ever have loved her. His love +of ten years was over; it fell down dead on the spot, at the Kensington +tavern, where Frank brought him the note out of _Eikon __ Basilike_. The +prince blushed and bowed low, as she gazed at him, and quitted the +chamber. I have never seen her from that day. + +Horses were fetched and put to the chariot presently. My lord rode +outside, and as for Esmond he was so tired that he was no sooner in the +carriage than he fell asleep, and never woke till night, as the coach came +into Alton. + +As we drove to the "Bell Inn" comes a mitred coach with our old friend +Lockwood beside the coachman. My Lady Castlewood and the bishop were +inside; she gave a little scream when she saw us. The two coaches entered +the inn almost together; the landlord and people coming out with lights to +welcome the visitors. + +We in our coach sprang out of it, as soon as ever we saw the dear lady, +and above all, the doctor in his cassock. What was the news? Was there yet +time? Was the queen alive? These questions were put hurriedly, as Boniface +stood waiting before his noble guests to bow them up the stair. + +"Is she safe?" was what Lady Castlewood whispered in a flutter to Esmond. + +"All's well, thank God," says he, as the fond lady took his hand and +kissed it, and called him her preserver and her dear. _She_ wasn't +thinking of queens and crowns. + +The bishop's news was reassuring: at least all was not lost; the queen yet +breathed or was alive when they left London, six hours since. ("It was +Lady Castlewood who insisted on coming," the doctor said;) Argyle had +marched up regiments from Portsmouth, and sent abroad for more; the Whigs +were on the alert, a pest on them (I am not sure but the bishop swore as +he spoke), and so too were our people. And all might be saved, if only the +prince could be at London in time. We called for horses, instantly to +return to London. We never went up poor crestfallen Boniface's stairs, but +into our coaches again. The prince and his prime minister in one, Esmond +in the other, with only his dear mistress as a companion. + +Castlewood galloped forwards on horseback to gather the prince's friends, +and warn them of his coming. We travelled through the night. Esmond +discoursing to his mistress of the events of the last twenty-four hours; +of Castlewood's ride and his; of the prince's generous behaviour and their +reconciliation. The night seemed short enough; and the starlit hours +passed away serenely in that fond company. + +So we came along the road; the bishop's coach heading ours; and, with some +delays in procuring horses, we got to Hammersmith about four o'clock on +Sunday morning, the first of August, and half an hour after, it being then +bright day, we rode by my Lady Warwick's house, and so down the street of +Kensington. + +Early as the hour was, there was a bustle in the street, and many people +moving to and fro. Round the gate leading to the palace, where the guard +is, there was especially a great crowd. And the coach ahead of us stopped, +and the bishop's man got down to know what the concourse meant? + +There presently came from out of the gate: Horse Guards with their +trumpets, and a company of heralds with their tabards. The trumpets blew, +and the herald-at-arms came forward and proclaimed GEORGE, by the grace of +God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith. +And the people shouted, "God save the King!" + +Among the crowd shouting and waving their hats, I caught sight of one sad +face, which I had known all my life, and seen under many disguises. It was +no other than poor Mr. Holt's, who had slipped over to England to witness +the triumph of the good cause; and now beheld its enemies victorious, +amidst the acclamations of the English people. The poor fellow had forgot +to huzzah or to take his hat off, until his neighbours in the crowd +remarked his want of loyalty, and cursed him for a Jesuit in disguise, +when he ruefully uncovered and began to cheer. Sure he was the most +unlucky of men: he never played a game but he lost it; or engaged in a +conspiracy but 'twas certain to end in defeat. I saw him in Flanders after +this, whence he went to Rome to the head quarters of his Order; and +actually reappeared among us in America, very old, and busy, and hopeful. +I am not sure that he did not assume the hatchet and moccasins there; and, +attired in a blanket and warpaint, skulk about a missionary amongst the +Indians. He lies buried in our neighbouring province of Maryland now, with +a cross over him, and a mound of earth above him; under which that unquiet +spirit is for ever at peace. + + ------------------------------------- + +With the sound of King George's trumpets, all the vain hopes of the weak +and foolish young pretender were blown away; and with that music, too, I +may say, the drama of my own life was ended. That happiness, which hath +subsequently crowned it, cannot be written in words; 'tis of its nature +sacred and secret, and not to be spoken of, though the heart be ever so +full of thankfulness, save to Heaven and the One Ear alone--to one fond +being, the truest and tenderest and purest wife ever man was blessed with. +As I think of the immense happiness which was in store for me, and of the +depth and intensity of that love which, for so many years, hath blessed +me, I own to a transport of wonder and gratitude for such a boon--nay, am +thankful to have been endowed with a heart capable of feeling and knowing +the immense beauty and value of the gift which God hath bestowed upon me. +Sure, love _vincit omnia_; is immeasurably above all ambition, more +precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows not life who knows +not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not +enjoyed it. In the name of my wife I write the completion of hope, and the +summit of happiness. To have such a love is the one blessing, in +comparison of which all earthly joy is of no value; and to think of her, +is to praise God. + +It was at Bruxelles, whither we retreated after the failure of our +plot--our Whig friends advising us to keep out of the way--that the great +joy of my life was bestowed upon me, and that my dear mistress became my +wife. We had been so accustomed to an extreme intimacy and confidence, and +had lived so long and tenderly together, that we might have gone on to the +end without thinking of a closer tie; but circumstances brought about that +event which so prodigiously multiplied my happiness and hers (for which I +humbly thank Heaven), although a calamity befell us, which, I blush to +think, hath occurred more than once in our house. I know not what +infatuation of ambition urged the beautiful and wayward woman, whose name +hath occupied so many of these pages, and who was served by me with ten +years of such a constant fidelity and passion; but ever after that day at +Castlewood, when we rescued her, she persisted in holding all her family +as her enemies, and left us, and escaped to France, to what a fate I +disdain to tell. Nor was her son's house a home for my dear mistress; my +poor Frank was weak, as perhaps all our race hath been, and led by women. +Those around him were imperious, and in a terror of his mother's influence +over him, lest he should recant, and deny the creed which he had adopted +by their persuasion. The difference of their religion separated the son +and the mother: my dearest mistress felt that she was severed from her +children and alone in the world--alone but for one constant servant on +whose fidelity, praised be Heaven, she could count. 'Twas after a scene of +ignoble quarrel on the part of Frank's wife and mother (for the poor lad +had been made to marry the whole of that German family with whom he had +connected himself), that I found my mistress one day in tears, and then +besought her to confide herself to the care and devotion of one who, by +God's help, would never forsake her. And then the tender matron, as +beautiful in her autumn, and as pure as virgins in their spring, with +blushes of love and "eyes of meek surrender", yielded to my respectful +importunity, and consented to share my home. Let the last words I write +thank her, and bless her who hath blessed it. + +By the kindness of Mr. Addison, all danger of prosecution, and every +obstacle against our return to England, was removed; and my son Frank's +gallantry in Scotland made his peace with the king's Government. But we +two cared no longer to live in England; and Frank formally and joyfully +yielded over to us the possession of that estate which we now occupy, far +away from Europe and its troubles, on the beautiful banks of the Potomac, +where we have built a new Castlewood, and think with grateful hearts of +our old home. In our Transatlantic country we have a season, the calmest +and most delightful of the year, which we call the Indian summer: I often +say the autumn of our life resembles that happy and serene weather, and am +thankful for its rest and its sweet sunshine. Heaven hath blessed us with +a child, which each parent loves for her resemblance to the other. Our +diamonds are turned into ploughs and axes for our plantations; and into +negroes, the happiest and merriest, I think, in all this country: and the +only jewel by which my wife sets any store, and from which she hath never +parted, is that gold button she took from my arm on the day when she +visited me in prison, and which she wore ever after, as she told me, on +the tenderest heart in the world. + + + + +Appendix + + +Book I, chap, viii, p. 80, line 9: "mist" was wrongly altered in revised +edition to "midst". + +Book I, chap, xii, p. 130, line 2 from foot: "through" was wrongly altered +in revised edition to "to". + +Book II, chap, ii, p. 179, line 7 from foot: "guests," though never +altered, should clearly be "hosts". + +Book II, chap, xv, p. 307, line 8: the following passage was omitted in +the edition of 1858:-- + + + "I always thought that paper was Mr. Congreve's," cries Mr. St. + John, showing that he knew more about the subject than he + pretended to Mr. Steele, and who was the original Mr. Bickerstaffe + drew. + + "Tom Boxer said so in his _Observator_. But Tom's oracle is often + making blunders," cries Steele. + + "Mr. Boxer and my husband were friends once, and when the captain + was ill with the fever, no man could be kinder than Mr. Boxer, who + used to come to his bedside every day, and actually brought Dr. + Arbuthnot who cured him," whispered Mrs. Steele. + + "Indeed, madam! How very interesting," says Mr. St. John. + + "But when the captain's last comedy came out, Mr. Boxer took no + notice of it--you know he is Mr. Congreve's man, and won't ever + give a word to the other house--and this made my husband angry." + + "Oh! Mr. Boxer is Mr. Congreve's man!" says Mr. St. John. + + "Mr. Congreve has wit enough of his own," cries out Mr. Steele. + "No one ever heard me grudge him or any other man his share." + + +Book III, chap, i, p. 326, line 19: for "Frank", Thackeray by an +interesting reminiscence of _Pendennis_ wrote "Arthur". + + + + + +THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY + + + THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS + + OF THE + + EIGHTEENTH CENTURY + + A Series of Lectures + + DELIVERED IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + [First edition, 1853; second edition, revised, 1853] + + + + +Lecture The First. Swift + + +In treating of the English humourists of the past age, it is of the men +and of their lives, rather than of their books, that I ask permission to +speak to you; and in doing so, you are aware that I cannot hope to +entertain you with a merely humorous or facetious story. Harlequin without +his mask is known to present a very sober countenance, and was himself, +the story goes, the melancholy patient whom the Doctor advised to go and +see Harlequin(21)--a man full of cares and perplexities like the rest of +us, whose Self must always be serious to him, under whatever mask, or +disguise, or uniform he presents it to the public. And as all of you here +must needs be grave when you think of your own past and present, you will +not look to find, in the histories of those whose lives and feelings I am +going to try and describe to you, a story that is otherwise than serious, +and often very sad. If Humour only meant laughter, you would scarcely feel +more interest about humorous writers than about the private life of poor +Harlequin just mentioned, who possesses in common with these the power of +making you laugh. But the men regarding whose lives and stories your kind +presence here shows that you have curiosity and sympathy, appeal to a +great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. +The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, +your kindness--your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture--your +tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best +of his means and ability he comments on all the ordinary actions and +passions of life almost. He takes upon himself to be the week-day +preacher, so to speak. Accordingly, as he finds, and speaks, and feels the +truth best, we regard him, esteem him--sometimes love him. And, as his +business is to mark other people's lives and peculiarities, we moralize +upon _his_ life when he is gone--and yesterday's preacher becomes the text +for to-day's sermon. + +Of English parents, and of a good English family of clergymen,(22) Swift +was born in Dublin in 1667, seven months after the death of his father, +who had come to practise there as a lawyer. The boy went to school at +Kilkenny, and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a degree +with difficulty, and was wild, and witty, and poor. In 1688, by the +recommendation of his mother, Swift was received into the family of Sir +William Temple, who had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left his patron in +1693, and the next year took orders in Dublin. But he threw up the small +Irish preferment which he got and returned to Temple, in whose family he +remained until Sir William's death in 1699. His hopes of advancement in +England failing, Swift returned to Ireland, and took the living of +Laracor. Hither he invited Hester Johnson,(23) Temple's natural daughter, +with whom he had contracted a tender friendship, while they were both +dependants of Temple's. And with an occasional visit to England, Swift now +passed nine years at home. + +In 1709 he came to England, and, with a brief visit to Ireland, during +which he took possession of his deanery of St. Patrick, he now passed five +years in England, taking the most distinguished part in the political +transactions which terminated with the death of Queen Anne. After her +death, his party disgraced, and his hopes of ambition over, Swift returned +to Dublin, where he remained twelve years. In this time he wrote the +famous _Drapier's Letters_ and _Gulliver's Travels_. He married Hester +Johnson (Stella) and buried Esther Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) who had followed +him to Ireland from London, where she had contracted a violent passion for +him. In 1726 and 1727 Swift was in England, which he quitted for the last +time on hearing of his wife's illness. Stella died in January, 1728, and +Swift not until 1745, having passed the last five of the seventy-eight +years of his life with an impaired intellect and keepers to watch him.(24) + +You know, of course, that Swift has had many biographers; his life has +been told by the kindest and most good-natured of men, Scott, who admires +but can't bring himself to love him; and by stout old Johnson,(25) who, +forced to admit him into the company of poets, receives the famous +Irishman, and takes off his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, +scans him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the +street. Dr. Wilde, of Dublin,(26) who has written a most interesting +volume on the closing years of Swift's life, calls Johnson "the most +malignant of his biographers": it is not easy for an English critic to +please Irishmen--perhaps to try and please them. And yet Johnson truly +admires Swift: Johnson does not quarrel with Swift's change of politics, +or doubt his sincerity of religion: about the famous Stella and Vanessa +controversy the Doctor does not bear very hardly on Swift. But he could +not give the Dean that honest hand of his; the stout old man puts it into +his breast, and moves off from him.(27) + +Would we have liked to live with him? That is a question which, in dealing +with these people's works, and thinking of their lives and peculiarities, +every reader of biographies must put to himself. Would you have liked to +be a friend of the great Dean? I should like to have been Shakespeare's +shoeblack--just to have lived in his house, just to have worshipped him--to +have run on his errands, and seen that sweet serene face. I should like, +as a young man, to have lived on Fielding's staircase in the Temple, and +after helping him up to bed perhaps, and opening his door with his +latchkey, to have shaken hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk +and crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. Who would +not give something to pass a night at the club with Johnson, and +Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck? The charm of Addison's +companionship and conversation has passed to us by fond tradition--but +Swift? If you had been his inferior in parts (and that, with a great +respect for all persons present, I fear is only very likely), his equal in +mere social station, he would have bullied, scorned, and insulted you; if, +undeterred by his great reputation, you had met him like a man, he would, +have quailed before you,(28) and not had the pluck to reply, and gone +home, and years after written a foul epigram about you--watched for you in +a sewer, and come out to assail you with a coward's blow and a dirty +bludgeon. If you had been a lord with a blue ribbon, who flattered his +vanity, or could help his ambition, he would have been the most delightful +company in the world. He would have been so manly, so sarcastic, so +bright, odd, and original, that you might think he had no object in view +but the indulgence of his humour, and that he was the most reckless, +simple creature in the world. How he would have torn your enemies to +pieces for you! and made fun of the Opposition! His servility was so +boisterous that it looked like independence;(29) he would have done your +errands, but with the air of patronizing you, and after fighting your +battles masked in the street or the press, would have kept on his hat +before your wife and daughters in the drawing-room, content to take that +sort of pay for his tremendous services as a bravo.(30) + +He says as much himself in one of his letters to Bolingbroke:--"All my +endeavours to distinguish myself were only for want of a great title and +fortune, that I might be used like a lord by those who have an opinion of +my parts; whether right or wrong is no great matter. And so the reputation +of wit and great learning does the office of a blue ribbon or a +coach-and-six."(31) + +Could there be a greater candour? It is an outlaw, who says, "These are my +brains; with these I'll win titles and compete with fortune. These are my +bullets; these I'll turn into gold"; and he hears the sound of +coaches-and-six, takes the road like Macheath, and makes society stand and +deliver. They are all on their knees before him. Down go my lord bishop's +apron, and his grace's blue ribbon, and my lady's brocade petticoat in the +mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a patent place, the third +of a little snug post about the Court, and gives them over to followers of +his own. The great prize has not come yet. The coach with the mitre and +crosier in it, which he intends to have for _his_ share, has been delayed +on the way from St. James's; and he waits and waits until nightfall, when +his runners come and tell him that the coach has taken a different road, +and escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air with a curse, and +rides away into his own country.(32) + +Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point a moral or adorn a tale +of ambition, as any hero's that ever lived and failed. But we must +remember that the morality was lax--that other gentlemen besides himself +took the road in his day--that public society was in a strange disordered +condition, and the State was ravaged by other condottieri. The Boyne was +being fought and won, and lost--the bells rung in William's victory, in the +very same tone with which they would have pealed for James's. Men were +loose upon politics, and had to shift for themselves. They, as well as old +beliefs and institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in the +storm. As in the South Sea Bubble almost everybody gambled; as in the +Railway mania--not many centuries ago--almost every one took his unlucky +share; a man of that time, of the vast talents and ambition of Swift, +could scarce do otherwise than grasp at his prize, and make his spring at +his opportunity. His bitterness, his scorn, his rage, his subsequent +misanthropy, are ascribed by some panegyrists to a deliberate conviction +of mankind's unworthiness, and a desire to amend them by castigating. His +youth was bitter, as that of a great genius bound down by ignoble ties, +and powerless in a mean dependence; his age was bitter,(33) like that of a +great genius that had fought the battle and nearly won it, and lost it, +and thought of it afterwards writhing in a lonely exile. A man may +attribute to the gods, if he likes, what is caused by his own fury, or +disappointment, or self-will. What public man--what statesman projecting a +_coup_--what king determined on an invasion of his neighbour--what satirist +meditating an onslaught on society or an individual, can't give a pretext +for his move? There was a French general the other day who proposed to +march into this country and put it to sack and pillage, in revenge for +humanity outraged by our conduct at Copenhagen--there is always some excuse +for men of the aggressive turn. They are of their nature warlike, +predatory, eager for fight, plunder, dominion.(34) + +As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck--as strong a wing as ever beat, +belonged to Swift. I am glad, for one, that fate wrested the prey out of +his claws, and cut his wings and chained him. One can gaze, and not +without awe and pity, at the lonely eagle chained behind the bars. + +That Swift was born at No. 7, Hoey's Court, Dublin, on the 30th November, +1667, is a certain fact, of which nobody will deny the sister island the +honour and glory, but, it seems to me, he was no more an Irishman than a +man born of English parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo.(35) Goldsmith was an +Irishman, and always an Irishman: Steele was an Irishman, and always an +Irishman: Swift's heart was English and in England, his habits English, +his logic eminently English; his statement is elaborately simple; he shuns +tropes and metaphors, and uses his ideas and words with a wise thrift and +economy, as he used his money; with which he could be generous and +splendid upon great occasions, but which he husbanded when there was no +need to spend it. He never indulges in needless extravagance of rhetoric, +lavish epithets, profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before you with a +grave simplicity and a perfect neatness.(36) Dreading ridicule too, as a +man of his humour--above all an Englishman of his humour--certainly would, +he is afraid to use the poetical power which he really possessed; one +often fancies in reading him that he dares not be eloquent when he might; +that he does not speak above his voice, as if were, and the tone of +society. + +His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, his knowledge of +polite life, his acquaintance with literature even, which he could not +have pursued very sedulously during that reckless career at Dublin, Swift +got under the roof of Sir William Temple. He was fond of telling in +after-life what quantities of books he devoured there, and how King +William taught him to cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion. It was at Shene +and at Moor Park, with a salary of twenty pounds and a dinner at the upper +servants' table, that this great and lonely Swift passed a ten years' +apprenticeship--wore a cassock that was only not a livery--bent down a knee +as proud as Lucifer's to supplicate my lady's good graces, or run on his +honour's errands.(37) It was here, as he was writing at Temple's table, or +following his patron's walk, that he saw and heard the men who had +governed the great world--measured himself with them, looking up from his +silent corner, gauged their brains, weighed their wits, turned them, and +tried them, and marked them. Ah, what platitudes he must have heard! what +feeble jokes! what pompous commonplaces! what small men they must have +seemed under those enormous periwigs, to the swarthy, uncouth, silent +Irish secretary. I wonder whether it ever struck Temple that that Irishman +was his master? I suppose that dismal conviction did not present itself +under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could never have lived with Swift. +Swift sickened, rebelled, left the service--ate humble pie and came back +again; and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, swallowing scorn, +and submitting with a stealthy rage to his fortune. + +Temple's style is the perfection of practised and easy good-breeding. If +he does not penetrate very deeply into a subject, he professes a very +gentlemanly acquaintance with it; if he makes rather a parade of Latin, it +was the custom of his day, as it was the custom for a gentleman to envelop +his head in a periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles +and square-toed shoes, he steps in them with a consummate grace, and you +never hear their creak, or find them treading upon any lady's train or any +rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that grows too hot or too agitated +for him, he politely leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor +Park; and lets the King's party, and the Prince of Orange's party battle +it out among themselves. He reveres the Sovereign (and no man perhaps ever +testified to his loyalty by so elegant a bow); he admires the Prince of +Orange; but there is one person whose ease and comfort he loves more than +all the princes in Christendom, and that valuable member of society is +himself, Gulielmus Temple, Baronettus. One sees him in his retreat; +between his study-chair and his tulip-beds,(38) clipping his apricots and +pruning his essays,--the statesman, the ambassador no more; but the +philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's +as at Shene; where, in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court +to the Ciceronian majesty; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse; or +dallies by the south wall with the ruddy nymph of gardens. + +Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigious deal of veneration +from his household, and to have been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by +the people round about him, as delicately as any of the plants which he +loved. When he fell ill in 1693, the household was aghast at his +indisposition; mild Dorothea, his wife, the best companion of the best of +men-- + + + Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, + Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate. + + +As for Dorinda, his sister,-- + + + Those who would grief describe, might come and trace + Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. + To see her weep, joy every face forsook, + And grief flung sables on each menial look. + The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul, + That furnished life and spirit through the whole. + + +Isn't that line in which grief is described as putting the menials into a +mourning livery, a fine image? One of the menials wrote it, who did not +like that Temple livery nor those twenty-pound wages. Cannot one fancy the +uncouth young servitor, with downcast eyes, books and papers in hand, +following at his Honour's heels in the garden walk; or taking his Honour's +orders as he stands by the great chair, where Sir William has the gout, +and his feet all blistered with moxa? When Sir William has the gout or +scolds it must be hard work at the second table;(39) the Irish secretary +owned as much afterwards: and when he came to dinner, how he must have +lashed and growled and torn the household with his gibes and scorn! What +would the steward say about the pride of them Irish schollards--and this +one had got no great credit even at his Irish college, if the truth were +known--and what a contempt his Excellency's own gentleman must have had for +Parson Teague from Dublin. (The valets and chaplains were always at war. +It is hard to say which Swift thought the more contemptible.) And what +must have been the sadness, the sadness and terror, of the housekeeper's +little daughter with the curling black ringlets and the sweet smiling +face, when the secretary who teaches her to read and write, and whom she +loves and reverences above all things--above mother, above mild Dorothea, +above that tremendous Sir William in his square-toes and periwig,--when +_Mr. Swift_ comes down from his master with rage in his heart, and has not +a kind word even for little Hester Johnson? + +Perhaps, for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's condescension was even +more cruel than his frowns. Sir William _would_ perpetually quote Latin +and the ancient classics a propos of his gardens and his Dutch statues and +_plates-bandes_, and talk about Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, Julius +Caesar, Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hesperides, Maecenas, Strabo +describing Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. A propos of beans, he would +mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and that this precept +probably meant that wise men should abstain from public affairs. _He_ is a +placid Epicurean; _he_ is a Pythagorean philosopher; _he_ is a wise +man--that is the deduction. Does not Swift think so? One can imagine the +downcast eyes lifted up for a moment, and the flash of scorn which they +emit. Swift's eyes were as azure as the heavens; Pope says nobly (as +everything Pope said and thought of his friend was good and noble), "His +eyes are as azure as the heavens, and have a charming archness in them." +And one person in that household, that pompous, stately, kindly Moor Park, +saw heaven nowhere else. + +But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree with Swift. He was +half-killed with a surfeit of Shene pippins; and in a garden-seat which he +devised for himself at Moor Park, and where he devoured greedily the stock +of books within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness which punished +and tormented him through life. He could not bear the place or the +servitude. Even in that poem of courtly condolence, from which we have +quoted a few lines of mock melancholy, he breaks out of the funereal +procession with a mad shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying his own +grief, cursing his own fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune, +and even hope. + +I don't know anything more melancholy than the letter to Temple, in which, +after having broke from his bondage, the poor wretch crouches piteously +towards his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. He asks for +testimonials for orders. "The particulars required of me are what relate +to morals and learning--and the reasons of quitting your Honour's +family--that is, whether the last was occasioned by any ill action. They +are left entirely to your Honour's mercy, though in the first I think I +cannot reproach myself for anything further than for _infirmities_. This +is all I dare at present beg from your Honour, under circumstances of life +not worth your regard: what is left me to wish (next to the health and +prosperity of your Honour and family) is that Heaven would one day allow +me the opportunity of leaving my acknowledgements at your feet. I beg my +most humble duty and service be presented to my ladies, your Honour's lady +and sister."--Can prostration fall deeper? Could a slave bow lower?(40) + +Twenty years afterwards, Bishop Kennet, describing the same man, says, +"Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house and had a bow from everybody but me. +When I came to the antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, Dr. +Swift was the principal man of talk and business. He was soliciting the +Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a place +for a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake, with my Lord +Treasurer, that he should obtain a salary of 200_l._ per annum as member +of the English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in +to the Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had something to say +to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his gold watch, and telling the +time of day, complained that it was very late. A gentleman said he was too +fast. 'How can I help it,' says the doctor, 'if the courtiers give me a +watch that won't go right?' Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the +best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation +of Homer into English, for which he would have them all subscribe; 'For,' +says he, 'he shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for +him.'(41) Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room, +beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him,--both went off just before prayers." +There's a little malice in the Bishop's "just before prayers". + +This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is harsh, though not +altogether unpleasant. He was doing good, and to deserving men too, in the +midst of these intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand +anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. His hand was +constantly stretched out to relieve an honest man--he was cautious about +his money, but ready.--If you were in a strait would you like such a +benefactor? I think I would rather have had a potato and a friendly word +from Goldsmith than have been beholden to the Dean for a guinea and a +dinner.(42) He insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, guests +look foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into +poor men's faces. No; the Dean was no Irishman--no Irishman ever gave but +with a kind word and a kind heart. + +It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean of St. +Patrick's performed his family devotions every morning regularly, but with +such secrecy, that the guests in his house were never in the least aware +of the ceremony. There was no need surely why a church dignitary should +assemble his family privily in a crypt, and as if he was afraid of heathen +persecution. But I think the world was right, and the bishops who advised +Queen Anne, when they counselled her not to appoint the author of the +_Tale of a Tub_ to a bishopric, gave perfectly good advice. The man who +wrote the arguments and illustrations in that wild book, could not but be +aware what must be the sequel of the propositions which he laid down. The +boon companion of Pope and Bolingbroke, who chose these as the friends of +his life, and the recipients of his confidence and affection, must have +heard many an argument, and joined in many a conversation over Pope's +port, or St. John's burgundy, which would not bear to be repeated at other +men's boards. + +I know of few things more conclusive as to the sincerity of Swift's +religion than his advice to poor John Gay to turn clergyman, and look out +for a seat on the Bench. Gay, the author of the _Beggar's Opera_--Gay, the +wildest of the wits about town--it was this man that Jonathan Swift advised +to take orders--to invest in a cassock and bands--just as he advised him to +husband his shillings and put his thousand pounds out at interest.(43) The +Queen, and the bishops, and the world, were right in mistrusting the +religion of that man. + +I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's religious views, except in +so far as they influence his literary character, his life, his humour. The +most notorious sinners of all those fellow mortals whom it is our business +to discuss--Harry Fielding and Dick Steele, were especially loud, and I +believe really fervent, in their expressions of belief; they belaboured +freethinkers, and stoned imaginary atheists on all sorts of occasions, +going out of their way to bawl their own creed, and persecute their +neighbour's, and if they sinned and stumbled, as they constantly did with +debt, with drink, with all sorts of bad behaviour, they got up on their +knees, and cried "Peccavi" with a most sonorous orthodoxy. Yes; poor Harry +Fielding and poor Dick Steele were trusty and undoubting Church of England +men; they abhorred Popery, atheism, and wooden shoes, and idolatries in +general; and hiccupped "Church and State" with fervour. + +But Swift? _His_ mind had had a different schooling, and possessed a very +different logical power. _He_ was not bred up in a tipsy guard-room, and +did not learn to reason in a Covent Garden tavern. He could conduct an +argument from beginning to end. He could see forward with a fatal +clearness. In his old age, looking at the _Tale of a Tub_, when he said, +"Good God, what a genius I had when I wrote that book!" I think he was +admiring not the genius, but the consequences to which the genius had +brought him--a vast genius, a magnificent genius, a genius wonderfully +bright, and dazzling, and strong,--to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon +falsehood and scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden +motives, and expose the black thoughts of men,--an awful, an evil spirit. + +Ah, man! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's library, you whose friends +were Pope and St. John--what made you to swear to fatal vows, and bind +yourself to a lifelong hypocrisy before the Heaven which you adored with +such real wonder, humility, and reverence? For Swift was a reverent, was a +pious spirit--for Swift could love and could pray. Through the storms and +tempests of his furious mind, the stars of religion and love break out in +the blue, shining serenely, though hidden by the driving clouds and the +maddened hurricane of his life. + +It is my belief that he suffered frightfully from the consciousness of his +own scepticism, and that he had bent his pride so far down as to put his +apostasy out to hire.(44) The paper left behind him, called _Thoughts on +Religion_, is merely a set of excuses for not professing disbelief. He +says of his sermons that he preached pamphlets: they have scarce a +Christian characteristic; they might be preached from the steps of a +synagogue, or the floor of a mosque, or the box of a coffee-house almost. +There is little or no cant--he is too great and too proud for that; and, in +so far as the badness of his sermons goes, he is honest. But having put +that cassock on, it poisoned him: he was strangled in his bands. He goes +through life, tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in +the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fury, and knows that +the night will come and the inevitable hag with it. What a night, my God, +it was! what a lonely rage and long agony--what a vulture that tore the +heart of that giant!(45) It is awful to think of the great sufferings of +this great man. Through life he always seems alone, somehow. Goethe was +so. I can't fancy Shakespeare otherwise. The giants must live apart. The +kings can have no company. But this man suffered so; and deserved so to +suffer. One hardly reads anywhere of such a pain. + +The "saeva indignatio" of which he spoke as lacerating his heart, and +which he dares to inscribe on his tombstone--as if the wretch who lay under +that stone waiting God's judgement had a right to be angry--breaks out from +him in a thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends him. Against +men in office, he having been overthrown; against men in England, he +having lost his chance of preferment there, the furious exile never fails +to rage and curse. Is it fair to call the famous _Drapier's Letters_ +patriotism? They are masterpieces of dreadful humour and invective: they +are reasoned logically enough too, but the proposition is as monstrous and +fabulous as the Lilliputian island. It is not that the grievance is so +great, but there is his enemy--the assault is wonderful for its activity +and terrible rage. It is Samson, with a bone in his hand, rushing on his +enemies and felling them: one admires not the cause so much as the +strength, the anger, the fury of the champion. As is the case with madmen, +certain subjects provoke him, and awaken his fits of wrath. Marriage is +one of these; in a hundred passages in his writings he rages against it; +rages against children; an object of constant satire, even more +contemptible in his eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a poor curate with a +large family. The idea of this luckless paternity never fails to bring +down from him gibes and foul language. Could Dick Steele, or Goldsmith, or +Fielding, in his most reckless moment of satire, have written anything +like the Dean's famous "modest proposal" for eating children? Not one of +these but melts at the thoughts of childhood, fondles and caresses it. Mr. +Dean has no such softness, and enters the nursery with the tread and +gaiety of an ogre.(46) "I have been assured," says he in the _Modest +Proposal_, "by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that +a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, +nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; +and I make no doubt it will equally serve in a _ragout_." And taking up +this pretty joke, as his way is, he argues it with perfect gravity and +logic. He turns and twists this subject in a score of different ways: he +hashes it; and he serves it up cold; and he garnishes it; and relishes it +always. He describes the little animal as "dropped from its dam'" advising +that the mother should let it suck plentifully in the last month, so as to +render it plump and fat for a good table! "A child," says his reverence, +"will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family +dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish," and so +on; and, the subject being so delightful that he can't leave it--he +proceeds to recommend, in place of venison for squires' tables, "the +bodies of young lads and maidens not exceeding fourteen or under twelve." +Amiable humourist! laughing castigator of morals! There was a process well +known and practised in the Dean's gay days: when a lout entered the +coffee-house, the wags proceeded to what they called "roasting" him. This +is roasting a subject with a vengeance. The Dean had a native genius for +it. As the _Almanach des Gourmands_ says, _On nait rotisseur_. + +And it was not merely by the sarcastic method that Swift exposed the +unreasonableness of loving and having children. In Gulliver, the folly of +love and marriage is urged by graver arguments and advice. In the famous +Lilliputian kingdom, Swift speaks with approval of the practice of +instantly removing children from their parents and educating them by the +State; and amongst his favourite horses, a pair of foals are stated to be +the very utmost a well-regulated equine couple would permit themselves. In +fact, our great satirist was of opinion that conjugal love was +unadvisable, and illustrated the theory by his own practice and +example--God help him--which made him about the most wretched being in God's +world.(47) + +The grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposition, as exemplified in +the cannibal proposal just mentioned, is our author's constant method +through all his works of humour. Given a country of people six inches or +sixty feet high, and by the mere process of the logic, a thousand +wonderful absurdities are evolved, at so many stages of the calculation. +Turning to the first minister who waited behind him with a white staff +near as tall as the mainmast of the _Royal Sovereign_, the King of +Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing human grandeur is, as +represented by such a contemptible little creature as Gulliver. "The +Emperor of Lilliput's features are strong and masculine" (what a +surprising humour there is in this description!)--"the Emperor's features," +Gulliver says, "are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip, an arched +nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs +well-proportioned, and his deportment majestic. He is taller _by the +breadth of my nail_ than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike +an awe into beholders." + +What a surprising humour there is in these descriptions! How noble the +satire is here! how just and honest! How perfect the image! Mr. Macaulay +has quoted the charming lines of the poet, where the king of the pygmies +is measured by the same standard. We have all read in Milton of the spear +that was like "the mast of some tall admiral", but these images are surely +likely to come to the comic poet originally. The subject is before him. He +is turning it in a thousand ways. He is full of it. The figure suggests +itself naturally to him, and comes out of his subject, as in that +wonderful passage, when Gulliver's box having been dropped by the eagle +into the sea, and Gulliver having been received into the ship's cabin, he +calls upon the crew to bring the box into the cabin, and put it on the +table, the cabin being only a quarter the size of the box. It is the +_veracity_ of the blunder which is so admirable. Had a man come from such +a country as Brobdingnag he would have blundered so. + +But the best stroke of humour, if there be a best in that abounding book, +is that where Gulliver, in the unpronounceable country, describes his +parting from his master the horse.(48) "I took," he says, "a second leave +of my master, but as I was going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he +did me the honour to raise it gently to my mouth. I am not ignorant how +much I have been censured for mentioning this last particular. Detractors +are pleased to think it improbable that so illustrious a person should +descend to give so great a mark of distinction to a creature so inferior +as I. Neither am I ignorant how apt some travellers are to boast of +extraordinary favours they have received. But if these censurers were +better acquainted with the noble and courteous disposition of the +Houyhnhnms they would soon change their opinion." + +The surprise here, the audacity of circumstantial evidence, the astounding +gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant how much he has been censured, +the nature of the favour conferred, and the respectful exultation at the +receipt of it, are surely complete; it is truth topsy-turvy, entirely +logical and absurd. + +As for the humour and conduct of this famous fable, I suppose there is no +person who reads but must admire; as for the moral, I think it horrible, +shameful, unmanly, blasphemous; and giant and great as this Dean is, I say +we should hoot him. Some of this audience mayn't have read the last part +of Gulliver, and to such I would recall the advice of the venerable Mr. +Punch to persons about to marry, and say "Don't". When Gulliver first +lands among the Yahoos, the naked howling wretches clamber up trees and +assault him, and he describes himself as "almost stifled with the filth +which fell about him". The reader of the fourth part of _Gulliver's +Travels_ is like the hero himself in this instance. It is Yahoo language; +a monster gibbering shrieks, and gnashing imprecations against +mankind--tearing down all shreds of modesty, past all sense of manliness +and shame; filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging, obscene. + +And dreadful it is to think that Swift knew the tendency of his creed--the +fatal rocks towards which his logic desperately drifted. That last part of +Gulliver is only a consequence of what has gone before; and the +worthlessness of all mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecility, +the general vanity, the foolish pretension, the mock greatness, the +pompous dullness, the mean aims, the base successes--all these were present +to him; it was with the din of these curses of the world, blasphemies +against Heaven, shrieking in his ears, that he began to write his dreadful +allegory--of which the meaning is that man is utterly wicked, desperate, +and imbecile, and his passions are so monstrous, and his boasted powers so +mean, that he is and deserves to be the slave of brutes, and ignorance is +better than his vaunted reason. What had this man done? what secret +remorse was rankling at his heart? what fever was boiling in him, that he +should see all the world bloodshot? We view the world with our own eyes, +each of us; and we make from within us the world we see. A weary heart +gets no gladness out of sunshine; a selfish man is sceptical about +friendship, as a man with no ear doesn't care for music. A frightful +self-consciousness it must have been, which looked on mankind so darkly +through those keen eyes of Swift. + +A remarkable story is told by Scott, of Delany, who interrupted Archbishop +King and Swift in a conversation which left the prelate in tears, and from +which Swift rushed away with marks of strong terror and agitation in his +countenance, upon which the archbishop said to Delany, "You have just met +the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness you +must never ask a question." + +The most unhappy man on earth;--_Miserrimus_--what a character of him! And +at this time all the great wits of England had been at his feet. All +Ireland had shouted after him, and worshipped as a liberator, a saviour, +the greatest Irish patriot and citizen. Dean Drapier Bickerstaff +Gulliver--the most famous statesmen, and the greatest poets of his day, had +applauded him, and done him homage; and at this time writing over to +Bolingbroke, from Ireland, he says, "It is time for me to have done with +the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called +into the best, _and not to die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a +hole_." + +We have spoken about the men, and Swift's behaviour to them; and now it +behoves us not to forget that there are certain other persons in the +creation who had rather intimate relations with the great Dean.(49) Two +women whom he loved and injured are known by every reader of books so +familiarly that if we had seen them, or if they had been relatives of our +own, we scarcely could have known them better. Who hasn't in his mind an +image of Stella? Who does not love her? Fair and tender creature: pure and +affectionate heart! Boots it to you, now that you have been at rest for a +hundred and twenty years, not divided in death from the cold heart which +caused yours, whilst it beat, such faithful pangs of love and grief--boots +it to you now, that the whole world loves and deplores you? Scarce any +man, I believe, ever thought of that grave, that did not cast a flower of +pity on it, and write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle lady, so lovely, so +loving, so unhappy! you have had countless champions; millions of manly +hearts mourning for you. From generation to generation we take up the fond +tradition of your beauty; we watch and follow your tragedy, your bright +morning love and purity, your constancy, your grief, your sweet martyrdom. +We know your legend by heart. You are one of the saints of English story. + +And if Stella's love and innocence are charming to contemplate, I will say +that in spite of ill-usage, in spite of drawbacks, in spite of mysterious +separation and union, of hope delayed and sickened heart--in the teeth of +Vanessa, and that little episodical aberration which plunged Swift into +such woful pitfalls and quagmires of amorous perplexity--in spite of the +verdicts of most women, I believe, who, as far as my experience and +conversation go, generally take Vanessa's part in the controversy--in spite +of the tears which Swift caused Stella to shed, and the rocks and barriers +which fate and temper interposed, and which prevented the pure course of +that true love from running smoothly--the brightest part of Swift's story, +the pure star in that dark and tempestuous life of Swift's, is his love +for Hester Johnson. It has been my business, professionally of course, to +go through a deal of sentimental reading in my time, and to acquaint +myself with love-making, as it has been described in various languages, +and at various ages of the world; and I know of nothing more manly, more +tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these brief notes, written +in what Swift calls "his little language" in his journal to Stella.(50) He +writes to her night and morning often. He never sends away a letter to her +but he begins a new one on the same day. He can't bear to let go her kind +little hand, as it were. He knows that she is thinking of him, and longing +for him far away in Dublin yonder. He takes her letters from under his +pillow and talks to them, familiarly, paternally, with fond epithets and +pretty caresses--as he would to the sweet and artless creature who loved +him. "Stay," he writes one morning--it is the 14th of December, 1710--"stay, +I will answer some of your letter this morning in bed--let me see. Come and +appear, little letter! Here I am, says he, and what say you to Stella this +morning fresh and fasting? And can Stella read this writing without +hurting her dear eyes?" he goes on, after more kind prattle and fond +whispering. The dear eyes shine clearly upon him then--the good angel of +his life is with him and blessing him. Ah, it was a hard fate that wrung +from them so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly that pure and tender +bosom. A hard fate: but would she have changed it? I have heard a woman +say that she would have taken Swift's cruelty to have had his tenderness. +He had a sort of worship for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her +after she is gone; of her wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her +beauty, with a simple love and reverence that are indescribably touching; +in contemplation of her goodness his hard heart melts into pathos; his +cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, +so to speak, before the angel, whose life he had embittered, confesses his +own wretchedness and unworthiness, and adores her with cries of remorse +and love:-- + + + When on my sickly couch I lay, + Impatient both of night and day, + And groaning in unmanly strains, + Called every power to ease my pains, + Then Stella ran to my relief, + With cheerful face and inward grief, + And though by Heaven's severe decree + She suffers hourly more than me, + No cruel master could require + From slaves employed for daily hire, + What Stella, by her friendship warmed, + With vigour and delight performed. + Now, with a soft and silent tread, + Unheard she moves about my bed: + My sinking spirits now supplies + With cordials in her hands and eyes. + Best patron of true friends! beware; + You pay too dearly for your care + If, while your tenderness secures + My life, it must endanger yours: + For such a fool was never found + Who pulled a palace to the ground, + Only to have the ruins made + Materials for a house decayed. + + +One little triumph Stella had in her life--one dear little piece of +injustice was performed in her favour, for which I confess, for my part, I +can't help thanking fate and the Dean. _That other person_ was sacrificed +to her--that--that young woman, who lived five doors from Dr. Swift's +lodgings in Bury Street, and who flattered him, and made love to him in +such an outrageous manner--Vanessa was thrown over. + +Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply to those he wrote to +her.(51) He kept Bolingbroke's, and Pope's, and Harley's, and +Peterborough's: but Stella, "very carefully," the _Lives_ say, kept +Swift's. Of course: that is the way of the world: and so we cannot tell +what her style was, or of what sort were the little letters which the +doctor placed there at night, and bade to appear from under his pillow of +a morning. But in Letter IV of that famous collection he describes his +lodging in Bury Street, where he has the first floor, a dining-room and +bedchamber, at eight shillings a week; and in Letter VI he says "he has +visited a lady just come to town", whose name somehow is not mentioned; +and in Letter VIII he enters a query of Stella's--"What do you mean 'that +boards near me, that I dine with now and then?' What the deuce! You know +whom I have dined with every day since I left you, better than I do." Of +course she does. Of course Swift has not the slightest idea of what she +means. But in a few letters more it turns out that the doctor has been to +dine "gravely" with a Mrs. Vanhomrigh: then that he has been to "his +neighbour": then that he has been unwell, and means to dine for the whole +week with his neighbour! Stella was quite right in her previsions. She saw +from the very first hint what was going to happen; and scented Vanessa in +the air.(52) The rival is at the Dean's feet. The pupil and teacher are +reading together, and drinking tea together, and going to prayers +together, and learning Latin together, and conjugating _amo_, _amas_, +_amavi_ together. The "little language" is over for poor Stella. By the +rule of grammar and the course of conjugation, doesn't _amavi_ come after +_amo_ and _amas_? + +The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa(53) you may peruse in Cadenus's own poem +on the subject, and in poor Vanessa's vehement expostulatory verses and +letters to him; she adores him, implores him, admires him, thinks him +something godlike, and only prays to be admitted to lie at his feet.(54) +As they are bringing him home from church, those divine feet of Dr. +Swift's are found pretty often in Vannessa's parlour. He likes to be +admired and adored. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a woman of great taste +and spirit, and beauty and wit, and a fortune too. He sees her every day; +he does not tell Stella about the business: until the impetuous Vanessa +becomes too fond of him, until the doctor is quite frightened by the young +woman's ardour, and confounded by her warmth. He wanted to marry neither +of them--that I believe was the truth; but if he had not married Stella, +Vanessa would have had him in spite of himself. When he went back to +Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain in her isle, pursued the +fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, he vowed, he soothed, and bullied; +the news of the Dean's marriage with Stella at last came to her, and it +killed her--she died of that passion.(55) + +And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had written beautifully +regarding her, "That doesn't surprise me," said Mrs. Stella, "for we all +know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman--a true +woman! Would you have had one of them forgive the other? + +In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend Dr. Tuke, of +Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on +which are written in the Dean's hand, the words: "_Only a woman's hair_." +An instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under +the mask of cynical indifference. + +See the various notions of critics! Do those words indicate indifference +or an attempt to hide feeling? Did you ever hear or read four words more +pathetic? Only a woman's hair; only love, only fidelity, only purity, +innocence, beauty; only the tenderest heart in the world stricken and +wounded, and passed away now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, love +insulted, and pitiless desertion:--only that lock of hair left; and memory +and remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shuddering over the grave of +his victim. + +And yet to have had so much love, he must have given some. Treasures of +wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, must that man have had locked up in +the caverns of his gloomy heart, and shown fitfully to one or two whom he +took in there. But it was not good to visit that place. People did not +remain there long, and suffered for having been there.(56) He shrank away +from all affections sooner or later. Stella and Vanessa both died near +him, and away from him. He had not heart enough to see them die. He broke +from his fastest friend, Sheridan; he slunk away from his fondest admirer, +Pope. His laugh jars on one's ear after sevenscore years. He was always +alone--alone and gnashing in the darkness, except when Stella's sweet smile +came and shone upon him. When that went, silence and utter night closed +over him. An immense genius: an awful downfall and ruin. So great a man he +seems to me, that thinking of him is like thinking of an empire falling. +We have other great names to mention--none, I think, however, so great or +so gloomy. + + + + +Lecture The Second. Congreve And Addison + + +A great number of years ago, before the passing of the Reform Bill, there +existed at Cambridge a certain debating club, called the "Union"; and I +remember that there was a tradition amongst the undergraduates who +frequented that renowned school of oratory, that the great leaders of the +Opposition and Government had their eyes upon the University Debating +Club, and that if a man distinguished himself there he ran some chance of +being returned to Parliament as a great nobleman's nominee. So Jones of +John's, or Thomson of Trinity, would rise in their might, and draping +themselves in their gowns, rally round the monarchy, or hurl defiance at +priests and kings, with the majesty of Pitt or the fire of Mirabeau, +fancying all the while that the great nobleman's emissary was listening to +the debate from the back benches, where he was sitting with the family +seat in his pocket. Indeed, the legend said that one or two young +Cambridge men, orators of the Union, were actually caught up thence, and +carried down to Cornwall or old Sarum, and so into Parliament. And many a +young fellow deserted the jogtrot University curriculum, to hang on in the +dust behind the fervid wheels of the Parliamentary chariot. + +Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of peers and Members of +Parliament in Anne's and George's time? Were they all in the army, or +hunting in the country, or boxing the watch? How was it that the young +gentlemen from the University got such a prodigious number of places? A +lad composed a neat copy of verses at Christchurch or Trinity, in which +the death of a great personage was bemoaned, the French king assailed, the +Dutch or Prince Eugene complimented, or the reverse; and the party in +power was presently to provide for the young poet; and a commissionership, +or a post in the Stamps, or the secretaryship of an embassy, or a +clerkship in the Treasury, came into the bard's possession. A wonderful +fruit-bearing rod was that of Busby's. What have men of letters got in +_our_ time? Think, not only of Swift, a king fit to rule in any time or +empire--but Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell, Congreve, John Gay, John +Dennis, and many others, who got public employment, and pretty little +pickings out of the public purse.(57) The wits of whose names we shall +treat in this lecture and two following, all (save one) touched the king's +coin, and had, at some period of their lives, a happy quarter-day coming +round for them. + +They all began at school or college in the regular way, producing +panegyrics upon public characters, what were called odes upon public +events, battles, sieges, court marriages and deaths, in which the gods of +Olympus and the tragic muse were fatigued with invocations, according to +the fashion of the time in France and in England. "Aid us Mars, Bacchus, +Apollo," cried Addison, or Congreve, singing of William or Marlborough. +"_Accourez, chastes nymphes de Parnasse_," says Boileau, celebrating the +Grand Monarch. "_Des sons que ma lyre enfante_, marquez-en bien la +cadence, _et vous, vents, faites silence! je vais parler de __ Louis!_" +Schoolboys' themes and foundation exercises are the only relics left now +of this scholastic fashion. The Olympians are left quite undisturbed in +their mountain. What man of note, what contributor to the poetry of a +country newspaper, would now think of writing a congratulatory ode on the +birth of the heir to a dukedom, or the marriage of a nobleman? In the past +century the young gentlemen of the Universities all exercised themselves +at these queer compositions; and some got fame, and some gained patrons +and places for life, and many more took nothing by these efforts of what +they were pleased to call their muses. + +William Congreve's(58) Pindaric Odes are still to be found in _Johnson's +Poets_, that now unfrequented poets' corner, in which so many forgotten +bigwigs have a niche--but though he was also voted to be one of the +greatest tragic poets of any day, it was Congreve's wit and humour which +first recommended him to courtly fortune. And it is recorded, that his +first play, the _Old Bachelor_, brought our author to the notice of that +great patron of English muses, Charles Montague Lord Halifax, who being +desirous to place so eminent a wit in a state of ease and tranquillity, +instantly made him one of the Commissioners for licensing hackney-coaches, +bestowed on him soon after a place in the Pipe-office, and likewise a post +in the Custom-house of the value of 600_l._ + +A commissionership of hackney-coaches--a post in the Custom-house--a place +in the Pipe-office, and all for writing a comedy! Doesn't it sound like a +fable, that place in the Pipe-office?(59) _Ah, l'heureux temps que celui +de ces fables!_ Men of letters there still be: but I doubt whether any +Pipe-offices are left. The public has smoked them long ago. + +Words, like men, pass current for a while with the public, and being known +everywhere abroad, at length take their places in society; so even the +most secluded and refined ladies here present will have heard the phrase +from their sons or brothers at school, and will permit me to call William +Congreve, Esquire, the most eminent literary "swell" of his age. In my +copy of _Johnson's Lives_ Congreve's wig is the tallest, and put on with +the jauntiest air of all the laurelled worthies. "I am the great Mr. +Congreve," he seems to say, looking out from his voluminous curls. People +called him the great Mr. Congreve.(60) From the beginning of his career +until the end everybody admired him. Having got his education in Ireland, +at the same school and college with Swift, he came to live in the Middle +Temple, London, where he luckily bestowed no attention to the law; but +splendidly frequented the coffee-houses and theatres, and appeared in the +side-box, the tavern, the Piazza, and the Mall, brilliant, beautiful, and +victorious from the first. Everybody acknowledged the young chieftain. The +great Mr. Dryden(61) declared that he was equal to Shakespeare, and +bequeathed to him his own undisputed poetical crown, and writes of him, +"Mr. Congreve has done me the favour to review the _Aeneis_, and compare +my version with the original. I shall never be ashamed to own that this +excellent young man has showed me many faults which I have endeavoured to +correct." + +The "excellent young man" was but three- or four-and-twenty when the great +Dryden thus spoke of him: the greatest literary chief in England, the +veteran field-marshal of letters, himself the marked man of all Europe, +and the centre of a school of wits, who daily gathered round his chair and +tobacco-pipe at Will's. Pope dedicated his _Iliad_ to him;(62) Swift, +Addison, Steele, all acknowledge Congreve's rank, and lavish compliments +upon him. Voltaire went to wait upon him as on one of the Representatives +of Literature--and the man who scarce praises any other living person, who +flung abuse at Pope, and Swift, and Steele, and Addison--the Grub Street +Timon, old John Dennis,(63) was hat in hand to Mr. Congreve; and said, +that when he retired from the stage, Comedy went with him. + +Nor was he less victorious elsewhere. He was admired in the drawing-rooms +as well as the coffee-houses; as much beloved in the side-box as on the +stage. He loved, and conquered, and jilted the beautiful Bracegirdle,(64) +the heroine of all his plays, the favourite of all the town of her day--and +the Duchess of Marlborough, Marlborough's daughter, had such an admiration +of him, that when he died she had an ivory figure made to imitate him,(65) +and a large wax doll with gouty feet to be dressed just as the great +Congreve's gouty feet were dressed in his great lifetime. He saved some +money by his Pipe-office, and his Custom-house office, and his +Hackney-coach office, and nobly left it, not to Bracegirdle, who wanted +it,(66) but to the Duchess of Marlborough, who didn't.(67) + +How can I introduce to you that merry and shameless Comic Muse who won him +such a reputation? Nell Gwynn's servant fought the other footman for +having called his mistress a bad name; and in like manner, and with pretty +like epithets, Jeremy Collier attacked that godless, reckless Jezebel, the +English comedy of his time, and called her what Nell Gwynn's man's +fellow-servants called Nell Gwynn's man's mistress. The servants of the +theatre, Dryden, Congreve,(68) and others, defended themselves with the +same success, and for the same cause which set Nell's lackey fighting. She +was a disreputable, daring, laughing, painted French baggage, that Comic +Muse. She came over from the Continent with Charles (who chose many more +of his female friends there) at the Restoration--a wild, dishevelled Lais, +with eyes bright with wit and wine--a saucy court-favourite that sat at the +king's knees, and laughed in his face, and when she showed her bold cheeks +at her chariot-window, had some of the noblest and most famous people of +the land bowing round her wheel. She was kind and popular enough, that +daring Comedy, that audacious poor Nell--she was gay and generous, kind, +frank, as such people can afford to be: and the men who lived with her and +laughed with her, took her pay and drank her wine, turned out when the +Puritans hooted her, to fight and defend her. But the jade was +indefensible, and it is pretty certain her servants knew it. + +There is life and death going on in everything: truth and lies always at +battle. Pleasure is always warring against self-restraint. Doubt is always +crying Psha, and sneering. A man in life, a humourist in writing about +life, sways over to one principle or the other, and laughs with the +reverence for right and the love of truth in his heart, or laughs at these +from the other side. Didn't I tell you that dancing was a serious business +to Harlequin? I have read two or three of Congreve's plays over before +speaking of him; and my feelings were rather like those, which I daresay +most of us here have had, at Pompeii, looking at Sallust's house and the +relics of an orgy, a dried wine-jar or two, a charred supper-table, the +breast of a dancing girl pressed against the ashes, the laughing skull of +a jester, a perfect stillness round about, as the cicerone twangs his +moral, and the blue sky shines calmly over the ruin. The Congreve muse is +dead, and her song choked in Time's ashes. We gaze at the skeleton, and +wonder at the life which once revelled in its mad veins. We take the skull +up, and muse over the frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, passion, hope, +desire, with which that empty bowl once fermented. We think of the glances +that allured, the tears that melted, of the bright eyes that shone in +those vacant sockets; and of lips whispering love, and cheeks dimpling +with smiles, that once covered yon ghastly yellow framework. They used to +call those teeth pearls once. See! there's the cup she drank from, the +gold chain she wore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her +cheeks, her looking-glass, and the harp she used to dance to. Instead of a +feast we find a gravestone, and in place of a mistress, a few bones! + +Reading in these plays now, is like shutting your ears and looking at +people dancing. What does it mean? the measures, the grimaces, the bowing, +shuffling and retreating, the _cavalier seul_ advancing upon those +ladies--those ladies and men twirling round at the end in a mad galop, +after which everybody bows and the quaint rite is celebrated. Without the +music we can't understand that comic dance of the last century--its strange +gravity and gaiety, its decorum or its indecorum. It has a jargon of its +own quite unlike life; a sort of moral of its own quite unlike life too. +I'm afraid it's a heathen mystery, symbolizing a Pagan doctrine; +protesting, as the Pompeians very likely were, assembled at their theatre +and laughing at their games--as Sallust and his friends, and their +mistresses protested--crowned with flowers, with cups in their hands, +against the new, hard, ascetic, pleasure-hating doctrine, whose gaunt +disciples, lately passed over from the Asian shores of the Mediterranean, +were for breaking the fair images of Venus, and flinging the altars of +Bacchus down. + +I fancy poor Congreve's theatre is a temple of Pagan delights, and +mysteries not permitted except among heathens. I fear the theatre carries +down that ancient tradition and worship, as masons have carried their +secret signs and rites from temple to temple. When the libertine hero +carries off the beauty in the play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn for +having the young wife: in the ballad, when the poet bid his mistress to +gather roses while she may, and warns her that old Time is still a-flying: +in the ballet, when honest Corydon courts Phillis under the treillage of +the pasteboard cottage, and leers at her over the head of grandpapa in red +stockings, who is opportunely asleep; and when seduced by the invitations +of the rosy youth she comes forward to the footlights, and they perform on +each other's tiptoes that _pas_ which you all know, and which is only +interrupted by old grandpapa awaking from his doze at the pasteboard +chalet (whither he returns to take another nap in case the young people +get an encore): when Harlequin, splendid in youth, strength, and agility, +arrayed in gold and a thousand colours, springs over the heads of +countless perils, leaps down the throat of bewildered giants, and, +dauntless and splendid, dances danger down: when Mr. Punch, that godless +old rebel, breaks every law and laughs at it with odious triumph, outwits +his lawyer, bullies the beadle, knocks his wife about the head, and hangs +the hangman--don't you see in the comedy, in the song, in the dance, in the +ragged little Punch's puppet-show--the Pagan protest? Doesn't it seem as if +Life puts in its plea and sings its comment? Look how the lovers walk and +hold each other's hands and whisper! Sings the chorus--"There is nothing +like love, there is nothing like youth, there is nothing like beauty of +your spring-time. Look! how old age tries to meddle with merry sport! Beat +him with his own crutch, the wrinkled old dotard! There is nothing like +youth, there is nothing like beauty, there is nothing like strength. +Strength and valour win beauty and youth. Be brave and conquer. Be young +and happy. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! Would you know the _segreto per esser +felice_? Here it is, in a smiling mistress and a cup of Falernian." As the +boy tosses the cup and sings his song--hark! what is that chaunt coming +nearer and nearer? What is that dirge which _will_ disturb us? The lights +of the festival burn dim--the cheeks turn pale--the voice quavers--and the +cup drops on the floor. Who's there? Death and Fate are at the gate, and +they _will_ come in. + +Congreve's comic feast flares with lights, and round the table, emptying +their flaming bowls of drink, and exchanging the wildest jests and +ribaldry, sit men and women, waited on by rascally valets and attendants +as dissolute as their mistresses--perhaps the very worst company in the +world. There doesn't seem to be a pretence of morals. At the head of the +table sits Mirabel or Belmour (dressed in the French fashion and waited on +by English imitators of Scapin and Frontin). Their calling is to be +irresistible, and to conquer everywhere. Like the heroes of the chivalry +story, whose long-winded loves and combats they were sending out of +fashion, they are always splendid and triumphant--overcome all dangers, +vanquish all enemies, and win the beauty at the end. Fathers, husbands, +usurers are the foes these champions contend with. They are merciless in +old age, invariably, and an old man plays the part in the dramas, which +the wicked enchanter or the great blundering giant performs in the +chivalry tales, who threatens and grumbles and resists--a huge stupid +obstacle always overcome by the knight. It is an old man with a money-box: +Sir Belmour his son or nephew spends his money and laughs at him. It is an +old man with a young wife whom he locks up: Sir Mirabel robs him of his +wife, trips up his gouty old heels and leaves the old hunx--the old fool, +what business has he to hoard his money, or to lock up blushing eighteen? +Money is for youth, love is for youth; away with the old people. When +Millamant is sixty, having of course divorced the first Lady Millamant, +and married his friend Doricourt's granddaughter out of the nursery--it +will be his turn; and young Belmour will make a fool of him. All this +pretty morality you have in the comedies of William Congreve, Esq. They +are full of wit. Such manners as he observes, he observes with great +humour; but ah! it's a weary feast that banquet of wit where no love is. +It palls very soon; sad indigestions follow it and lonely blank headaches +in the morning. + +I can't pretend to quote scenes from the splendid Congreve's +plays(69)--which are undeniably bright, witty, and daring--any more than I +could ask you to hear the dialogue of a witty bargeman and a brilliant +fishwoman exchanging compliments at Billingsgate; but some of his +verses--they were amongst the most famous lyrics of the time, and +pronounced equal to Horace by his contemporaries--may give an idea of his +power, of his grace, of his daring manner, his magnificence in compliment, +and his polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was so accustomed to conquer, +that he has a poor opinion of his victims. Nothing's new except their +faces, says he: "every woman is the same." He says this in his first +comedy, which he wrote languidly(70) in illness, when he was an "excellent +young man". Richelieu at eighty could have hardly said a more excellent +thing. + +When he advances to make one of his conquests it is with a splendid +gallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles playing, like Grammont's +French dandies attacking the breach of Lerida. + +"Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady at the Wells at +Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent compliment-- + + + Cease, cease to ask her name, + The crowned Muse's noblest theme, + Whose glory by immortal fame + Shall only sounded be. + But if you long to know, + Then look round yonder dazzling row, + Who most does like an angel show + You may be sure 'tis she. + + +Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not so well pleased +at the poet's manner of celebrating her-- + + + When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, + With eyes so bright and with that awful air, + I thought my heart would durst so high aspire + As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. + But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke, + Forth from her coral lips such folly broke; + Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound, + And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound. + + +Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the poet does not +seem to respect one much more than the other; and describes both with +exquisite satirical humour-- + + + Fair Amoret is gone astray, + Pursue and seek her every lover; + I'll tell the signs by which you may + The wandering shepherdess discover. + + Coquet and coy at once her air, + Both studied, though both seem neglected; + Careless she is with artful care, + Affecting to be unaffected. + + With skill her eyes dart every glance, + Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect them; + For she'd persuade they wound by chance, + Though certain aim and art direct them. + + She likes herself, yet others hates + For that which in herself she prizes; + And, while she laughs at them, forgets + She is the thing which she despises. + + +What could Amoret have done to bring down such shafts of ridicule upon +her? Could she have resisted the irresistible Mr. Congreve? Could anybody? +Could Sabina, when she woke and heard such a bard singing under her +window. See, he writes-- + + + See! see, she wakes--Sabina wakes! + And now the sun begins to rise: + Less glorious is the morn, that breaks + From his bright beams, than her fair eyes. + With light united day they give; + But different fates ere night fulfil: + How many by his warmth will live! + How many will her coldness kill! + + +Are you melted? Don't you think him a divine man? If not touched by the +brilliant Sabina, hear the devout Selinda:-- + + + Pious Selinda goes to prayers, + If I but ask her favour; + And yet the silly fool's in tears, + If she believes I'll leave her: + Would I were free from this restraint, + Or else had hopes to win her: + Would she could make of me a saint, + Or I of her a sinner! + + +What a conquering air there is about these! What an irresistible Mr. +Congreve it is! Sinner! of course he will be a sinner, the delightful +rascal! Win her; of course he will win her, the victorious rogue! He knows +he will: he must--with such a grace, with such a fashion, with such a +splendid embroidered suit--you see him with red-heeled shoes deliciously +turned out, passing a fair jewelled hand through his dishevelled periwig, +and delivering a killing ogle along with his scented billet. And Sabina? +What a comparison that is between the nymph and the sun! The sun gives +Sabina the _pas_, and does not venture to rise before her ladyship: the +morn's _bright beams_ are less glorious than her _fair eyes_: but before +night everybody will be frozen by her glances: everybody but one lucky +rogue who shall be nameless: Louis Quatorze in all his glory is hardly +more splendid than our Phoebus Apollo of the Mall and Spring Garden.(71) + +When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the latter rather affected +to despise his literary reputation, and in this perhaps the great Congreve +was not far wrong.(72) A touch of Steele's tenderness is worth all his +finery--a flash of Swift's lightning--a beam of Addison's pure sunshine, and +his tawdry play-house taper is invisible. But the ladies loved him, and he +was undoubtedly a pretty fellow.(73) + +We have seen in Swift a humorous philosopher, whose truth frightens one, +and whose laughter makes one melancholy. We have had in Congreve a +humorous observer of another school, to whom the world seems to have no +moral at all, and whose ghastly doctrine seems to be that we should eat, +drink, and be merry when we can, and go to the deuce (if there be a deuce) +when the time comes. We come now to a humour that flows from quite a +different heart and spirit--a wit that makes us laugh and leaves us good +and happy; to one of the kindest benefactors that society has ever had, +and I believe you have divined already that I am about to mention +Addison's honoured name. + +From reading over his writings, and the biographies which we have of him, +amongst which the famous article in the _Edinburgh Review_(74) may be +cited as a magnificent statue of the great writer and moralist of the last +age, raised by the love and the marvellous skill and genius of one of the +most illustrious artists of our own; looking at that calm, fair face, and +clear countenance--those chiselled features pure and cold, I can't but +fancy that this great man, in this respect, like him of whom we spoke in +the last lecture, was also one of the lonely ones of the world. Such men +have very few equals, and they don't herd with those. It is in the nature +of such lords of intellect to be solitary--they are in the world but not of +it; and our minor struggles, brawls, successes, pass under them. + +Kind, just, serene, impartial, his fortitude not tried beyond easy +endurance, his affections not much used, for his books were his family, +and his society was in public; admirably wiser, wittier, calmer, and more +instructed than almost every man with whom he met, how could Addison +suffer, desire, admire, feel much? I may expect a child to admire me for +being taller or writing more cleverly than she; but how can I ask my +superior to say that I am a wonder when he knows better than I? In +Addison's days you could scarcely show him a literary performance, a +sermon, or a poem, or a piece of literary criticism, but he felt he could +do better. His justice must have made him indifferent. He didn't praise, +because he measured his compeers by a higher standard than common people +have.(75) How was he who was so tall to look up to any but the loftiest +genius? He must have stooped to put himself on a level with most men. By +that profusion of graciousness and smiles, with which Goethe or Scott, for +instance, greeted almost every literary beginner, every small literary +adventurer who came to his court and went away charmed from the great +king's audience, and cuddling to his heart the compliment which his +literary majesty had paid him--each of the two good-natured potentates of +letters brought their star and ribbon into discredit. Everybody had his +majesty's orders. Everybody had his Majesty's cheap portrait, on a box +surrounded with diamonds worth twopence a-piece. A very great and just and +wise man ought not to praise indiscriminately, but give his idea of the +truth. Addison praises the ingenious Mr. Pinkethman: Addison praises the +ingenious Mr. Doggett the actor, whose benefit is coming off that night: +Addison praises Don Saltero: Addison praises Milton with all his heart, +bends his knee and frankly pays homage to that imperial genius.(76) But +between those degrees of his men his praise is very scanty. I don't think +the great Mr. Addison liked young Mr. Pope, the Papist, much; I don't +think he abused him. But when Mr. Addison's men abused Mr. Pope, I don't +think Addison took his pipe out of his mouth to contradict them.(77) + +Addison's father was a clergyman of good repute in Wiltshire, and rose in +the Church.(78) His famous son never lost his clerical training and +scholastic gravity, and was called "a parson in a tye-wig"(79) in London +afterwards at a time when tye-wigs were only worn by the laity, and the +fathers of theology did not think it decent to appear except in a full +bottom. Having been at school at Salisbury, and the Charterhouse, in 1687, +when he was fifteen years old he went to Queen's College, Oxford, where he +speedily began to distinguish himself by the making of Latin verses. The +beautiful and fanciful poem of _The Pigmies and the Cranes_ is still read +by lovers of that sort of exercise; and verses are extant in honour of +King William, by which it appears that it was the loyal youth's custom to +toast that sovereign in bumpers of purple Lyaeus; and many more works are +in the collection, including one on the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, which +was so good that Montague got him a pension of 300_l._ a year, on which +Addison set out on his travels. + +During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had deeply imbued himself with the +Latin poetical literature, and had these poets at his fingers' ends when +he travelled in Italy.(80) His patron went out of office, and his pension +was unpaid: and hearing that this great scholar, now eminent and known to +the _literati_ of Europe (the great Boileau,(81) upon perusal of Mr. +Addison's elegant hexameters, was first made aware that England was not +altogether a barbarous nation)--hearing that the celebrated Mr. Addison, of +Oxford, proposed to travel as governor to a young gentleman on the grand +tour, the great Duke of Somerset proposed to Mr. Addison to accompany his +son, Lord Hartford. + +Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his grace and his lordship, his +grace's son, and expressed himself ready to set forth. + +His grace the Duke of Somerset now announced to one of the most famous +scholars of Oxford and Europe that it was his gracious intention to allow +my Lord Hartford's tutor one hundred guineas per annum. Mr. Addison wrote +back that his services were his grace's, but he by no means found his +account in the recompense for them. The negotiation was broken off. They +parted with a profusion of _congees_ on one side and the other. + +Addison remained abroad for some time, living in the best society of +Europe. How could he do otherwise? He must have been one of the finest +gentlemen the world ever saw: at all moments of life serene and courteous, +cheerful and calm.(82) He could scarcely ever have had a degrading +thought. He might have omitted a virtue or two, or many, but could not +have had many faults committed for which he need blush or turn pale. When +warmed into confidence, his conversation appears to have been so +delightful that the greatest wits sat wrapt and charmed to listen to him. +No man bore poverty and narrow fortune with a more lofty cheerfulness. His +letters to his friends at this period of his life, when he had lost his +Government pension and given up his college chances, are full of courage +and a gay confidence and philosophy: and they are none the worse in my +eyes, and I hope not in those of his last and greatest biographer (though +Mr. Macaulay is bound to own and lament a certain weakness for wine, which +the great and good Joseph Addison notoriously possessed, in common with +countless gentlemen of his time), because some of the letters are written +when his honest hand was shaking a little in the morning after libations +to purple Lyaeus overnight. He was fond of drinking the healths of his +friends: he writes to Wyche,(83) of Hamburgh, gratefully remembering +Wyche's "hoc". "I have been drinking your health to-day with Sir Richard +Shirley," he writes to Bathurst. "I have lately had the honour to meet my +Lord Effingham at Amsterdam, where we have drunk Mr. Wood's health a +hundred times in excellent champagne," he writes again. Swift(84) +describes him over his cups, when Joseph yielded to a temptation which +Jonathan resisted. Joseph was of a cold nature, and needed perhaps the +fire of wine to warm his blood. If he was a parson, he wore a tye-wig, +recollect. A better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than +Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine--why, we could +scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him as we +do.(85) + +At thirty-three years of age, this most distinguished wit, scholar, and +gentleman was without a profession and an income. His book of _Travels_ +had failed: his _Dialogues on Medals_ had had no particular success: his +Latin verses, even though reported the best since Virgil, or Statius at +any rate, had not brought him a Government place, and Addison was living +up two shabby pair of stairs in the Haymarket (in a poverty over which old +Samuel Johnson rather chuckles), when in these shabby rooms an emissary +from Government and Fortune came and found him.(86) + +A poem was wanted about the Duke of Marlborough's victory of Blenheim. +Would Mr. Addison write one? Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton, took +back the reply to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, that Mr. Addison would. +When the poem had reached a certain stage, it was carried to Godolphin; +and the last lines which he read were these: + + + But O my muse! what numbers wilt thou find + To sing the furious troops in battle join'd? + Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound, + The victors' shouts and dying groans confound; + The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, + And all the thunders of the battle rise. + 'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, + That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, + Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, + Examined all the dreadful scenes of war: + In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, + To fainting squadrons lent the timely aid, + Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, + And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. + So when an angel by divine command, + With rising tempests shakes a guilty land + (Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed), + Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; + And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, + Rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm. + + +Addison left off at a good moment. That simile was pronounced to be of the +greatest ever produced in poetry. That angel, that good angel, flew off +with Mr. Addison, and landed him in the place of Commissioner of +Appeals--vice Mr. Locke providentially promoted. In the following year, Mr. +Addison went to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the year after was made +Under-Secretary of State. O angel visits! you come "few and far between" +to literary gentlemen's lodgings! Your wings seldom quiver at second-floor +windows now! + +You laugh? You think it is in the power of few writers nowadays to call up +such an angel? Well, perhaps not; but permit us to comfort ourselves by +pointing out that there are in the poem of the _Campaign_ some as bad +lines as heart can desire: and to hint that Mr. Addison did very wisely in +not going further with my Lord Godolphin than that angelical simile. Do +allow me, just for a little harmless mischief, to read you some of the +lines which follow. Here is the interview between the Duke and the King of +the Romans after the battle:-- + + + Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway + Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey, + Whose boasted ancestry so high extends + That in the pagan gods his lineage ends, + Comes from afar, in gratitude to own + The great supporter of his father's throne. + What tides of glory to his bosom ran + Clasped in th' embraces of the godlike man! + How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixt, + To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt! + Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, + So learned and finished for the camp or court! + + +How many fourth-form boys at Mr. Addison's school of Charterhouse could +write as well as that now? The _Campaign_ has blunders, triumphant as it +was; and weak points like all campaigns.(87) + +In the year 1718 _Cato_ came out. Swift has left a description of the +first night of the performance. All the laurels of Europe were scarcely +sufficient for the author of this prodigious poem.(88) Laudations of Whig +and Tory chiefs, popular ovations, complimentary garlands from literary +men, translations in all languages, delight and homage from all--save from +John Dennis in a minority of one--Mr. Addison was called the "great Mr. +Addison" after this. The Coffee-house Senate saluted him Divus: it was +heresy to question that decree. + +Meanwhile he was writing political papers and advancing in the political +profession. He went Secretary to Ireland. He was appointed Secretary of +State in 1717. And letters of his are extant, bearing date some year or +two before, and written to young Lord Warwick, in which he addresses him +as "my dearest lord", and asks affectionately about his studies, and +writes very prettily about nightingales, and birds'-nests, which he has +found at Fulham for his lordship. Those nightingales were intended to +warble in the ear of Lord Warwick's mamma. Addison married her ladyship in +1716; and died at Holland House three years after that splendid but dismal +union.(89) + +But it is not for his reputation as the great author of _Cato_ and the +_Campaign_, or for his merits as Secretary of State, or for his rank and +high distinction as my Lady Warwick's husband, or for his eminence as an +Examiner of political questions on the Whig side, or a Guardian of British +liberties, that we admire Joseph Addison. It is as a Tatler of small talk +and a Spectator of mankind, that we cherish and love him, and owe as much +pleasure to him as to any human being that ever wrote. He came in that +artificial age, and began to speak with his noble, natural voice. He came, +the gentle satirist, who hit no unfair blow; the kind judge who castigated +only in smiling. While Swift went about, hanging and ruthless--a literary +Jeffries--in Addison's kind court only minor cases were tried: only +peccadilloes and small sins against society: only a dangerous libertinism +in tuckers and hoops;(90) or a nuisance in the abuse of beaux' canes and +snuff-boxes. It may be a lady is tried for breaking the peace of our +sovereign lady Queen Anne, and ogling too dangerously from the side-box: +or a Templar for beating the watch, or breaking Priscian's head: or a +citizen's wife for caring too much for the puppet-show, and too little for +her husband and children: every one of the little sinners brought before +him is amusing, and he dismisses each with the pleasantest penalties and +the most charming words of admonition. + +Addison wrote his papers as gaily as if he was going out for a holiday. +When Steele's _Tatler_ first began his prattle, Addison, then in Ireland, +caught at his friend's notion, poured in paper after paper, and +contributed the stores of his mind, the sweet fruits of his reading, the +delightful gleanings of his daily observation, with a wonderful profusion, +and as it seemed an almost endless fecundity. He was six-and-thirty years +old: full and ripe. He had not worked crop after crop from his brain, +manuring hastily, subsoiling indifferently, cutting and sowing and cutting +again, like other luckless cultivators of letters. He had not done much as +yet; a few Latin poems--graceful prolusions; a polite book of travels; a +dissertation on medals, not very deep; four acts of a tragedy, a great +classical exercise; and the _Campaign_, a large prize poem that won an +enormous prize. But with his friend's discovery of the _Tatler_, Addison's +calling was found, and the most delightful talker in the world began to +speak. He does not go very deep: let gentlemen of a profound genius, +critics accustomed to the plunge of the bathos, console themselves by +thinking that he _couldn't_ go very deep. There are no traces of suffering +in his writing. He was so good, so honest, so healthy, so cheerfully +selfish, if I must use the word. There is no deep sentiment. I doubt, +until after his marriage, perhaps, whether he ever lost his night's rest +or his day's tranquillity about any woman in his life:(91) whereas poor +Dick Steele had capacity enough to melt, and to languish, and to sigh, and +to cry his honest old eyes out, for a dozen. His writings do not show +insight into or reverence for the love of women, which I take to be, one +the consequence of the other. He walks about the world watching their +pretty humours, fashions, follies, flirtations, rivalries; and noting them +with the most charming archness. He sees them in public, in the theatre, +or the assembly, or the puppet-show; or at the toy-shop higgling for +gloves and lace; or at the auction, battling together over a blue +porcelain dragon, or a darling monster in japan; or at church, eyeing the +width of their rivals' hoops, or the breadth of their laces, as they sweep +down the aisles. Or he looks out of his window at the "Garter" in St. +James's Street, at Ardelia's coach, as she blazes to the Drawing-room with +her coronet and six footmen; and remembering that her father was a Turkey +merchant in the City, calculates how many sponges went to purchase her +ear-ring, and how many drums of figs to build her coach-box; or he +demurely watches behind a tree in Spring Garden as Saccharissa (whom he +knows under her mask) trips out of her chair to the alley where Sir +Fopling is waiting. He sees only the public life of women. Addison was one +of the most resolute club-men of his day. He passed many hours daily in +those haunts. Besides drinking, which, alas! is past praying for; you must +know it, he owned, too, ladies that he indulged in that odious practice of +smoking. Poor fellow! He was a man's man, remember. The only woman he +_did_ know, he didn't write about. I take it there would not have been +much humour in that story. + +He likes to go and sit in the smoking-room at the Grecian, or the Devil; +to pace "Change and the Mall"(92)--to mingle in that great club of the +world--sitting alone in it somehow: having goodwill and kindness for every +single man and woman in it--having need of some habit and custom binding +him to some few; never doing any man a wrong (unless it be a wrong to hint +a little doubt about a man's parts, and to damn him with faint praise); +and so he looks on the world and plays with the ceaseless humours of all +of us--laughs the kindest laugh--points our neighbour's foible or +eccentricity out to us with the most good-natured, smiling confidence; and +then, turning over his shoulder, whispers _our_ foibles to our neighbour. +What would Sir Roger de Coverley be without his follies and his charming +little brain-cracks?(93) If the good knight did not call out to the people +sleeping in church, and say "Amen" with such a delightful pomposity: if he +did not make a speech in the assize-court _a propos de bottes_, and merely +to show his dignity to Mr. Spectator:(94) if he did not mistake Madam Doll +Tearsheet for a lady of quality in Temple Garden: if he were wiser than he +is: if he had not his humour to salt his life, and were but a mere English +gentleman and game-preserver--of what worth were he to us? We love him for +his vanities as much as his virtues. What is ridiculous is delightful in +him: we are so fond of him because we laugh at him so. And out of that +laughter, and out of that sweet weakness, and out of those harmless +eccentricities and follies, and out of that touched brain, and out of that +honest manhood and simplicity--we get a result of happiness, goodness, +tenderness, pity, piety; such as, if my audience will think their reading +and hearing over, doctors and divines but seldom have the fortune to +inspire. And why not? Is the glory of Heaven to be sung only by gentlemen +in black coats? Must the truth be only expounded in gown and surplice, and +out of those two vestments can nobody preach it? Commend me to this dear +preacher without orders--this parson in the tye-wig. When this man looks +from the world, whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to the +Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human face lighted +up with a more serene rapture: a human intellect thrilling with a purer +love and adoration than Joseph Addison's. Listen to him: from your +childhood you have known the verses: but who can hear their sacred music +without love and awe? + + + Soon as the evening shades prevail, + The moon takes up the wondrous tale, + And nightly to the listening earth, + Repeats the story of her birth; + And all the stars that round her burn, + And all the planets in their turn, + Confirm the tidings as they roll, + And spread the truth from pole to pole. + What though, in solemn silence, all + Move round this dark terrestrial ball; + What though no real voice nor sound, + Among their radiant orbs be found; + In reason's ear they all rejoice, + And utter forth a glorious voice, + For ever singing as they shine, + The hand that made us is divine. + + +It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. They shine out of a +great deep calm. When he turns to Heaven, a Sabbath comes over that man's +mind: and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayer. +His sense of religion stirs through his whole being. In the fields, in the +town: looking at the birds in the trees: at the children in the streets: +in the morning or in the moonlight: over his books in his own room: in a +happy party at a country merry-making or a town assembly, goodwill and +peace to God's creatures, and love and awe of Him who made them, fill his +pure heart and shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the most +wretched, I think Addison's was one of the most enviable. A life +prosperous and beautiful--a calm death--an immense fame and affection +afterwards for his happy and spotless name.(95) + + + + +Lecture The Third. Steele + + +What do we look for in studying the history of a past age? Is it to learn +the political transactions and characters of the leading public men? Is it +to make ourselves acquainted with the life and being of the time? If we +set out with the former grave purpose, where is the truth, and who +believes that he has it entire? What character of what great man is known +to you? You can but make guesses as to character more or less happy. In +common life don't you often judge and misjudge a man's whole conduct, +setting out from a wrong impression? The tone of a voice, a word said in +joke, or a trifle in behaviour--the cut of his hair or the tie of his +neckcloth may disfigure him in your eyes, or poison your good opinion; or +at the end of years of intimacy it may be your closest friend says +something, reveals something which had previously been a secret, which +alters all your views about him, and shows that he has been acting on +quite a different motive to that which you fancied you knew. And if it is +so with those you know, how much more with those you don't know? Say, for +example, that I want to understand the character of the Duke of +Marlborough. I read Swift's history of the times in which he took a part; +the shrewdest of observers and initiated, one would think, into the +politics of the age--he hints to me that Marlborough was a coward, and even +of doubtful military capacity: he speaks of Walpole as a contemptible +boor, and scarcely mentions, except to flout it, the great intrigue of the +Queen's latter days, which was to have ended in bringing back the +Pretender. Again, I read Marlborough's life by a copious archdeacon, who +has the command of immense papers, of sonorous language, of what is called +the best information; and I get little or no insight into this secret +motive which, I believe, influenced the whole of Marlborough's career, +which caused his turnings and windings, his opportune fidelity and +treason, stopped his army almost at Paris gate, and landed him finally on +the Hanoverian side--the winning side; I get, I say, no truth, or only a +portion of it, in the narrative of either writer, and believe that Coxe's +portrait or Swift's portrait is quite unlike the real Churchill. I take +this as a single instance, prepared to be as sceptical about any other, +and say to the Muse of History, "O venerable daughter of Mnemosyne, I +doubt every single statement you ever made since your ladyship was a Muse! +For all your grave airs and high pretensions, you are not a whit more +trustworthy than some of your lighter sisters on whom your partisans look +down. You bid me listen to a general's oration to his soldiers: Nonsense! +He no more made it than Turpin made his dying speech at Newgate. You +pronounce a panegyric of a hero: I doubt it, and say you flatter +outrageously. You utter the condemnation of a loose character: I doubt it, +and think you are prejudiced and take the side of the Dons. You offer me +an autobiography: I doubt all autobiographies I ever read except those, +perhaps, of Mr. Robinson Crusoe, Mariner, and writers of his class. +_These_ have no object in setting themselves right with the public or +their own consciences; these have no motive for concealment or +half-truths; these call for no more confidence than I can cheerfully give, +and do not force me to tax my credulity or to fortify it by evidence. I +take up a volume of Dr. Smollett, or a volume of the _Spectator_, and say +the fiction carries a greater amount of truth in solution than the volume +which purports to be all true. Out of the fictitious book I get the +expression of the life of the time; of the manners, of the movement, the +dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules of society--the old times +live again, and I travel in the old country of England. Can the heaviest +historian do more for me?" + +As we read in these delightful volumes of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, +the past age returns, the England of our ancestors is revivified. The +Maypole rises in the Strand again in London; the churches are thronged +with daily worshippers; the beaux are gathering in the coffee-houses; the +gentry are going to the Drawing-room; the ladies are thronging to the +toy-shops; the chairmen are jostling in the streets; the footmen are +running with links before the chariots, or fighting round the theatre +doors. In the country I see the young Squire riding to Eton with his +servants behind him, and Will Wimble, the friend of the family, to see him +safe. To make that journey from the Squire's and back, Will is a week on +horseback. The coach takes five days between London and Bath. The judges +and the bar ride the circuit. If my lady comes to town in her +post-chariot, her people carry pistols to fire a salute on Captain +Macheath if he should appear, and her couriers ride ahead to prepare +apartments for her at the great caravanserais on the road; Boniface +receives her under the creaking sign of the "Bell" or the "Ram", and he +and his chamberlains bow her up the great stair to the state-apartments, +whilst her carriage rumbles into the courtyard, where the Exeter "Fly" is +housed that performs the journey in eight days, God willing, having +achieved its daily flight of twenty miles, and landed its passengers for +supper and sleep. The curate is taking his pipe in the kitchen, where the +Captain's man--having hung up his master's half-pike--is at his bacon and +eggs, bragging of Ramillies and Malplaquet to the townsfolk, who have +their club in the chimney-corner. The Captain is ogling the chambermaid in +the wooden gallery, or bribing her to know who is the pretty young +mistress that has come in the coach? The pack-horses are in the great +stable, and the drivers and ostlers carousing in the tap. And in Mrs. +Landlady's bar, over a glass of strong waters, sits a gentleman of +military appearance, who travels with pistols, as all the rest of the +world does, and has a rattling grey mare in the stables which will be +saddled and away with its owner half an hour before the "Fly" sets out on +its last day's flight. And some five miles on the road, as the Exeter +"Fly" comes jingling and creaking onwards, it will suddenly be brought to +a halt by a gentleman on a grey mare, with a black vizard on his face, who +thrusts a long pistol into the coach window, and bids the company to hand +out their purses.... It must have been no small pleasure even to sit in +the great kitchen in those days, and see the tide of humankind pass by. We +arrive at places now, but we travel no more. Addison talks jocularly of a +difference of manner and costume being quite perceivable at Staines, where +there passed a young fellow "with a very tolerable periwig", though, to be +sure, his hat was out of fashion, and had a Ramillies cock. I would have +liked to travel in those days (being of that class of travellers who are +proverbially pretty easy _coram latronibus_) and have seen my friend with +the grey mare and the black vizard. Alas! there always came a day in the +life of that warrior when it was the fashion to accompany him as he +passed--without his black mask, and with a nosegay in his hand, accompanied +by halberdiers and attended by the sheriff,--in a carriage without springs, +and a clergyman jolting beside him to a spot close by Cumberland Gate and +the Marble Arch, where a stone still records that here Tyburn turnpike +stood. What a change in a century; in a few years! Within a few yards of +that gate the fields began: the fields of his exploits, behind the hedges +of which he lurked and robbed. A great and wealthy city has grown over +those meadows. Were a man brought to die there now, the windows would be +closed and the inhabitants keep their houses in sickening horror. A +hundred years back, people crowded to see that last act of a highwayman's +life, and make jokes on it. Swift laughed at him, grimly advising him to +provide a Holland shirt and white cap crowned with a crimson or black +ribbon for his exit, to mount the cart cheerfully--shake hands with the +hangman, and so--farewell. Gay wrote the most delightful ballads, and made +merry over the same hero. Contrast these with the writings of our present +humourists! Compare those morals and ours--those manners and ours! + +We can't tell--you would not bear to be told the whole truth regarding +those men and manners. You could no more suffer in a British drawing-room, +under the reign of Queen Victoria, a fine gentleman or fine lady of Queen +Anne's time, or hear what they heard and said, than you would receive an +ancient Briton. It is as one reads about savages, that one contemplates +the wild ways, the barbarous feasts, the terrific pastimes, of the men of +pleasure of that age. We have our fine gentlemen, and our "fast men"; +permit me to give you an idea of one particularly fast nobleman of Queen +Anne's days, whose biography has been preserved to us by the law +reporters. + +In 1691, when Steele was a boy at school, my Lord Mohun was tried by his +peers for the murder of William Mountford, comedian. In Howell's _State +Trials_, the reader will find not only an edifying account of this +exceedingly fast nobleman, but of the times and manners of those days. My +lord's friend, a Captain Hill, smitten with the charms of the beautiful +Mrs. Bracegirdle, and anxious to marry her at all hazards, determined to +carry her off, and for this purpose hired a hackney-coach with six horses, +and a half-dozen of soldiers, to aid him in the storm. The coach with a +pair of horses (the four leaders being in waiting elsewhere) took its +station opposite my Lord Craven's house in Drury Lane, by which door Mrs. +Bracegirdle was to pass on her way from the theatre. As she passed in +company of her mamma and a friend, Mr. Page, the Captain seized her by the +hand, the soldiers hustled Mr. Page and attacked him sword in hand, and +Captain Hill and his noble friend endeavoured to force Madam Bracegirdle +into the coach. Mr. Page called for help: the population of Drury Lane +rose: it was impossible to effect the capture; and bidding the soldiers go +about their business, and the coach to drive off, Hill let go of his prey +sulkily, and he waited for other opportunities of revenge. The man of whom +he was most jealous was Will Mountford, the comedian; Will removed, he +thought Mrs. Bracegirdle might be his: and accordingly the Captain and his +lordship lay that night in wait for Will, and as he was coming out of a +house in Norfolk Street, while Mohun engaged him in talk, Hill, in the +words of the Attorney-General, made a pass and run him clean through the +body. + +Sixty-one of my lord's peers finding him not guilty of murder, while but +fourteen found him guilty, this very fast nobleman was discharged: and +made his appearance seven years after in another trial for murder--when he, +my Lord Warwick, and three gentlemen of the military profession were +concerned in the fight which ended in the death of Captain Coote. + +This jolly company were drinking together at Lockit's in Charing Cross, +when angry words arose between Captain Coote and Captain French; whom my +Lord Mohun and my lord the Earl of Warwick(96) and Holland endeavoured to +pacify. My Lord Warwick was a dear friend of Captain Coote, lent him a +hundred pounds to buy his commission in the Guards; once when the captain +was arrested for 13_l_. by his tailor, my lord lent him five guineas, +often paid his reckoning for him, and showed him other offices of +friendship. On this evening the disputants, French and Coote, being +separated whilst they were upstairs, unluckily stopped to drink ale again +at the bar of Lockit's. The row began afresh--Coote lunged at French over +the bar, and at last all six called for chairs, and went to Leicester +Fields, where they fell to. Their lordships engaged on the side of Captain +Coote. My Lord of Warwick was severely wounded in the hand, Mr. French +also was stabbed, but honest Captain Coote got a couple of wounds--one +especially, "a wound in the left side just under the short ribs, and +piercing through the diaphragma," which did for Captain Coote. Hence the +trials of my Lords Warwick and Mohun: hence the assemblage of peers, the +report of the transaction, in which these defunct fast men still live for +the observation of the curious. My Lord of Warwick is brought to the bar +by the Deputy Governor of the Tower of London, having the axe carried +before him by the gentleman gaoler, who stood with it at the bar at the +right hand of the prisoner, turning the edge from him; the prisoner, at +his approach, making three bows, one to his grace the Lord High Steward, +the other to the peers on each hand; and his grace and the peers return +the salute. And besides these great personages, august in periwigs, and +nodding to the right and left, a host of the small come up out of the past +and pass before us--the jolly captains brawling in the tavern, and laughing +and cursing over their cups--the drawer that serves, the bar-girl that +waits, the bailiff on the prowl, the chairmen trudging through the black +lampless streets, and smoking their pipes by the railings, whilst swords +are clashing in the garden within. "Help there! a gentleman is hurt": the +chairmen put up their pipes, and help the gentleman over the railings, and +carry him, ghastly and bleeding, to the bagnio in Long Acre, where they +knock up the surgeon--a pretty tall gentleman--but that wound under the +short ribs has done for him. Surgeon, lords, captains, bailiffs, chairmen, +and gentleman gaoler with your axe, where be you now? The gentleman +axeman's head is off his own shoulders; the lords and judges can wag +theirs no longer; the bailiff's writs have ceased to run; the honest +chairmen's pipes are put out, and with their brawny calves they have +walked away into Hades--all as irrecoverably done for as Will Mountford or +Captain Coote. The subject of our night's lecture saw all these +people--rode in Captain Coote's company of the Guards very probably--wrote +and sighed for Bracegirdle, went home tipsy in many a chair, after many a +bottle, in many a tavern--fled from many a bailiff. + +In 1709, when the publication of the _Tatler_ began, our +great-great-grandfathers must have seized upon that new and delightful +paper with much such eagerness as lovers of light literature in a later +day exhibited when the Waverley novels appeared, upon which the public +rushed, forsaking that feeble entertainment of which the Miss Porters, the +Anne of Swanseas, and worthy Mrs. Radcliffe herself, with her dreary +castles and exploded old ghosts, had had pretty much the monopoly. I have +looked over many of the comic books with which our ancestors amused +themselves, from the novels of Swift's coadjutrix, Mrs. Manley, the +delectable author of the _New Atlantis_, to the facetious productions of +Tom Durfey, and Tom Brown, and Ned Ward, writer of the _London Spy_ and +several other volumes of ribaldry. The slang of the taverns and +ordinaries, the wit of the bagnios, form the strongest part of the farrago +of which these libels are composed. In the excellent newspaper collection +at the British Museum, you may see, besides the _Craftsman_ and _Post +Boy_, specimens, and queer specimens they are, of the higher literature of +Queen Anne's time. Here is an abstract from a notable journal bearing +date, Wednesday, October 13th, 1708, and entitled _The British Apollo; or, +Curious Amusements for the Ingenious, by a Society of Gentlemen_. The +_British Apollo_ invited and professed to answer questions upon all +subjects of wit, morality, science, and even religion; and two out of its +four pages are filled with queries and replies much like some of the +oracular penny prints of the present time. + +One of the first querists, referring to the passage that a bishop should +be the husband of one wife, argues that polygamy is justifiable in the +laity. The society of gentlemen conducting the _British Apollo_ are posed +by this casuist, and promise to give him an answer. Celinda then wishes to +know from "the gentlemen", concerning the souls of the dead, whether they +shall have the satisfaction to know those whom they most valued in this +transitory life. The gentlemen of the _Apollo_ give but cold comfort to +poor Celinda. They are inclined to think not: for, say they, since every +inhabitant of those regions will be infinitely dearer than here are our +nearest relatives--what have we to do with a partial friendship in that +happy place? Poor Celinda! it may have been a child or a lover whom she +had lost, and was pining after, when the oracle of _British Apollo_ gave +her this dismal answer. She has solved the question for herself by this +time, and knows quite as well as the society of gentlemen. + +From theology we come to physics, and Q. asks, "Why does hot water freeze +sooner than cold?" Apollo replies, "Hot water cannot be said to freeze +sooner than cold, but water once heated and cold, may be subject to freeze +by the evaporation of the spirituous parts of the water, which renders it +less able to withstand the power of frosty weather." + +The next query is rather a delicate one. "You, Mr. Apollo, who are said to +be the God of Wisdom, pray give us the reason why kissing is so much in +fashion: what benefit one receives by it, and who was the inventor, and +you will oblige Corinna." To this queer demand the lips of Phoebus, +smiling, answer: "Pretty, innocent Corinna! Apollo owns that he was a +little surprised by your kissing question, particularly at that part of it +where you desire to know the benefit you receive by it. Ah! madam, had you +a lover, you would not come to Apollo for a solution; since there is no +dispute but the kisses of mutual lovers give infinite satisfaction. As to +its invention, 'tis certain nature was its author, and it began with the +first courtship." + +After a column more of questions, follow nearly two pages of poems, signed +by Philander, Armenia, and the like, and chiefly on the tender passion; +and the paper wound up with a letter from Leghorn, an account of the Duke +of Marlborough and Prince Eugene before Lille, and proposals for +publishing two sheets on the present state of Aethiopia, by Mr. Hill; all +of which is printed for the authors by J. Mayo, at the Printing Press +against Water Lane in Fleet Street. What a change it must have been--how +Apollo's oracles must have been struck dumb, when the _Tatler_ appeared, +and scholars, gentlemen, men of the world, men of genius, began to speak! + +Shortly before the Boyne was fought, and young Swift had begun to make +acquaintance with English Court manners and English servitude, in Sir +William Temple's family, another Irish youth was brought to learn his +humanities at the old school of Charterhouse, near Smithfield; to which +foundation he had been appointed by James Duke of Ormond, a governor of +the House, and a patron of the lad's family. The boy was an orphan, and +described, twenty years after, with a sweet pathos and simplicity, some of +the earliest recollections of a life which was destined to be chequered by +a strange variety of good and evil fortune. + +I am afraid no good report could be given by his masters and ushers of +that thick-set, square-faced, black-eyed, soft-hearted little Irish boy. +He was very idle. He was whipped deservedly a great number of times. +Though he had very good parts of his own, he got other boys to do his +lessons for him, and only took just as much trouble as should enable him +to scuffle through his exercises, and by good fortune escape the flogging +block. One hundred and fifty years after, I have myself inspected, but +only as an amateur, that instrument of righteous torture still existing, +and in occasional use, in a secluded private apartment of the old +Charterhouse School; and have no doubt it is the very counterpart, if not +the ancient and interesting machine itself, at which poor Dick Steele +submitted himself to the tormentors. + +Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this boy went invariably +into debt with the tart-woman; ran out of bounds, and entered into +pecuniary, or rather promissory, engagements with the neighbouring +lollipop-vendors and piemen--exhibited an early fondness and capacity for +drinking mum and sack, and borrowed from all his comrades who had money to +lend. I have no sort of authority for the statements here made of Steele's +early life; but if the child is father of the man, the father of young +Steele of Merton, who left Oxford without taking a degree, and entered the +Life Guards--the father of Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got his +company through the patronage of my Lord Cutts--the father of Mr. Steele +the Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of the _Gazette_, the _Tatler_, and +_Spectator_, the expelled Member of Parliament, and the author of the +_Tender Husband_ and the _Conscious Lovers_; if man and boy resembled each +other, Dick Steele the schoolboy must have been one of the most generous, +good-for-nothing, amiable little creatures that ever conjugated the verb +_tupto_, I beat, _tuptomai_, I am whipped, in any school in Great Britain. + +Almost every gentleman who does me the honour to hear me will remember +that the very greatest character which he has seen in the course of his +life, and the person to whom he has looked up with the greatest wonder and +reverence, was the head boy at his school. The schoolmaster himself hardly +inspires such an awe. The head boy construes as well as the schoolmaster +himself. When he begins to speak the hall is hushed, and every little boy +listens. He writes off copies of Latin verses as melodiously as Virgil. He +is good-natured, and, his own masterpieces achieved, pours out other +copies of verses for other boys with an astonishing ease and fluency; the +idle ones only trembling lest they should be discovered on giving in their +exercises, and whipped because their poems were too good. I have seen +great men in my time, but never such a great one as that head boy of my +childhood: we all thought he must be Prime Minister, and I was +disappointed on meeting him in after-life to find he was no more than six +feet high. + +Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted such an admiration in +the years of his childhood, and retained it faithfully through his life. +Through the school and through the world, whithersoever his strange +fortune led this erring, wayward, affectionate creature, Joseph Addison +was always his head boy. Addison wrote his exercises. Addison did his best +themes. He ran on Addison's messages: fagged for him and blacked his +shoes: to be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest pleasure; and he took a +sermon or a caning from his monitor with the most boundless reverence, +acquiescence, and affection.(97) + +Steele found Addison a stately college Don at Oxford, and himself did not +make much figure at this place. He wrote a comedy, which, by the advice of +a friend, the humble fellow burned there; and some verses, which I dare +say are as sublime as other gentlemen's composition at that age; but being +smitten with a sudden love for military glory, he threw up the cap and +gown for the saddle and bridle, and rode privately in the Horse Guards, in +the Duke of Ormond's troop--the second--and, probably, with the rest of the +gentlemen of his troop, "all mounted on black horses with white feathers +in their hats, and scarlet coats richly laced," marched by King William, +in Hyde Park, in November, 1699, and a great show of the nobility, besides +twenty thousand people, and above a thousand coaches. "The Guards had just +got their new clothes," the _London Post_ said: "they are extraordinary +grand, and thought to be the finest body of horse in the world." But +Steele could hardly have seen any actual service. He who wrote about +himself, his mother, his wife, his loves, his debts, his friends, and the +wine he drank, would have told us of his battles if he had seen any. His +old patron, Ormond, probably got him his cornetcy in the Guards, from +which he was promoted to be a captain in Lucas's Fusiliers, getting his +company through the patronage of Lord Cutts, whose secretary he was, and +to whom he dedicated his work called the _Christian Hero_. As for Dick, +whilst writing this ardent devotional work, he was deep in debt, in drink, +and in all the follies of the town; it is related that all the officers of +Lucas's, and the gentlemen of the Guards, laughed at Dick.(98) And in +truth a theologian in liquor is not a respectable object, and a hermit, +though he may be out at elbows, must not be in debt to the tailor. Steele +says of himself that he was always sinning and repenting. He beat his +breast and cried most piteously when he _did_ repent: but as soon as +crying had made him thirsty, he fell to sinning again. In that charming +paper in the _Tatler_, in which he records his father's death, his +mother's griefs, his own most solemn and tender emotions, he says he is +interrupted by the arrival of a hamper of wine, "the same as is to be sold +at Garraway's, next week," upon the receipt of which he sends for three +friends, and they fall to instantly, "drinking two bottles apiece, with +great benefit to themselves, and not separating till two o'clock in the +morning." + +His life was so. Jack the drawer was always interrupting it, bringing him +a bottle from the "Rose", or inviting him over to a bout there with Sir +Plume and Mr. Diver; and Dick wiped his eyes, which were whimpering over +his papers, took down his laced hat, put on his sword and wig, kissed his +wife and children, told them a lie about pressing business, and went off +to the "Rose" to the jolly fellows. + +While Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came home in rather a dismal +way to wait upon Providence in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, young +Captain Steele was cutting a much smarter figure than that of his +classical friend of Charterhouse Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Could not some +painter give an interview between the gallant captain of Lucas's, with his +hat cocked, and his lace, and his face too, a trifle tarnished with drink, +and that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and poor, his friend and +monitor of schooldays, of all days? How Dick must have bragged about his +chances and his hopes, and the fine company he kept, and the charms of the +reigning toasts and popular actresses, and the number of bottles that he +and my lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked overnight at the +"Devil", or the "Garter"! Cannot one fancy Joseph Addison's calm smile and +cold grey eyes following Dick for an instant, as he struts down the Mall, +to dine with the Guard at St. James's, before he turns, with his sober +pace and threadbare suit, to walk back to his lodgings up the two pair of +stairs? Steele's name was down for promotion, Dick always said himself, in +the glorious, pious, and immortal William's last table-book. Jonathan +Swift's name had been written there by the same hand too. + +Our worthy friend, the author of the _Christian Hero_, continued to make +no small figure about town by the use of his wits.(99) He was appointed +Gazetteer: he wrote, in 1703, _The Tender Husband_, his second play, in +which there is some delightful farcical writing, and of which he fondly +owned in after-life, and when Addison was no more, that there were "many +applauded strokes" from Addison's beloved hand.(100) Is it not a pleasant +partnership to remember? Can't one fancy Steele full of spirits and youth, +leaving his gay company to go to Addison's lodging, where his friend sits +in the shabby sitting-room, quite serene, and cheerful, and poor? In 1704, +Steele came on the town with another comedy, and behold it was so moral +and religious, as poor Dick insisted, so dull the town thought, that the +_Lying Lover_ was damned. + +Addison's hour of success now came, and he was able to help our friend, +the _Christian Hero_, in such a way, that, if there had been any chance of +keeping that poor tipsy champion upon his legs, his fortune was safe, and +his competence assured. Steele procured the place of Commissioner of +Stamps: he wrote so richly, so gracefully often, so kindly always, with +such a pleasant wit and easy frankness, with such a gush of good spirits +and good humour, that his early papers may be compared to Addison's own, +and are to be read, by a male reader at least, with quite an equal +pleasure.(101) + +After the _Tatler_, in 1711, the famous _Spectator_ made its appearance, +and this was followed, at various intervals, by many periodicals under the +same editor--the _Guardian_--the _Englishman_--the _Lover_, whose love was +rather insipid--the _Reader_, of whom the public saw no more after his +second appearance--the _Theatre_, under the pseudonym of Sir John Edgar, +which Steele wrote, while Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians, to +which post, and to that of Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, +and to the Commission of the Peace for Middlesex, and to the honour of +knighthood, Steele had been preferred soon after the accession of George +I, whose cause honest Dick had nobly fought, through disgrace and danger, +against the most formidable enemies, against traitors and bullies, against +Bolingbroke and Swift in the last reign. With the arrival of the King, +that splendid conspiracy broke up; and a golden opportunity came to Dick +Steele, whose hand, alas, was too careless to grip it. + +Steele married twice; and outlived his places, his schemes, his wife, his +income, his health, and almost everything but his kind heart. That ceased +to trouble him in 1729, when he died, worn out and almost forgotten by his +contemporaries, in Wales, where he had the remnant of a property. + +Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature; all women especially +are bound to be grateful to Steele, as he was the first of our writers who +really seemed to admire and respect them. Congreve the Great, who alludes +to the low estimation in which women were held in Elizabeth's time, as a +reason why the women of Shakespeare make so small a figure in the poet's +dialogues, though he can himself pay splendid compliments to women, yet +looks on them as mere instruments of gallantry, and destined, like the +most consummate fortifications, to fall, after a certain time, before the +arts and bravery of the besieger, man. There is a letter of Swift's, +entitled "Advice to a very Young Married Lady", which shows the Dean's +opinion of the female society of his day, and that if he despised man he +utterly scorned women too. No lady of our time could be treated by any +man, were he ever so much a wit or Dean, in such a tone of insolent +patronage and vulgar protection. In this performance, Swift hardly takes +pains to hide his opinion that a woman is a fool: tells her to read books, +as if reading was a novel accomplishment; and informs her that "not one +gentleman's daughter in a thousand has been brought to read or understand +her own natural tongue". Addison laughs at women equally; but, with the +gentleness and politeness of his nature, smiles at them and watches them, +as if they were harmless, halfwitted, amusing, pretty creatures, only made +to be men's playthings. It was Steele who first began to pay a manly +homage to their goodness and understanding, as well as to their tenderness +and beauty.(102) In his comedies, the heroes do not rant and rave about +the divine beauties of Gloriana or Statira, as the characters were made to +do in the chivalry romances and the high-flown dramas just going out of +vogue, but Steele admires women's virtue, acknowledges their sense, and +adores their purity and beauty, with an ardour and strength which should +win the goodwill of all women to their hearty and respectful champion. It +is this ardour, this respect, this manliness, which makes his comedies so +pleasant and their heroes such fine gentlemen. He paid the finest +compliment to a woman that perhaps ever was offered. Of one woman, whom +Congreve had also admired and celebrated, Steele says, that "to have loved +her was a liberal education". "How often," he says, dedicating a volume to +his wife, "how often has your tenderness removed pain from my sick head, +how often anguish from my afflicted heart! If there are such beings as +guardian angels, they are thus employed. I cannot believe one of them to +be more good in inclination, or more charming in form than my wife." His +breast seems to warm and his eyes to kindle when he meets with a good and +beautiful woman, and it is with his heart as well as with his hat that he +salutes her. About children, and all that relates to home, he is not less +tender, and more than once speaks in apology of what he calls his +softness. He would have been nothing without that delightful weakness. It +is that which gives his works their worth and his style its charm. It, +like his life, is full of faults and careless blunders; and redeemed, like +that, by his sweet and compassionate nature. + +We possess of poor Steele's wild and chequered life some of the most +curious memoranda that ever were left of a man's biography.(103) Most +men's letters, from Cicero down to Walpole, or down to the great men of +our own time, if you will, are doctored compositions, and written with an +eye suspicious towards posterity. That dedication of Steele's to his wife +is an artificial performance, possibly; at least, it is written with that +degree of artifice which an orator uses in arranging a statement for the +House, or a poet employs in preparing a sentiment in verse or for the +stage. But there are some 400 letters of Dick Steele'e to his wife, which +that thrifty woman preserved accurately, and which could have been written +but for her and her alone. They contain details of the business, +pleasures, quarrels, reconciliations of the pair; they have all the +genuineness of conversation; they are as artless as a child's prattle, and +as confidential as a curtain-lecture. Some are written from the +printing-office, where he is waiting for the proofsheets of his _Gazette_, +or his _Tatler_; some are written from the tavern, whence he promises to +come to his wife "within a pint of wine", and where he has given a +rendezvous to a friend, or a money-lender: some are composed in a high +state of vinous excitement, when his head is flustered with burgundy, and +his heart abounds with amorous warmth for his darling Prue: some are under +the influence of the dismal headache and repentance next morning: some, +alas, are from the lock-up house, where the lawyers have impounded him, +and where he is waiting for bail. You trace many years of the poor +fellow's career in these letters. In September, 1707, from which day she +began to save the letters, he married the beautiful Mistress Scurlock. You +have his passionate protestations to the lady; his respectful proposals to +her mamma; his private prayer to Heaven when the union so ardently desired +was completed; his fond professions of contrition and promises of +amendment, when, immediately after his marriage, there began to be just +cause for the one and need for the other. + +Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon their marriage, "the third +door from Germain Street, left hand of Berry Street," and the next year he +presented his wife with a country house at Hampton. It appears she had a +chariot and pair, and sometimes four horses: he himself enjoyed a little +horse for his own riding. He paid, or promised to pay, his barber fifty +pounds a year, and always went abroad in a laced coat and a large +black-buckled periwig, that must have cost somebody fifty guineas. He was +rather a well-to-do gentleman, Captain Steele, with the proceeds of his +estates in Barbadoes (left to him by his first wife), his income as a +writer of the _Gazette_, and his office of gentleman waiter to his Royal +Highness Prince George. His second wife brought him a fortune too. But it +is melancholy to relate, that with these houses and chariots and horses +and income, the Captain was constantly in want of money, for which his +beloved bride was asking as constantly. In the course of a few pages we +begin to find the shoemaker calling for money, and some directions from +the Captain, who has not thirty pounds to spare. He sends his wife, "the +beautifullest object in the world," as he calls her, and evidently in +reply to applications of her own, which have gone the way of all waste +paper, and lighted Dick's pipes, which were smoked a hundred and forty +years ago--he sends his wife now a guinea, then a half-guinea, then a +couple of guineas, then half a pound of tea; and again no money and no tea +at all, but a promise that his darling Prue shall have some in a day or +two: or a request, perhaps, that she will send over his night-gown and +shaving-plate to the temporary lodging where the nomadic captain is lying, +hidden from the bailiffs. Oh that a Christian hero and late captain in +Lucas's should be afraid of a dirty sheriff's officer! That the pink and +pride of chivalry should turn pale before a writ! It stands to record in +poor Dick's own handwriting; the queer collection is preserved at the +British Museum to this present day; that the rent of the nuptial house in +Jermyn Street, sacred to unutterable tenderness and Prue, and three doors +from Bury Street, was not paid until after the landlord had put in an +execution on Captain Steele's furniture. Addison sold the house and +furniture at Hampton, and, after deducting the sum in which his +incorrigible friend was indebted to him, handed over the residue of the +proceeds of the sale to poor Dick, who wasn't in the least angry at +Addison's summary proceeding, and I dare say was very glad of any sale or +execution, the result of which was to give him a little ready money. +Having a small house in Jermyn Street for which he couldn't pay, and a +country house at Hampton on which he had borrowed money, nothing must +content Captain Dick but the taking, in 1712, a much finer, larger, and +grander house, in Bloomsbury Square; where his unhappy landlord got no +better satisfaction than his friend in St. James's, and where it is +recorded that Dick, giving a grand entertainment, had a half-dozen +queer-looking fellows in livery to wait upon his noble guests, and +confessed that his servants were bailiffs to a man. "I fared like a +distressed prince," the kindly prodigal writes, generously complimenting +Addison for his assistance in the _Tatler_,--"I fared like a distressed +prince, who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by my +auxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without +dependence on him." Poor, needy Prince of Bloomsbury! think of him in his +palace, with his allies from Chancery Lane ominously guarding him. + +All sorts of stories are told indicative of his recklessness and his good +humour. One narrated by Dr. Hoadly is exceedingly characteristic; it shows +the life of the time: and our poor friend very weak, but very kind both in +and out of his cups. + +"My father" (says Dr. John Hoadly, the bishop's son)--"when Bishop of +Bangor, was, by invitation, present at one of the Whig meetings, held at +the 'Trumpet', in Shire Lane, when Sir Richard, in his zeal, rather +exposed himself, having the double duty of the day upon him, as well to +celebrate the immortal memory of King William, it being the 4th of +November, as to drink his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, whose +phlegmatic constitution was hardly warmed for society by that time. Steele +was not fit for it. Two remarkable circumstances happened. John Sly, the +hatter of facetious memory, was in the house; and John, pretty mellow, +took it into his head to come into the company on his knees, with a +tankard of ale in his hand to drink off to the _immortal memory_, and to +return in the same manner. Steele, sitting next my father, whispered +him--'_Do laugh. It is humanity to laugh._' Sir Richard, in the evening, +being too much in the same condition, was put into a chair, and sent home. +Nothing would serve him but being carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, late +as it was. However, the chairmen carried him home, and got him upstairs, +when his great complaisance would wait on them downstairs, which he did, +and then was got quietly to bed."(104) + +There is another amusing story which, I believe, that renowned collector, +Mr. Joseph Miller, or his successors, have incorporated into their work. +Sir Richard Steele, at a time when he was much occupied with theatrical +affairs, built himself a pretty private theatre, and, before it was opened +to his friends and guests, was anxious to try whether the hall was well +adapted for hearing. Accordingly he placed himself in the most remote part +of the gallery, and begged the carpenter who had built the house to speak +up from the stage. The man at first said that he was unaccustomed to +public speaking, and did not know what to say to his honour; but the +good-natured knight called out to him to say whatever was uppermost; and, +after a moment, the carpenter began, in a voice perfectly audible: "Sir +Richard Steele!" he said, "for three months past me and my men has been +a-working in this theatre, and we've never seen the colour of your +honour's money: we will be very much obliged if you'll pay it directly, +for until you do we won't drive in another nail." Sir Richard said that +his friend's elocution was perfect, but that he didn't like his subject +much. + +The great charm of Steele's writing is its naturalness. He wrote so +quickly and carelessly, that he was forced to make the reader his +confidant, and had not the time to deceive him. He had a small share of +book-learning, but a vast acquaintance with the world. He had known men +and taverns. He had lived with gownsmen, with troopers, with gentleman +ushers of the Court, with men and women of fashion; with authors and wits, +with the inmates of the spunging-houses, and with the frequenters of all +the clubs and coffee-houses in the town. He was liked in all company +because he liked it; and you like to see his enjoyment as you like to see +the glee of a box full of children at the pantomime. He was not of those +lonely ones of the earth whose greatness obliged them to be solitary; on +the contrary, he admired, I think, more than any man who ever wrote; and +full of hearty applause and sympathy, wins upon you by calling you to +share his delight and good humour. His laugh rings through the whole +house. He must have been invaluable at a tragedy, and have cried as much +as the most tender young lady in the boxes. He has a relish for beauty and +goodness wherever he meets it. He admired Shakespeare affectionately, and +more than any man of his time; and, according to his generous expansive +nature, called upon all his company to like what he liked himself. He did +not damn with faint praise: he was in the world and of it; and his +enjoyment of life presents the strangest contrast to Swift's savage +indignation and Addison's lonely serenity.(105) Permit me to read to you a +passage from each writer, curiously indicative of his peculiar humour: the +subject is the same, and the mood the very gravest. We have said that upon +all the actions of man, the most trifling and the most solemn, the +humourist takes upon himself to comment. All readers of our old masters +know the terrible lines of Swift, in which he hints at his philosophy and +describes the end of mankind:--(106) + + + Amazed, confused, its fate unknown, + The world stood trembling at Jove's throne; + While each pale sinner hung his head, + Jove, nodding, shook the heavens and said: + 'Offending race of human kind, + By nature, reason, learning, blind; + You who through frailty stepped aside, + And you who never err'd through pride; + You who in different sects were shamm'd, + And come to see each other damn'd + (So some folk told you, but they knew + No more of Jove's designs than you). + The world's mad business now is o'er, + And I resent your freaks no more; + _I_ to such blockheads set my wit, + I damn such fools--go, go, you're bit!' + + +Addison, speaking on the very same theme, but with how different a voice, +says, in his famous paper on Westminster Abbey (_Spectator_, No. 26):--"For +my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be +melancholy, and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn +scenes with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. When +I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies within me; +when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes +out; when I meet with the grief of parents on a tombstone, my heart melts +with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider +the vanity of grieving for those we must quickly follow." (I have owned +that I do not think Addison's heart melted very much, or that he indulged +very inordinately in the "vanity of grieving".) "When," he goes on, "when +I see kings lying by those who deposed them: when I consider rival wits +placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their +contests and disputes,--I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the +little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. And, when I read +the several dates on the tombs of some that died yesterday and some 600 +years ago, I consider that Great Day when we shall all of us be +contemporaries, and make our appearance together." + +Our third humourist comes to speak upon the same subject. You will have +observed in the previous extracts the characteristic humour of each +writer--the subject and the contrast--the fact of Death, and the play of +individual thought, by which each comments on it, and now hear the third +writer--death, sorrow, and the grave, being for the moment also his theme. +"The first sense of sorrow I ever knew," Steele says in the _Tatler_, "was +upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of +age: but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed of +a real understanding why nobody would play with us. I remember I went into +the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had +my battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and calling papa; +for, I know not how, I had some idea that he was locked up there. My +mother caught me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of the +silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces, +and told me in a flood of tears, 'Papa could not hear me, and would play +with me no more: for they were going to put him under ground, whence he +would never come to us again.' She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble +spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of +her transport, which methought struck me with an instinct of sorrow that, +before I was sensible what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has +made pity the weakness of my heart ever since." + +Can there be three more characteristic moods of minds and men? "Fools, do +you know anything of this mystery?" says Swift, stamping on a grave and +carrying his scorn for mankind actually beyond it. "Miserable, purblind +wretches, how dare you to pretend to comprehend the Inscrutable, and how +can your dim eyes pierce the unfathomable depths of yonder boundless +heaven?" Addison, in a much kinder language and gentler voice, utters much +the same sentiment: and speaks of the rivalry of wits, and the contests of +holy men, with the same sceptic placidity. "Look what a little vain dust +we are;" he says, smiling over the tombstones, and catching, as is his +wont, quite a divine effulgence as he looks heavenward, he speaks in words +of inspiration almost, of "the Great Day, when we shall all of us be +contemporaries, and make our appearance together". + +The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who will speak his word of moral +as Heaven teaches him, leads you up to his father's coffin, and shows you +his beautiful mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boy +wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes your hand +and confidingly asks your sympathy. "See how good and innocent and +beautiful women are," he says, "how tender little children! Let us love +these and one another, brother--God knows we have need of love and pardon." +So it is each man looks with his own eyes, speaks with his own voice, and +prays his own prayer. + +When Steele asks your sympathy for the actors in that charming scene of +Love and Grief and Death, who can refuse it? One yields to it as to the +frank advance of a child, or to the appeal of a woman. A man is seldom +more manly than when he is what you call unmanned--the source of his +emotion is championship, pity, and courage; the instinctive desire to +cherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those who are +tender and weak. If Steele is not our friend he is nothing. He is by no +means the most brilliant of wits nor the deepest of thinkers: but he is +our friend: we love him, as children love their love with an A, because he +is amiable. Who likes a man best because he is the cleverest or the wisest +of mankind; or a woman because she is the most virtuous, or talks French; +or plays the piano better than the rest of her sex? I own to liking Dick +Steele the man, and Dick Steele the author, much better than much better +men and much better authors. + +The misfortune regarding Steele is, that most part of the company here +present must take his amiability upon hearsay, and certainly can't make +his intimate acquaintance. Not that Steele was worse than his time; on the +contrary, a far better, truer, and higher-hearted man than most who lived +in it. But things were done in that society, and names were named, which +would make you shudder now. What would be the sensation of a polite youth +of the present day, if at a ball he saw the young object of his affections +taking a box out of her pocket and a pinch of snuff: or if at dinner, by +the charmer's side, she deliberately put her knife into her mouth? If she +cut her mother's throat with it, mamma would scarcely be more shocked. I +allude to these peculiarities of bygone times as an excuse for my +favourite, Steele, who was not worse, and often much more delicate than +his neighbours. + +There exists a curious document descriptive of the manners of the last +age, which describes most minutely the amusements and occupations of +persons of fashion in London at the time of which we are speaking; the +time of Swift, and Addison, and Steele. + +When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Colonel Alwit, the immortal +personages of Swift's polite conversation, came to breakfast with my Lady +Smart, at eleven o'clock in the morning, my Lord Smart was absent at the +Levee. His lordship was at home to dinner at three o'clock to receive his +guests; and we may sit down to this meal, like the Barmecide's, and see +the fops of the last century before us. Seven of them sat down at dinner, +and were joined by a country baronet, who told them they kept Court hours. +These persons of fashion began their dinner with a sirloin of beef, fish, +a shoulder of veal, and a tongue. My Lady Smart carved the sirloin, my +Lady Answerwell helped the fish, and the gallant colonel cut the shoulder +of veal. All made a considerable inroad on the sirloin and the shoulder of +veal with the exception of Sir John, who had no appetite, having already +partaken of a beefsteak and two mugs of ale, besides a tankard of March +beer as soon as he got out of bed. They drank claret, which the master of +the house said should always be drunk after fish; and my Lord Smart +particularly recommended some excellent cider to my Lord Sparkish, which +occasioned some brilliant remarks from that nobleman. When the host called +for wine, he nodded to one or other of his guests, and said, "Tom +Neverout, my service to you." + +After the first course came almond pudding, fritters, which the colonel +took with his hands out of the dish, in order to help the brilliant Miss +Notable; chickens, black puddings, and soup; and Lady Smart, the elegant +mistress of the mansion, finding a skewer in a dish, placed it in her +plate with directions that it should be carried down to the cook and +dressed for the cook's own dinner. Wine and small beer were drunk during +this second course; and when the colonel called for beer, he called the +butler, Friend, and asked whether the beer was good. Various jocular +remarks passed from the gentlefolks to the servants; at breakfast several +persons had a word and a joke for Mrs. Betty, my lady's maid, who warmed +the cream and had charge of the canister (the tea cost thirty shillings a +pound in those days). When my Lady Sparkish sent her footman out to my +Lady Match to come at six o'clock and play at quadrille, her ladyship +warned the man to follow his nose, and if he fell by the way not to stay +to get up again. And when the gentlemen asked the hall-porter if his lady +was at home, that functionary replied, with manly waggishness, "She was at +home just now, but she's not gone out yet." + +After the puddings, sweet and black, the fritters and soup, came the third +course, of which the chief dish was a hot venison pasty, which was put +before Lord Smart, and carved by that nobleman. Besides the pasty, there +was a hare, a rabbit, some pigeons, partridges, a goose, and a ham. Beer +and wine were freely imbibed during this course, the gentlemen always +pledging somebody with every glass which they drank; and by this time the +conversation between Tom Neverout and Miss Notable had grown so brisk and +lively, that the Derbyshire baronet began to think the young gentlewoman +was Tom's sweetheart; on which Miss remarked, that she loved Tom "like +pie". After the goose, some of the gentlemen took a dram of brandy, "which +was very good for the wholesomes," Sir John said; and now having had a +tolerably substantial dinner, honest Lord Smart bade the butler bring up +the great tankard full of October to Sir John. The great tankard was +passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, but when pressed by the noble +host upon the gallant Tom Neverout, he said, "No faith, my lord, I like +your wine, and won't put a churl upon a gentleman. Your honour's claret is +good enough for me." And so, the dinner over, the host said, "Hang saving, +bring us up a ha'porth of cheese." + +The cloth was now taken away, and a bottle of burgundy was set down, of +which the ladies were invited to partake before they went to their tea. +When they withdrew, the gentlemen promised to join them in an hour; fresh +bottles were brought, the "dead men", meaning the empty bottles, removed; +and "D'you hear, John? bring clean glasses", my Lord Smart said. On which +the gallant Colonel Alwit said, "I'll keep my glass; for wine is the best +liquor to wash glasses in." + +After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, and then they all sat and +played quadrille until three o'clock in the morning, when the chairs and +the flambeaux came, and this noble company went to bed. + +Such were manners six or seven score years ago. I draw no inference from +this queer picture--let all moralists here present deduce their own. Fancy +the moral condition of that society in which a lady of fashion joked with +a footman, and carved a great shoulder of veal, and provided besides a +sirloin, a goose, hare, rabbit, chickens, partridges, black-puddings, and +a ham for a dinner for eight Christians. What--what could have been the +condition of that polite world in which people openly ate goose after +almond pudding, and took their soup in the middle of dinner? Fancy a +colonel in the Guards putting his hand into a dish of _beignets +d'abricot_, and helping his neighbour, a young lady _du monde_! Fancy a +noble lord calling out to the servants, before the ladies at his table, +"Hang expense, bring us a ha'porth of cheese!" Such were the ladies of St. +James's--such were the frequenters of White's Chocolate-house, when Swift +used to visit it, and Steele described it as the centre of pleasure, +gallantry, and entertainment, a hundred and forty years ago! + +Dennis, who ran amuck at the literary society of his day, falls foul of +poor Steele, and thus depicts him,--"Sir John Edgar, of the county of ---- in +Ireland, is of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like +the picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney--a short chin, a short +nose, a short forehead, a broad, flat face, and a dusky countenance. Yet +with such a face and such a shape, he discovered at sixty that he took +himself for a beauty, and appeared to be more mortified at being told that +he was ugly, than he was by any reflection made upon his honour or +understanding. + +"He is a gentleman born, witness himself, of very honourable family; +certainly of a very ancient one, for his ancestors flourished in Tipperary +long before the English ever set foot in Ireland. He has testimony of this +more authentic than the Heralds' Office, or any human testimony. For God +has marked him more abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped his native +country on his face, his understanding, his writings, his actions, his +passions, and, above all, his vanity. The Hibernian brogue is still upon +all these, though long habit and length of days have worn it off his +tongue."(107) + +Although this portrait is the work of a man who was neither the friend of +Steele nor of any other man alive, yet there is a dreadful resemblance to +the original in the savage and exaggerated traits of the caricature, and +everybody who knows him must recognize Dick Steele. Dick set about almost +all the undertakings of his life with inadequate means, and, as he took +and furnished a house with the most generous intentions towards his +friends, the most tender gallantry towards his wife, and with this only +drawback, that he had not wherewithal to pay the rent when quarter-day +came,--so, in his life he proposed to himself the most magnificent schemes +of virtue, forbearance, public and private good, and the advancement of +his own and the national religion; but when he had to pay for these +articles--so difficult to purchase and so costly to maintain--poor Dick's +money was not forthcoming: and when Virtue called with her little bill, +Dick made a shuffling excuse that he could not see her that morning, +having a headache from being tipsy overnight; or when stern Duty rapped at +the door with his account, Dick was absent and not ready to pay. He was +shirking at the tavern; or had some particular business (of somebody's +else) at the ordinary; or he was in hiding, or worse than in hiding, in +the lock-up house. What a situation for a man!--for a philanthropist--for a +lover of right and truth--for a magnificent designer and schemer! Not to +dare to look in the face the Religion which he adored and which he had +offended; to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the +friend whom he loved and who had trusted him--to have the house which he +had intended for his wife, whom he loved passionately, and for her +ladyship's company which he wished to entertain splendidly, in the +possession of a bailiff's man, with a crowd of little creditors,--grocers, +butchers, and small-coal men, lingering round the door with their bills +and jeering at him. Alas! for poor Dick Steele! For nobody else, of +course. There is no man or woman in _our_ time who makes fine projects and +gives them up from idleness or want of means. When Duty calls upon _us_, +we no doubt are always at home and ready to pay that grim tax-gatherer. +When _we_ are stricken with remorse and promise reform, we keep our +promise, and are never angry, or idle, or extravagant any more. There are +no chambers in _our_ hearts, destined for family friends and affections, +and now occupied by some Sin's emissary and bailiff in possession. There +are no little sins, shabby peccadilloes, importunate remembrances, or +disappointed holders of our promises to reform, hovering at our steps, or +knocking at our door! Of course not. We are living in the nineteenth +century, and poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up again, and got into jail +and out again, and sinned and repented; and loved and suffered; and lived +and died scores of years ago. Peace be with him! Let us think gently of +one who was so gentle: let us speak kindly of one whose own breast +exuberated with human kindness. + + + + +Lecture The Fourth. Prior, Gay, And Pope + + +Matthew Prior was one of those famous and lucky wits of the auspicious +reign of Queen Anne, whose name it behoves us not to pass over. Mat was a +world-philosopher of no small genius, good nature, and acumen.(108) He +loved, he drank, he sang. He describes himself, in one of his lyrics, "in +a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night; on his left hand his Horace, +and a friend on his right," going out of town from the Hague to pass that +evening and the ensuing Sunday, boozing at a _Spielhaus_ with his +companions, perhaps bobbing for perch in a Dutch canal, and noting down, +in a strain and with a grace not unworthy of his Epicurean master, the +charms of his idleness, his retreat, and his Batavian Chloe. A vintner's +son in Whitehall, and a distinguished pupil of Busby of the Rod, Prior +attracted some notice by writing verses at St. John's College, Cambridge, +and, coming up to town, aided Montague(109) in an attack on the noble old +English lion John Dryden, in ridicule of whose work, _The Hind and the +Panther_, he brought out that remarkable and famous burlesque, _The Town +and Country Mouse_. Aren't you all acquainted with it? Have you not all +got it by heart? What! have you never heard of it? See what fame is made +of! The wonderful part of the satire was, that, as a natural consequence +of _The Town and Country Mouse_, Matthew Prior was made Secretary of +Embassy at the Hague! I believe it is dancing, rather than singing, which +distinguishes the young English diplomatists of the present day; and have +seen them in various parts perform that part of their duty very finely. In +Prior's time it appears a different accomplishment led to preferment. +Could you write a copy of Alcaics? that was the question. Could you turn +out a neat epigram or two? Could you compose _The Town and Country Mouse_? +It is manifest that, by the possession of this faculty, the most difficult +treaties, the laws of foreign nations, and the interests of our own, are +easily understood. Prior rose in the diplomatic service, and said good +things that proved his sense and his spirit. When the apartments at +Versailles were shown to him, with the victories of Louis XIV painted on +the walls, and Prior was asked whether the palace of the King of England +had any such decorations, "The monuments of my master's actions," Mat +said, of William, whom he cordially revered, "are to be seen everywhere +except in his own house." Bravo, Mat! Prior rose to be full ambassador at +Paris,(110) where he somehow was cheated out of his ambassadorial plate; +and in a heroic poem, addressed by him to her late lamented Majesty Queen +Anne, Mat makes some magnificent allusions to these dishes and spoons, of +which Fate had deprived him. All that he wants, he says, is her Majesty's +picture; without that he can't be happy. + + + Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore: + Thee, Queen of Peace, if Time and Fate have power + Higher to raise the glories of thy reign, + In words sublimer and a nobler strain. + May future bards the mighty theme rehearse. + Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, + The votive tablet I suspend. + + +With that word the poem stops abruptly. The votive tablet is suspended for +ever like Mahomet's coffin. News came that the queen was dead. Stator +Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, were left there, hovering to this day, +over the votive tablet. The picture was never got any more than the spoons +and dishes--the inspiration ceased--the verses were not wanted--the +ambassador wasn't wanted. Poor Mat was recalled from his embassy, suffered +disgrace along with his patrons, lived under a sort of cloud ever after, +and disappeared in Essex. When deprived of all his pensions and +emoluments, the hearty and generous Oxford pensioned him. They played for +gallant stakes--the bold men of those days--and lived and gave splendidly. + +Johnson quotes from Spence a legend, that Prior, after spending an evening +with Harley, St. John, Pope, and Swift, would go off and smoke a pipe with +a couple of friends of his, a soldier and his wife, in Long Acre. Those +who have not read his late excellency's poems should be warned that they +smack not a little of the conversation of his Long Acre friends. Johnson +speaks slightingly of his lyrics; but with due deference to the great +Samuel, Prior's seem to me amongst the easiest, the richest, the most +charmingly humorous of English lyrical poems.(111) Horace is always in his +mind, and his song, and his philosophy, his good sense, his happy easy +turns and melody, his loves, and his Epicureanism, bear a great +resemblance to that most delightful and accomplished master. In reading +his works, one is struck with their modern air, as well as by their happy +similarity to the songs of the charming owner of the Sabine farm. In his +verses addressed to Halifax, he says, writing of that endless theme to +poets, the vanity of human wishes-- + + + So when in fevered dreams we sink, + And, waking, taste what we desire, + The real draught but feeds the fire, + The dream is better than the drink. + + Our hopes like towering falcons aim + At objects in an airy height: + To stand aloof and view the flight, + Is all the pleasure of the game. + + +Would not you fancy that a poet of our own days was singing? and, in the +verses of Chloe weeping and reproaching him for his inconstancy, where he +says-- + + + The God of us verse-men, you know, child, the Sun, + How after his journey, he sets up his rest. + If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run, + At night he declines on his Thetis's breast. + + So, when I am wearied with wandering all day, + To thee, my delight, in the evening I come: + No matter what beauties I saw in my way; + They were but my visits, but thou art my home! + + Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war, + And let us like Horace and Lydia agree; + For thou art a girl as much brighter than her, + As he was a poet sublimer than me. + + +If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Moore study Prior? Love and pleasure +find singers in all days. Roses are always blowing and fading--to-day as in +that pretty time when Prior sang of them, and of Chloe lamenting their +decay-- + + + She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers + Pointing, the lovely moralist said; + See, friend, in some few leisure hours, + See yonder what a change is made! + + Ah, me! the blooming pride of May, + And that of Beauty are but one: + At morn both flourisht, bright and gay, + Both fade at evening, pale and gone. + + At dawn poor Stella danced and sung, + The amorous youth around her bowed, + At night her fatal knell was rung; + I saw, and kissed her in her shroud. + + Such as she is who died to-day, + Such I, alas, may be to-morrow: + Go, Damon, bid the Muse display + The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow. + + +Damon's knell was rung in 1721. May his turf lie lightly on him! _Deus sit +propitius huic potatori_, as Walter de Mapes sang.(112) Perhaps Samuel +Johnson, who spoke slightingly of Prior's verses, enjoyed them more than +he was willing to own. The old moralist had studied them as well as Mr. +Thomas Moore, and defended them, and showed that he remembered them very +well too on an occasion when their morality was called in question by that +noted puritan, James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck.(113) + +In the great society of the wits, John Gay deserved to be a favourite, and +to have a good place.(114) In his set all were fond of him. His success +offended nobody. He missed a fortune once or twice. He was talked of for +Court favour, and hoped to win it; but the Court favour jilted him. Craggs +gave him some South-Sea Stock; and at one time Gay had very nearly made +his fortune. But Fortune shook her swift wings and jilted him too: and so +his friends, instead of being angry with him, and jealous of him, were +kind and fond of honest Gay. In the portraits of the literary worthies of +the early part of the last century, Gay's face is the pleasantest perhaps +of all. It appears adorned with neither periwig nor nightcap (the full +dress and _negligee_ of learning, without which the painters of those days +scarcely ever portrayed wits), and he laughs at you over his shoulder with +an honest boyish glee--an artless sweet humour. He was so kind, so gentle, +so jocular, so delightfully brisk at times, so dismally woebegone at +others, such a natural good creature that the Giants loved him. The great +Swift was gentle and sportive with him,(115) as the enormous Brobdingnag +maids of honour were with little Gulliver. He could frisk and fondle round +Pope,(116) and sport, and bark, and caper without offending the most +thin-skinned of poets and men; and when he was jilted in that little Court +affair of which we have spoken, his warm-hearted patrons the Duke and +Duchess of Queensberry(117) (the "Kitty, beautiful and young", of Prior) +pleaded his cause with indignation, and quitted the Court in a huff, +carrying off with them into their retirement their kind gentle protege. +With these kind lordly folks, a real Duke and Duchess, as delightful as +those who harboured Don Quixote, and loved that dear old Sancho, Gay +lived, and was lapped in cotton, and had his plate of chicken, and his +saucer of cream, and frisked, and barked, and wheezed, and grew fat, and +so ended.(118) He became very melancholy and lazy, sadly plethoric, and +only occasionally diverting in his latter days. But everybody loved him, +and the remembrance of his pretty little tricks; and the raging old Dean +of St. Patrick's, chafing in his banishment, was afraid to open the letter +which Pope wrote him, announcing the sad news of the death of Gay.(119) + +Swift's letters to him are beautiful; and having no purpose but kindness +in writing to him, no party aim to advocate, or slight or anger to wreak, +every word the Dean says to his favourite is natural, trustworthy, and +kindly. His admiration for Gay's parts and honesty, and his laughter at +his weaknesses, were alike just and genuine. He paints his character in +wonderful pleasant traits of jocular satire. "I writ lately to Mr. Pope," +Swift says, writing to Gay; "I wish you had a little villakin in his +neighbourhood; but you are yet too volatile, and any lady with a coach and +six horses would carry you to Japan." "If your ramble," says Swift, in +another letter, "was on horseback, I am glad of it, on account of your +health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey between +stage-coaches and friends" coaches--for you are as arrant a Cockney as any +hosier in Cheapside. I have often had it in my head to put it into yours, +that you ought to have some great work in scheme, which may take up seven +years to finish, besides two or three under-ones that may add another +thousand pounds to your stock, and then I shall be in less pain about you. +I know you can find dinners, but you love twelvepenny coaches too well, +without considering that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings +you but half a crown a day:' and then Swift goes off from Gay to pay some +grand compliments to her Grace the Duchess of Queensberry, in whose +sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and in whose radiance the Dean would have +liked to warm himself too. + +But we have Gay here before us, in these letters--lazy, kindly, uncommonly +idle; rather slovenly, I'm afraid; for ever eating and saying good things; +a little, round, French abbe of a man, sleek, soft-handed, and +soft-hearted. + +Our object in these lectures is rather to describe the men than their +works; or to deal with the latter only in as far as they seem to +illustrate the character of their writers. Mr. Gay's _Fables_, which were +written to benefit that amiable prince, the Duke of Cumberland, the +warrior of Dettingen and Culloden, I have not, I own, been able to peruse +since a period of very early youth; and it must be confessed that they did +not effect much benefit upon the illustrious young prince, whose manners +they were intended to mollify, and whose natural ferocity our +gentle-hearted Satirist perhaps proposed to restrain. But the six +pastorals called the _Shepherd's Week_, and the burlesque poem of _Trivia_ +any man fond of lazy literature will find delightful, at the present day, +and must read from beginning to end with pleasure. They are to poetry what +charming little Dresden china figures are to sculpture: graceful, minikin, +fantastic; with a certain beauty always accompanying them. The pretty +little personages of the pastoral, with gold clocks to their stockings, +and fresh satin ribbons to their crooks and waistcoats and bodices, dance +their loves to a minuet-tune played on a bird-organ, approach the charmer, +or rush from the false one daintily on their red-heeled tiptoes, and die +of despair or rapture, with the most pathetic little grins and ogles; or +repose, simpering at each other, under an arbour of pea-green crockery; or +piping to pretty flocks that have just been washed with the best Naples in +a stream of Bergamot. Gay's gay plan seems to me far pleasanter than that +of Philips--his rival and Pope's--a serious and dreary idyllic Cockney; not +that Gay's "Bumkinets and Hobnelias" are a whit more natural than the +would-be serious characters of the other posture-master; but the quality +of this true humourist was to laugh and make laugh, though always with a +secret kindness and tenderness, to perform the drollest little antics and +capers, but always with a certain grace, and to sweet music--as you may +have seen a Savoyard boy abroad, with a hurdy-gurdy and a monkey, turning +over head and heels, or clattering and piroueting in a pair of wooden +shoes, yet always with a look of love and appeal in his bright eyes, and a +smile that asks and wins affection and protection. Happy they who have +that sweet gift of nature! It was this which made the great folks and +Court ladies free and friendly with John Gay--which made Pope and Arbuthnot +love him--which melted the savage heart of Swift when he thought of him--and +drove away, for a moment or two, the dark frenzies which obscured the +lonely tyrant's brain, as he heard Gay's voice with its simple melody and +artless ringing laughter. + +What used to be said about Rubini, _qu'il avait des larmes dans la voix_, +may be said of Gay,(120) and of one other humourist of whom we shall have +to speak. In almost every ballad of his, however slight,(121) in the +_Beggar's __ Opera_(122) and in its wearisome continuation (where the +verses are to the full as pretty as in the first piece, however), there is +a peculiar, hinted, pathetic sweetness and melody. It charms and melts +you. It's indefinable, but it exists; and is the property of John Gay's +and Oliver Goldsmith's best verse, as fragrance is of a violet, or +freshness of a rose. + +Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which is so famous that most +people here are no doubt familiar with it, but so delightful that it is +always pleasant to hear:-- + + + "I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of + my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common + hayfield, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers--as + constant as ever were found in romance--beneath a spreading bush. + The name of the one (let it sound as it will) was John Hewet; of + the other Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about + five-and-twenty; Sarah, a brave woman of eighteen. John had for + several months borne the labour of the day in the same field with + Sarah; when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to + bring the cows to her pails. Their love was the talk, but not the + scandal, of the whole neighbourhood, for all they aimed at was the + blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this + very morning that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it was + but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps + this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking + of their wedding clothes; and John was now matching several kinds + of poppies and field-flowers, to make her a present of knots for + the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of + July), a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove + the labourers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, + frightened and out of breath, sunk on a hay-cock; and John (who + never separated from her) sat by her side, having raked two or + three heaps together, to secure her. Immediately, there was heard + so loud a crash, as if heaven had burst asunder. The labourers, + all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another: + those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to + the place where they lay: they first saw a little smoke, and + after, this faithful pair--John, with one arm about his Sarah's + neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from + the lightning. They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and + cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or discolouring on + their bodies--only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and a + small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in + one grave!" + + +And the proof that this description is delightful and beautiful is, that +the great Mr. Pope admired it so much that he thought proper to steal it +and to send it off to a certain lady and wit, with whom he pretended to be +in love in those days--my Lord Duke of Kingston's daughter, and married to +Mr. Wortley Montagu, then his Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople. + +We are now come to the greatest name on our list--the highest among the +poets, the highest among the English wits and humourists with whom we have +to rank him. If the author of the _Dunciad_ be not a humourist, if the +poet of the _Rape of the Lock_ be not a wit, who deserves to be called so? +Besides that brilliant genius and immense fame, for both of which we +should respect him, men of letters should admire him as being the greatest +literary _artist_ that England has seen. He polished, he refined, he +thought; he took thoughts from other works to adorn and complete his own; +borrowing an idea or a cadence from another poet as he would a figure or a +simile from a flower, river, stream, or any object which struck him in his +walk, or contemplation of Nature. He began to imitate at an early +age;(123) and taught himself to write by copying printed books. Then he +passed into the hands of the priests, and from his first clerical master, +who came to him when he was eight years old, he went to a school at +Twyford, and another school at Hyde Park, at which places he unlearned all +that he had got from his first instructor. At twelve years old, he went +with his father into Windsor Forest, and there learned for a few months +under a fourth priest. "And this was all the teaching I ever had," he +said, "and God knows it extended a very little way." + +When he had done with his priests he took to reading by himself, for which +he had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry. He +learned versification from Dryden, he said. In his youthful poem of +_Alcander_, he imitated every poet, Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Statius, +Homer, Virgil. In a few years he had dipped into a great number of the +English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. "This I did," he says, +"without any design, except to amuse myself; and got the languages by +hunting after the stories in the several poets I read, rather than read +the books to get the languages. I followed everywhere as my fancy led me, +and was like a boy gathering flowers in the fields and woods, just as they +fell in his way. These five or six years I looked upon as the happiest in +my life." Is not here a beautiful holiday picture? The forest and the +fairy story-book--the boy spelling Ariosto or Virgil under the trees, +battling with the Cid for the love of Chimene, or dreaming of Armida's +garden--peace and sunshine round about--the kindest love and tenderness +waiting for him at his quiet home yonder--and Genius throbbing in his young +heart, and whispering to him, "You shall be great; you shall be famous; +you, too, shall love and sing; you will sing her so nobly that some kind +heart shall forget you are weak and ill-formed. Every poet had a love. +Fate must give one to you too,"--and day by day he walks the forest, very +likely looking out for that charmer. "They were the happiest days of his +life," he says, when he was only dreaming of his fame: when he had gained +that mistress she was no consoler. + +That charmer made her appearance, it would seem, about the year 1705, when +Pope was seventeen. Letters of his are extant, addressed to a certain Lady +M----, whom the youth courted, and to whom he expressed his ardour in +language, to say no worse of it, that is entirely pert, odious, and +affected. He imitated love compositions as he had been imitating love +poems just before--it was a sham mistress he courted, and a sham passion, +expressed as became it. These unlucky letters found their way into print +years afterwards, and were sold to the congenial Mr. Curll. If any of my +hearers, as I hope they may, should take a fancy to look at Pope's +correspondence, let them pass over that first part of it; over, perhaps, +almost all Pope's letters to women; in which there is a tone of not +pleasant gallantry, and, amidst a profusion of compliments and +politenesses, a something which makes one distrust the little pert, +prurient bard. There is very little indeed to say about his loves, and +that little not edifying. He wrote flames and raptures and elaborate verse +and prose for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; but that passion probably came to +a climax in an impertinence and was extinguished by a box on the ear, or +some such rebuff, and he began on a sudden to hate her with a fervour much +more genuine than that of his love had been. It was a feeble, puny grimace +of love, and paltering with passion. After Mr. Pope had sent off one of +his fine compositions to Lady Mary, he made a second draft from the rough +copy, and favoured some other friend with it. He was so charmed with the +letter of Gay's, that I have just quoted, that he had copied that and +amended it, and sent it to Lady Mary as his own. A gentleman who writes +letters _a deux fins_, and after having poured out his heart to the +beloved, serves up the same dish _rechauffe_ to a friend, is not very much +in earnest about his loves, however much he may be in his piques and +vanities when his impertinence gets its due. + +But, save that unlucky part of the Pope Correspondence, I do not know, in +the range of our literature, volumes more delightful.(124) You live in +them in the finest company in the world. A little stately, perhaps; a +little _apprete_ and conscious that they are speaking to whole generations +who are listening; but in the tone of their voices--pitched, as no doubt +they are, beyond the mere conversation key--in the expression of their +thoughts, their various views and natures, there is something generous, +and cheering, and ennobling. You are in the society of men who have filled +the greatest parts in the world's story--you are with St. John the +statesman; Peterborough the conqueror; Swift, the greatest wit of all +times; Gay, the kindliest laugher--it is a privilege to sit in that +company. Delightful and generous banquet! with a little faith and a little +fancy any one of us here may enjoy it, and conjure up those great figures +out of the past, and listen to their wit and wisdom. Mind that there is +always a certain _cachet_ about great men--they may be as mean on many +points as you or I, but they carry their great air--they speak of common +life more largely and generously than common men do--they regard the world +with a manlier countenance, and see its real features more fairly than the +timid shufflers who only dare to look up at life through blinkers, or to +have an opinion when there is a crowd to back it. He who reads these noble +records of a past age, salutes and reverences the great spirits who adorn +it. You may go home now and talk with St. John; you may take a volume from +your library and listen to Swift and Pope. + +Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would say to him, Try to +frequent the company of your betters. In books and life that is the most +wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is +that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things: narrow +spirits admire basely, and worship meanly. I know nothing in any story +more gallant and cheering, than the love and friendship which this company +of famous men bore towards one another. There never has been a society of +men more friendly, as there never was one more illustrious. Who dares +quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for liking the society of +men great and famous? and for liking them for the qualities which made +them so? A mere pretty fellow from White's could not have written the +_Patriot King_, and would very likely have despised little Mr. Pope, the +decrepit Papist, whom the great St. John held to be one of the best and +greatest of men: a mere nobleman of the Court could no more have won +Barcelona, than he could have written Peterborough's letters to Pope,(125) +which are as witty as Congreve: a mere Irish Dean could not have written +_Gulliver_; and all these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all these men. To +name his friends is to name the best men of his time. Addison had a +senate; Pope reverenced his equals. He spoke of Swift with respect and +admiration always. His admiration for Bolingbroke was so great, that when +some one said of his friend, "There is something in that great man which +looks as if he was placed here by mistake," "Yes," Pope answered, "and +when the comet appeared to us a month or two ago, I had sometimes an +imagination that it might possibly be come to carry him home, as a coach +comes to one's door for visitors." So these great spirits spoke of one +another. Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that ever +dawdled round a club-table, so faithful and so friendly. + +We have said before that the chief wits of this time, with the exception +of Congreve, were what we should now call men's men. They spent many hours +of the four-and-twenty, a fourth part of each day nearly, in clubs and +coffee-houses, where they dined, drank, and smoked. Wit and news went by +word of mouth; a journal of 1710 contained the very smallest portion of +one or the other. The chiefs spoke, the faithful _habitues_ sat round; +strangers came to wonder and listen. Old Dryden had his head quarters at +Will's, in Russell Street, at the corner of Bow Street, at which place +Pope saw him when he was twelve years old. The company used to assemble on +the first floor--what was called the dining-room floor in those days--and +sat at various tables smoking their pipes. It is recorded that the beaux +of the day thought it a great honour to be allowed to take a pinch out of +Dryden's snuff-box. When Addison began to reign, he with a certain crafty +propriety--a policy let us call it--which belonged to his nature, set up his +court, and appointed the officers of his royal house. His palace was +Button's, opposite Will's.(126) A quiet opposition, a silent assertion of +empire, distinguished this great man. Addison's ministers were Budgell, +Tickell, Philips, Carey; his master of the horse, honest Dick Steele, who +was what Duroc was to Napoleon, or Hardy to Nelson; the man who performed +his master's bidding, and would have cheerfully died in his quarrel. +Addison lived with these people for seven or eight hours every day. The +male society passed over their punch-bowls and tobacco-pipes about as much +time as ladies of that age spent over Spadille and Manille. + +For a brief space, upon coming up to town, Pope formed part of King +Joseph's court, and was his rather too eager and obsequious humble +servant.(127) Dick Steele, the editor of the _Tatler_, Mr. Addison's man, +and his own man too--a person of no little figure in the world of letters, +patronized the young poet, and set him a task or two. Young Mr. Pope did +the tasks very quickly and smartly (he had been at the feet quite as a boy +of Wycherley's decrepit reputation, and propped up for a year that doting +old wit): he was anxious to be well with the men of letters, to get a +footing and a recognition. He thought it an honour to be admitted into +their company; to have the confidence of Mr. Addison's friend, Captain +Steele. His eminent parts obtained for him the honour of heralding +Addison's triumph of _Cato_ with his admirable prologue, and heading the +victorious procession as it were. Not content with this act of homage and +admiration, he wanted to distinguish himself by assaulting Addison's +enemies, and attacked John Dennis with a prose lampoon, which highly +offended his lofty patron. Mr. Steele was instructed to write to Mr. +Dennis and inform him that Mr. Pope's pamphlet against him was written +quite without Mr. Addison's approval.(128) Indeed, _The Narrative of Dr. +Robert Norris on the Phrenzy of J. D._ is a vulgar and mean satire, and +such a blow as the magnificent Addison could never desire to see any +partisan of his strike in any literary quarrel. Pope was closely allied +with Swift when he wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty that it has been +printed in Swift's works, too. It bears the foul marks of the master hand. +Swift admired and enjoyed with all his heart the prodigious genius of the +young Papist lad out of Windsor Forest, who had never seen a university in +his life, and came and conquered the Dons and the doctors with his wit. He +applauded, and loved him, too, and protected him, and taught him mischief. +I wish Addison could have loved him better. The best satire that ever has +been penned would never have been written then; and one of the best +characters the world ever knew would have been without a flaw. But he who +had so few equals could not bear one, and Pope was more than that. When +Pope, trying for himself, and soaring on his immortal young wings, found +that his, too, was a genius, which no opinion of that age could follow, he +rose and left Addison's company, settling on his own eminence, and singing +his own song. + +It was not possible that Pope should remain a retainer of Mr. Addison; nor +likely that after escaping from his vassalage and assuming an independent +crown, the sovereign whose allegiance he quitted should view him +amicably.(129) They did not do wrong to mislike each other. They but +followed the impulse of nature, and the consequence of position. When +Bernadotte became heir to a throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was +naturally Napoleon's enemy. "There are many passions and tempers of +mankind," says Mr. Addison in the _Spectator_, speaking a couple of years +before their little differences between him and Mr. Pope took place, +"which naturally dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising +in the esteem of mankind. All those who made their entrance into the world +with the same advantages, and were once looked on as his equals, are apt +to think the fame of his merits a reflection on their own deserts. Those +who were once his equals envy and defame him, because they now see him the +superior; and those who were once his superiors, because they look upon +him as their equal." Did Mr. Addison, justly perhaps thinking that, as +young Mr. Pope had not had the benefit of a university education, he +couldn't know Greek, therefore he couldn't translate Homer, encourage his +young friend Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, to translate that poet, and aid him +with his own known scholarship and skill?(130) It was natural that Mr. +Addison should doubt of the learning of an amateur Grecian, should have a +high opinion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, and should help that ingenious +young man. It was natural, on the other hand, that Mr. Pope and Mr. Pope's +friends should believe that this counter-translation, suddenly advertised +and so long written, though Tickell's college friends had never heard of +it--though, when Pope first wrote to Addison regarding his scheme, Mr. +Addison knew nothing of the similar project of Tickell, of Queen's--it was +natural that Mr. Pope and his friends, having interests, passions, and +prejudices of their own, should believe that Tickell's translation was but +an act of opposition against Pope, and that they should call Mr. Tickell's +emulation Mr. Addison's envy--if envy it were. + + + And were there one whose fires + True genius kindles and fair fame inspires, + Blest with each talent and each art to please, + And born to write, converse, and live with ease; + Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, + Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne; + View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes, + And hate, for arts that caused himself to rise; + Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, + And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; + Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, + Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; + Alike reserved to blame as to commend, + A timorous foe and a suspicious friend; + Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, + And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; + Like Cato give his little senate laws, + And sit attentive to his own applause; + While wits and templars every sentence raise, + And wonder with a foolish face of praise; + Who but must laugh if such a man there be, + Who would not weep if Atticus were he? + + +"I sent the verses to Mr. Addison," said Pope, "and he used me very +civilly ever after." No wonder he did. It was shame very likely more than +fear that silenced him. Johnson recounts an interview between Pope and +Addison after their quarrel, in which Pope was angry, and Addison tried to +be contemptuous and calm. Such a weapon as Pope's must have pierced any +scorn. It flashes for ever, and quivers in Addison's memory. His great +figure looks out on us from the past--stainless but for that--pale, calm, +and beautiful; it bleeds from that black wound. He should be drawn, like +St. Sebastian, with that arrow in his side. As he sent to Gay and asked +his pardon, as he bade his stepson come and see his death, be sure he had +forgiven Pope, when he made ready to show how a Christian could die. + +Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court for a short time, and +describes himself in his letters as sitting with that coterie until two +o'clock in the morning over punch and burgundy amidst the fumes of +tobacco. To use an expression of the present day, the "pace" of those +_viveurs_ of the former age was awful. Peterborough lived into the very +jaws of death; Godolphin laboured all day and gambled at night; +Bolingbroke,(131) writing to Swift, from Dawley, in his retirement, dating +his letter at six o'clock in the morning, and rising, as he says, +refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the time of his London life; +when about that hour he used to be going to bed, surfeited with pleasure, +and jaded with business; his head often full of schemes, and his heart as +often full of anxiety. It was too hard, too coarse a life for the +sensitive, sickly Pope. He was the only wit of the day, a friend writes to +me, who wasn't fat.(132) Swift was fat; Addison was fat; Steele was fat; +Gay and Thomson were preposterously fat--all that fuddling and +punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing, shortened the lives +and enlarged the waistcoats of the men of that age. Pope withdrew in a +great measure from this boisterous London company, and being put into an +independence by the gallant exertions of Swift(133) and his private +friends, and by the enthusiastic national admiration which justly rewarded +his great achievement of the _Iliad_, purchased that famous villa of +Twickenham which his song and life celebrated; duteously bringing his old +parents to live and die there, entertaining his friends there, and making +occasional visits to London in his little chariot, in which Atterbury +compared him to "Homer in a nutshell". + +"Mr. Dryden was not a genteel man," Pope quaintly said to Spence, speaking +of the manner and habits of the famous old patriarch of Will's. With +regard to Pope's own manners, we have the best contemporary authority that +they were singularly refined and polished. With his extraordinary +sensibility, with his known tastes, with his delicate frame, with his +power and dread of ridicule, Pope could have been no other than what we +call a highly-bred person. His closest friends, with the exception of +Swift, were among the delights and ornaments of the polished society of +their age. Garth,(134) the accomplished and benevolent, whom Steele has +described so charmingly, of whom Codrington said that his character was +"all beauty", and whom Pope himself called the best of Christians without +knowing it; Arbuthnot,(135) one of the wisest, wittiest, most +accomplished, gentlest of mankind; Bolingbroke, the Alcibiades of his age; +the generous Oxford; the magnificent, the witty, the famous, and +chivalrous Peterborough: these were the fast and faithful friends of Pope, +the most brilliant company of friends, let us repeat, that the world has +ever seen. The favourite recreation of his leisure hours was the society +of painters, whose art he practised. In his correspondence are letters +between him and Jervas, whose pupil he loved to be--Richardson, a +celebrated artist of his time, and who painted for him a portrait of his +old mother, and for whose picture he asked and thanked Richardson in one +of the most delightful letters that ever was penned,(136)--and the +wonderful Kneller, who bragged more, spelt worse, and painted better than +any artist of his day.(137) + +It is affecting to note, through Pope's correspondence, the marked way in +which his friends, the greatest, the most famous, and wittiest men of the +time--generals and statesmen, philosophers and divines--all have a kind +word, and a kind thought for the good simple old mother, whom Pope tended +so affectionately. Those men would have scarcely valued her, but that they +knew how much he loved her, and that they pleased him by thinking of her. +If his early letters to women are affected and insincere, whenever he +speaks about this one, it is with a childish tenderness and an almost +sacred simplicity. In 1713, when young Mr. Pope had, by a series of the +most astonishing victories and dazzling achievements, seized the crown of +poetry; and the town was in an uproar of admiration, or hostility, for the +young chief; when Pope was issuing his famous decrees for the translation +of the _Iliad_; when Dennis and the lower critics were hooting and +assailing him; when Addison and the gentlemen of his court were sneering +with sickening hearts at the prodigious triumphs of the young conqueror; +when Pope, in a fever of victory, and genius, and hope, and anger, was +struggling through the crowd of shouting friends and furious detractors to +his temple of Fame, his old mother writes from the country, "My deare," +says she, "my deare, there's Mr. Blount, of Mapel Durom, dead the same day +that Mr. Inglefield died. Your sister is well; but your brother is sick. +My service to Mrs. Blount, and all that ask of me. I hope to hear from +you, and that you are well, which is my daily prayer; and this with my +blessing." The triumph marches by, and the car of the young conqueror, the +hero of a hundred brilliant victories--the fond mother sits in the quiet +cottage at home, and says, "I send you my daily prayers, and I bless you, +my deare". + +In our estimate of Pope's character, let us always take into account that +constant tenderness and fidelity of affection which pervaded and +sanctified his life, and never forget that maternal benediction.(138) It +accompanied him always: his life seems purified by those artless and +heartfelt prayers. And he seems to have received and deserved the fond +attachment of the other members of his family. It is not a little touching +to read in Spence of the enthusiastic admiration with which his +half-sister regarded him, and the simple anecdote by which she illustrates +her love. "I think no man was ever so little fond of money." Mrs. Rackett +says about her brother, "I think my brother when he was young read more +books than any man in the world"; and she falls to telling stories of his +schooldays, and the manner in which his master at Twyford ill-used him. "I +don't think my brother knew what fear was," she continues; and the +accounts of Pope's friends bear out this character for courage. When he +had exasperated the dunces, and threats of violence and personal assault +were brought to him, the dauntless little champion never for one instant +allowed fear to disturb him, or condescended to take any guard in his +daily walks, except occasionally his faithful dog to bear him company. "I +had rather die at once," said the gallant little cripple, "than live in +fear of those rascals." + +As for his death, it was what the noble Arbuthnot asked and enjoyed for +himself--a euthanasia--a beautiful end. A perfect benevolence, affection, +serenity, hallowed the departure of that high soul. Even in the very +hallucinations of his brain, and weaknesses of his delirium, there was +something almost sacred. Spence describes him in his last days, looking +up, and with a rapt gaze as if something had suddenly passed before him. +He said to me, "What's that?" pointing into the air with a very steady +regard, and then looked down and said, with a smile of the greatest +softness, "'twas a vision!" He laughed scarcely ever, but his companions +describe his countenance as often illuminated by a peculiar sweet smile. + +"When," said Spence,(139) the kind anecdotist whom Johnson despised, "when +I was telling Lord Bolingbroke that Mr. Pope, on every catching and +recovery of his mind, was always saying something kindly of his present or +absent friends; and that this was so surprising, as it seemed to me as if +humanity had outlasted understanding, Lord Bolingbroke said, 'It has so,' +and then added, 'I never in my life knew a man who had so tender a heart +for his particular friends, or a more general friendship for mankind. I +have known him these thirty years, and value myself more for that man's +love than----' Here," Spence says, "St. John sunk his head, and lost his +voice in tears." The sob which finishes the epitaph is finer than words. +It is the cloak thrown over the father's face in the famous Greek picture +which hides the grief and heightens it. + +In Johnson's _Life of Pope_, you will find described with rather a +malicious minuteness some of the personal habits and infirmities of the +great little Pope. His body was crooked, he was so short that it was +necessary to raise his chair in order to place him on a level with other +people at table.(140) He was sewed up in a buckram suit every morning and +required a nurse like a child. His contemporaries reviled these +misfortunes with a strange acrimony, and made his poor deformed person the +butt for many a bolt of heavy wit. The facetious Mr. Dennis, in speaking +of him, says, "If you take the first letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's +Christian name, and the first and last letters of his surname, you have A. +P. E." Pope catalogues, at the end of the _Dunciad_, with a rueful +precision, other pretty names, besides Ape, which Dennis called him. That +great critic pronounced Mr. Pope was a little ass, a fool, a coward, a +Papist, and therefore a hater of Scripture, and so forth. It must be +remembered that the pillory was a flourishing and popular institution in +those days. Authors stood in it in the body sometimes: and dragged their +enemies thither morally, hooted them with foul abuse, and assailed them +with garbage of the gutter. Poor Pope's figure was an easy one for those +clumsy caricaturists to draw. Any stupid hand could draw a hunchback, and +write Pope underneath. They did. A libel was published against Pope, with +such a frontispiece. This kind of rude jesting was an evidence not only of +an ill nature, but a dull one. When a child makes a pun, or a lout breaks +out into a laugh, it is some very obvious combination of words, or +discrepancy of objects, which provokes the infantine satirist, or tickles +the boorish wag; and many of Pope's revilers laughed, not so much because +they were wicked, as because they knew no better. + +Without the utmost sensibility, Pope could not have been the poet he was; +and through his life, however much he protested that he disregarded their +abuse, the coarse ridicule of his opponents stung and tore him. One of +Cibber's pamphlets coming into Pope's hands, whilst Richardson the painter +was with him, Pope turned round and said, "These things are my +diversions;" and Richardson, sitting by whilst Pope perused the libel, +said he saw his features "writhing with anguish". How little human nature +changes! Can't one see that little figure? Can't one fancy one is reading +Horace? Can't one fancy one is speaking of to-day? + +The tastes and sensibilities of Pope, which led him to cultivate the +society of persons of fine manners, or wit, or taste, or beauty, caused +him to shrink equally from that shabby and boisterous crew which formed +the rank and file of literature in his time: and he was as unjust to these +men as they to him. The delicate little creature sickened at habits and +company which were quite tolerable to robuster men: and in the famous feud +between Pope and the Dunces, and without attributing any peculiar wrong to +either, one can quite understand how the two parties should so hate each +other. As I fancy, it was a sort of necessity that when Pope's triumph +passed, Mr. Addison and his men should look rather contemptuously down on +it from their balcony; so it was natural for Dennis and Tibbald, and +Welsted, and Cibber, and the worn and hungry pressmen in the crowd below, +to howl at him and assail him. And Pope was more savage to Grub Street +than Grub Street was to Pope. The thong with which he lashed them was +dreadful; he fired upon that howling crew such shafts of flame and poison, +he slew and wounded so fiercely, that in reading the _Dunciad_ and the +prose lampoons of Pope, one feels disposed to side against the ruthless +little tyrant, at least to pity those wretched folks upon whom he was so +unmerciful. It was Pope, and Swift to aid him, who established among us +the Grub Street tradition. He revels in base descriptions of poor men's +want; he gloats over poor Dennis's garret, and flannel nightcap, and red +stockings; he gives instructions how to find Curll's authors, the +historian at the tallow-chandler's under the blind arch in Petty France, +the two translators in bed together, the poet in the cock-loft in Budge +Row, whose landlady keeps the ladder. It was Pope, I fear, who +contributed, more than any man who ever lived, to depreciate the literary +calling. It was not an unprosperous one before that time, as we have seen; +at least there were great prizes in the profession which had made Addison +a minister, and Prior an ambassador, and Steele a commissioner, and Swift +all but a bishop. The profession of letters was ruined by that libel of +the _Dunciad_. If authors were wretched and poor before, if some of them +lived in haylofts, of which their landladies kept the ladders, at least +nobody came to disturb them in their straw; if three of them had but one +coat between them, the two remained invisible in the garret, the third, at +any rate, appeared decently at the coffee-house, and paid his twopence +like a gentleman. It was Pope that dragged into light all this poverty and +meanness, and held up those wretched shifts and rags to public ridicule. +It was Pope that has made generations of the reading world (delighted with +the mischief, as who would not be that reads it?) believe that author and +wretch, author and rags, author and dirt, author and drink, gin, cowheel, +tripe, poverty, duns, bailiffs, squalling children and clamorous +landladies, were always associated together. The condition of authorship +began to fall from the days of the _Dunciad_: and I believe in my heart +that much of that obloquy which has since pursued our calling was +occasioned by Pope's libels and wicked wit. Everybody read those. +Everybody was familiarized with the idea of the poor devil, the author. +The manner is so captivating that young authors practise it, and begin +their career with satire. It is so easy to write, and so pleasant to read! +to fire a shot that makes a giant wince, perhaps; and fancy one's self his +conqueror. It is easy to shoot--but not as Pope did--the shafts of his +satire rise sublimely: no poet's verse ever mounted higher than that +wonderful flight with which the _Dunciad_ concludes(141):-- + + + She comes, she comes! the sable throne behold! + Of Night primaeval and of Chaos old; + Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, + And all its varying rainbows die away; + Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, + The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. + As, one by one, at dread Medea's strain + The sick'ning stars fade off the ethereal plain; + As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd, + Closed one by one to everlasting rest;-- + Thus, at her fell approach and secret might, + Art after Art goes out, and all is night. + See skulking Faith to her old cavern fled, + Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head; + Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, + Shrinks to her second cause and is no more. + Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, + And, unawares, Morality expires. + Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine, + Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine. + Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos, is restored, + Light dies before thy uncreating word; + Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, + And universal darkness buries all.(142) + + +In these astonishing lines Pope reaches, I think, to the very greatest +height which his sublime art has attained, and shows himself the equal of +all poets of all times. It is the brightest ardour, the loftiest assertion +of truth, the most generous wisdom, illustrated by the noblest poetic +figure, and spoken in words the aptest, grandest, and most harmonious. It +is heroic courage speaking: a splendid declaration of righteous wrath and +war. It is the gage flung down, and the silver trumpet ringing defiance to +falsehood and tyranny, deceit, dullness, superstition. It is Truth, the +champion, shining and intrepid, and fronting the great world-tyrant with +armies of slaves at his back. It is a wonderful and victorious single +combat, in that great battle, which has always been waging since society +began. + +In speaking of a work of consummate art one does not try to show what it +actually is, for that were vain; but what it is like, and what are the +sensations produced in the mind of him who views it. And in considering +Pope's admirable career, I am forced into similitudes drawn from other +courage and greatness, and into comparing him with those who achieved +triumphs in actual war. I think of the works of young Pope as I do of the +actions of young Bonaparte or young Nelson. In their common life you will +find frailties and meannesses, as great as the vices and follies of the +meanest men. But in the presence of the great occasion, the great soul +flashes out, and conquers transcendent. In thinking of the splendour of +Pope's young victories, of his merit, unequalled as his renown, I hail and +salute the achieving genius, and do homage to the pen of a hero. + + + + +Lecture The Fifth. Hogarth, Smollett, And Fielding + + +I suppose as long as novels last and authors aim at interesting their +public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero, a +wicked monster his opposite, and a pretty girl who finds a champion; +bravery and virtue conquer beauty: and vice, after seeming to triumph +through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last +volume, when justice overtakes him and honest folks come by their own. +There never was perhaps a greatly popular story but this simple plot was +carried through it: mere satiric wit is addressed to a class of readers +and thinkers quite different to those simple souls who laugh and weep over +the novel. I fancy very few ladies indeed, for instance, could be brought +to like _Gulliver_ heartily, and (putting the coarseness and difference of +manners out of the question) to relish the wonderful satire of _Jonathan +Wild_. In that strange apologue, the author takes for a hero the greatest +rascal, coward, traitor, tyrant, hypocrite, that his wit and experience, +both large in this matter, could enable him to devise or depict; he +accompanies this villain through all the actions of his life, with a +grinning deference and a wonderful mock respect: and doesn't leave him, +till he is dangling at the gallows, when the satirist makes him a low bow +and wishes the scoundrel good day. + +It was not by satire of this sort, or by scorn and contempt, that Hogarth +achieved his vast popularity and acquired his reputation.(143) His art is +quite simple,(144) he speaks popular parables to interest simple hearts +and to inspire them with pleasure or pity or warning and terror. Not one +of his tales but is as easy as _Goody Two Shoes_; it is the moral of Tommy +was a naughty boy and the master flogged him, and Jacky was a good boy and +had plum cake, which pervades the whole works of the homely and famous +English moralist. And if the moral is written in rather too large letters +after the fable, we must remember how simple the scholars and schoolmaster +both were, and like neither the less because they are so artless and +honest. "It was a maxim of Dr. Harrison's," Fielding says in _Amelia_, +speaking of the benevolent divine and philosopher who represents the good +principle in that novel--"that no man can descend below himself, in doing +any act which may contribute to protect an innocent person, _or to bring a +rogue to the gallows_." The moralists of that age had no compunction you +see; they had not begun to be sceptical about the theory of punishment, +and thought that the hanging of a thief was a spectacle for edification. +Masters sent their apprentices, fathers took their children, to see Jack +Sheppard or Jonathan Wild hanged, and it was as undoubting subscribers to +this moral law, that Fielding wrote and Hogarth painted. Except in one +instance, where in the mad-house scene in the _Rake's Progress_, the girl +whom he has ruined is represented as still tending and weeping over him in +his insanity, a glimpse of pity for his rogues never seems to enter honest +Hogarth's mind. There's not the slightest doubt in the breast of the jolly +Draco. + +The famous set of pictures called "Marriage a la Mode", and which are +exhibited at Marlborough House [1853], in London, contains the most +important and highly wrought of the Hogarth comedies. The care and method +with which the moral grounds of these pictures are laid is as remarkable +as the wit and skill of the observing and dexterous artist. He has to +describe the negotiations for a marriage pending between the daughter of a +rich citizen Alderman and young Lord Viscount Squanderfield, the +dissipated son of a gouty old earl. Pride and pomposity appear in every +accessory surrounding the earl. He sits in gold lace and velvet--as how +should such an earl wear anything but velvet and gold lace? His coronet is +everywhere: on his footstool on which reposes one gouty toe turned out; on +the sconces and looking-glasses; on the dogs; on his lordship's very +crutches; on his great chair of state and the great baldaquin behind him; +under which he sits pointing majestically to his pedigree, which shows +that his race is sprung from the loins of William the Conqueror, and +confronting the old alderman from the City, who has mounted his sword for +the occasion, and wears his alderman's chain, and has brought a bag full +of money, mortgage-deeds, and thousand-pound notes, for the arrangement of +the transaction pending between them. Whilst the steward (a Methodist, +therefore a hypocrite and cheat, for Hogarth scorned a Papist and a +Dissenter) is negotiating between the old couple, their children sit +together, united but apart. My lord is admiring his countenance in the +glass, while his bride is twiddling her marriage ring on her +pocket-handkerchief; and listening with rueful countenance to Counsellor +Silvertongue, who has been drawing the settlements. The girl is pretty, +but the painter, with a curious watchfulness, has taken care to give her a +likeness to her father, as in the young viscount's face you see a +resemblance to the earl, his noble sire. The sense of the coronet pervades +the picture, as it is supposed to do the mind of its wearer. The pictures +round the room are sly hints indicating the situation of the parties about +to marry. A martyr is led to the fire; Andromeda is offered to sacrifice; +Judith is going to slay Holofernes. There is the ancestor of the house (in +the picture it is the earl himself as a young man), with a comet over his +head, indicating that the career of the family is to be brilliant and +brief. In the second picture, the old lord must be dead, for madam has now +the countess's coronet over her bed and toilet-glass, and sits listening +to that dangerous Counsellor Silvertongue, whose portrait now actually +hangs up in her room, whilst the counsellor takes his ease on the sofa by +her side, evidently the familiar of the house, and the confidant of the +mistress. My lord takes his pleasure elsewhere than at home, whither he +returns jaded and tipsy from the "Rose", to find his wife yawning in her +drawing-room, her whist-party over, and the daylight streaming in; or he +amuses himself with the very worst company abroad, whilst his wife sits at +home listening to foreign singers, or wastes her money at auctions, or, +worse still, seeks amusement at masquerades. The dismal end is known. My +lord draws upon the counsellor, who kills him, and is apprehended whilst +endeavouring to escape. My lady goes back perforce to the alderman in the +City, and faints upon reading Counsellor Silvertongue's dying speech at +Tyburn, where the counsellor has been executed for sending his lordship +out of the world. Moral:--Don't listen to evil silver-tongued counsellors: +don't marry a man for his rank, or a woman for her money: don't frequent +foolish auctions and masquerade balls unknown to your husband: don't have +wicked companions abroad and neglect your wife, otherwise you will be run +through the body, and ruin will ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn. The +people are all naughty, and Bogey carries them all off. + +In the _Rake's Progress_, a loose life is ended by a similar sad +catastrophe. It is the spendthrift coming into possession of the wealth of +the paternal miser; the prodigal surrounded by flatterers, and wasting his +substance on the very worst company; the bailiffs, the gambling-house, and +Bedlam for an end. In the famous story of Industry and Idleness, the moral +is pointed in a manner similarly clear. Fair-haired Frank Goodchild smiles +at his work, whilst naughty Tom Idle snores over his loom. Frank reads the +edifying ballads of Whittington and the London 'Prentice, whilst that +reprobate Tom Idle prefers Moll Flanders, and drinks hugely of beer. Frank +goes to church of a Sunday, and warbles hymns from the gallery; while Tom +lies on a tombstone outside playing at halfpenny-under-the-hat, with +street blackguards, and is deservedly caned by the beadle; Frank is made +overseer of the business, whilst Tom is sent to sea. Frank is taken into +partnership and marries his master's daughter, sends out broken victuals +to the poor, and listens in his nightcap and gown with the lovely Mrs. +Goodchild by his side, to the nuptial music of the City bands and the +marrow-bones and cleavers; whilst idle Tom, returned from sea, shudders in +a garret lest the officers are coming to take him for picking pockets. The +Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esq., becomes Sheriff of London, and +partakes of the most splendid dinners which money can purchase or alderman +devour; whilst poor Tom is taken up in a night-cellar, with that one-eyed +and disreputable accomplice who first taught him to play chuck-farthing on +a Sunday. What happens next? Tom is brought up before the justice of his +country, in the person of Mr. Alderman Goodchild, who weeps as he +recognizes his old brother 'prentice, as Tom's one-eyed friend peaches on +him, and the clerk makes out the poor rogue's ticket for Newgate. Then the +end comes. Tom goes to Tyburn in a cart with a coffin in it; whilst the +Right Honourable Francis Goodchild, Lord Mayor of London, proceeds to his +Mansion House, in his gilt coach with four footmen and a sword-bearer, +whilst the Companies of London march in the august procession, whilst the +trainbands of the City fire their pieces and get drunk in his honour; and +O crowning delight and glory of all, whilst his Majesty the King looks out +from his royal balcony, with his ribbon on his breast, and his Queen and +his star by his side, at the corner house of St. Paul's Churchyard, where +the toy-shop is now. + +How the times have changed! The new Post Office now not disadvantageously +occupies that spot where the scaffolding is in the picture, where the +tipsy trainband-man is lurching against the post, with his wig over one +eye, and the 'prentice-boy is trying to kiss the pretty girl in the +gallery. Passed away 'prentice-boy and pretty girl! Passed away tipsy +trainband-man with wig and bandolier! On the spot where Tom Idle (for whom +I have an unaffected pity) made his exit from this wicked world, and where +you see the hangman smoking his pipe as he reclines on the gibbet and +views the hills of Harrow or Hampstead beyond--a splendid marble arch, a +vast and modern city--clean, airy, painted drab, populous with +nursery-maids and children, the abodes of wealth and comfort--the elegant, +the prosperous, the polite Tyburnia rises, the most respectable district +in the habitable globe! + +In that last plate of the London Apprentices, in which the apotheosis of +the Right Honourable Francis Goodchild is drawn, a ragged fellow is +represented in the corner of the simple kindly piece, offering for sale a +broadside, purporting to contain an account of the appearance of the ghost +of Tom Idle, executed at Tyburn. Could Tom's ghost have made its +appearance in 1847, and not in 1747, what changes would have been remarked +by that astonished escaped criminal! Over that road which the hangman used +to travel constantly, and the Oxford stage twice a week, go ten thousand +carriages every day: over yonder road, by which Dick Turpin fled to +Windsor, and Squire Western journeyed into town, when he came to take up +his quarters at the Hercules Pillars on the outskirts of London, what a +rush of civilization and order flows now! What armies of gentlemen with +umbrellas march to banks, and chambers, and counting-houses! What +regiments of nursery-maids and pretty infantry; what peaceful processions +of policemen, what light broughams and what gay carriages, what swarms of +busy apprentices and artificers, riding on omnibus-roofs, pass daily and +hourly! Tom Idle's times are quite changed: many of the institutions gone +into disuse which were admired in his day. There's more pity and kindness +and a better chance for poor Tom's successors now than at that simpler +period when Fielding hanged him and Hogarth drew him. + +To the student of history, these admirable works must be invaluable, as +they give us the most complete and truthful picture of the manners, and +even the thoughts, of the past century. We look, and see pass before us +the England of a hundred years ago--the peer in his drawing-room, the lady +of fashion in her apartment, foreign singers surrounding her, and the +chamber filled with gewgaws in the mode of that day; the church, with its +quaint florid architecture and singing congregation; the parson with his +great wig, and the beadle with his cane: all these are represented before +us, and we are sure of the truth of the portrait. We see how the Lord +Mayor dines in state; how the prodigal drinks and sports at the bagnio; +how the poor girl beats hemp in Bridewell; how the thief divides his booty +and drinks his punch at the night-cellar, and how he finishes his career +at the gibbet. We may depend upon the perfect accuracy of these strange +and varied portraits of the bygone generation: we see one of Walpole's +Members of Parliament chaired after his election, and the lieges +celebrating the event, and drinking confusion to the Pretender: we see the +grenadiers and trainbands of the City marching out to meet the enemy; and +have before us, with sword and firelock, and white Hanoverian horse +embroidered on the cap, the very figures of the men who ran away with +Johnny Cope, and who conquered at Culloden. + +Posterity has not quite confirmed honest Hogarth's opinion about his +talents for the sublime. Although Swift could not see the difference +between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, posterity has not shared the Dean's +contempt for Handel; the world has discovered a difference between +tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, and given a hearty applause and admiration to +Hogarth, too, but not exactly as a painter of scriptural subjects, or as a +rival of Correggio. It does not take away from one's liking for the man, +or from the moral of his story, or the humour of it--from one's admiration +for the prodigious merit of his performances, to remember that he +persisted to the last in believing that the world was in a conspiracy +against him with respect to his talents as an historical painter, and that +a set of miscreants, as he called them, were employed to run his genius +down. They say it was Liston's firm belief, that he was a great and +neglected tragic actor; they say that every one of us believes in his +heart, or would like to have others believe, that he is something which he +is not. One of the most notorious of the "miscreants", Hogarth says, was +Wilkes, who assailed him in the _North Briton_; the other was Churchill, +who put the _North Briton_ attack into heroic verse, and published his +_Epistle to Hogarth_. Hogarth replied by that caricature of Wilkes, in +which the patriot still figures before us, with his Satanic grin and +squint, and by a caricature of Churchill, in which he is represented as a +bear with a staff, on which, "Lie the first", "Lie the second", "Lie the +tenth", are engraved in unmistakable letters. There is very little mistake +about honest Hogarth's satire: if he has to paint a man with his throat +cut, he draws him with his head almost off; and he tried to do the same +for his enemies in this little controversy. "Having an old plate by me," +says he, "with some parts ready, such as the background, and a dog, I +began to consider how I could turn so much work laid aside to some +account, and so patched up a print of Master Churchill, in the character +of a bear; the pleasure and pecuniary advantage which I derived from these +two engravings, together with occasionally riding on horseback, restored +me to as much health as I can expect at my time of life." + +And so he concludes his queer little book of _Anecdotes_: "I have gone +through the circumstances of a life which till lately passed pretty much +to my own satisfaction, and I hope in no respect injurious to any other +man. This I may safely assert, that I have done my best to make those +about me tolerably happy, and my greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an +intentional injury. What may follow, God knows." + +A queer account still exists of a holiday jaunt taken by Hogarth and four +friends of his, who set out, like the redoubted Mr. Pickwick and his +companions, but just a hundred years before those heroes; and made an +excursion to Gravesend, Rochester, Sheerness; and adjacent places.(145) +One of the gentlemen noted down the proceedings of the journey, for which +Hogarth and a brother artist made drawings. The book is chiefly curious at +this moment from showing the citizen life of those days, and the rough, +jolly style of merriment, not of the five companions merely, but of +thousands of jolly fellows of their time. Hogarth and his friends, +quitting the "Bedford Arms", Covent Garden, with a song, took water to +Billingsgate, exchanging compliments with the bargemen as they went down +the river. At Billingsgate, Hogarth made a "caracatura" of a facetious +porter, called the Duke of Puddledock, who agreeably entertained the party +with the humours of the place. Hence they took a Gravesend boat for +themselves; had straw to lie upon, and a tilt over their heads, they say, +and went down the river at night, sleeping and singing jolly choruses. + +They arrived at Gravesend at six, when they washed their faces and hands, +and had their wigs powdered. Then they sallied forth for Rochester on +foot, and drank by the way three pots of ale. At one o'clock they went to +dinner with excellent port, and a quantity more beer, and afterwards +Hogarth and Scott played at hopscotch in the town hall. It would appear +that they slept most of them in one room, and the chronicler of the party +describes them all as waking at seven o'clock, and telling each other +their dreams. You have rough sketches by Hogarth of the incidents of this +holiday excursion. The sturdy little painter is seen sprawling over a +plank to a boat at Gravesend; the whole company are represented in one +design, in a fisherman's room, where they had all passed the night. One +gentleman in a nightcap is shaving himself; another is being shaved by the +fisherman; a third, with a handkerchief over his bald pate, is taking his +breakfast; and Hogarth is sketching the whole scene. + +They describe at night how they returned to their quarters, drank to their +friends, as usual, emptied several cans of good flip, all singing merrily. + +It is a jolly party of tradesmen engaged at high-jinks. These were the +manners and pleasures of Hogarth, of his time very likely, of men not very +refined, but honest and merry. It is a brave London citizen, with John +Bull habits, prejudices, and pleasures.(146) + +Of SMOLLETT'S associates and manner of life the author of the admirable +_Humphry Clinker_ has given us an interesting account, in that most +amusing of novels.(147) + +I have no doubt that the above picture is as faithful a one as any from +the pencil of his kindred humourist, Hogarth. + +We have before us, and painted by his own hand, Tobias Smollett, the +manly, kindly, honest, and irascible; worn and battered, but still brave +and full of heart, after a long struggle against a hard fortune. His brain +had been busied with a hundred different schemes; he had been reviewer and +historian, critic, medical writer, poet, pamphleteer. He had fought +endless literary battles; and braved and wielded for years the cudgels of +controversy. It was a hard and savage fight in those days, and a niggard +pay. He was oppressed by illness, age, narrow fortune; but his spirit was +still resolute, and his courage steady; the battle over, he could do +justice to the enemy with whom he had been so fiercely engaged, and give a +not unfriendly grasp to the hand that had mauled him. He is like one of +those Scotch cadets, of whom history gives us so many examples, and whom, +with a national fidelity, the great Scotch novelist has painted so +charmingly. Of gentle birth(148) and narrow means, going out from his +northern home to win his fortune in the world, and to fight his way, armed +with courage, hunger, and keen wits. His crest is a shattered oak-tree, +with green leaves yet springing from it. On his ancient coat-of-arms there +is a lion and a horn; this shield of his was battered and dinted in a +hundred fights and brawls,(149) through which the stout Scotchman bore it +courageously. You see somehow that he is a gentleman, through all his +battling and struggling, his poverty, his hard-fought successes, and his +defeats. His novels are recollections of his own adventures; his +characters drawn, as I should think, from personages with whom he became +acquainted in his own career of life. Strange companions he must have had; +queer acquaintances he made in the Glasgow College--in the country +apothecary's shop; in the gun-room of the man-of-war where he served as +surgeon, and in the hard life on shore, where the sturdy adventurer +struggled for fortune. He did not invent much, as I fancy, but had the +keenest perceptive faculty, and described what he saw with wonderful +relish and delightful broad humour. I think Uncle Bowling, in _Roderick +Random_, is as good a character as Squire Western himself; and Mr. Morgan, +the Welsh apothecary, is as pleasant as Dr. Caius. What man who has made +his inestimable acquaintance--what novel-reader who loves Don Quixote and +Major Dalgetty--will refuse his most cordial acknowledgements to the +admirable Lieutenant Lismahago? The novel of _Humphry Clinker_ is, I do +think, the most laughable story that has ever been written since the +goodly art of novel-writing began. Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble +must keep Englishmen on the grin for ages yet to come; and in their +letters and the story of their loves there is a perpetual fount of +sparkling laughter, as inexhaustible as Bladud's well. + + ------------------------------------- + +Fielding, too, has described, though with a greater hand, the characters +and scenes which he knew and saw. He had more than ordinary opportunities +for becoming acquainted with life. His family and education, first--his +fortunes and misfortunes afterwards, brought him into the society of every +rank and condition of man. He is himself the hero of his books: he is wild +Tom Jones, he is wild Captain Booth, less wild, I am glad to think, than +his predecessor, at least heartily conscious of demerit, and anxious to +amend. + +When Fielding first came upon the town in 1727, the recollection of the +great wits was still fresh in the coffee-houses and assemblies, and the +judges there declared that young Harry Fielding had more spirits and wit +than Congreve or any of his brilliant successors. His figure was tall and +stalwart; his face handsome, manly, and noble-looking; to the very last +days of his life he retained a grandeur of air, and, although worn down by +disease, his aspect and presence imposed respect upon the people round +about him. + +A dispute took place between Mr. Fielding and the captain(150) of the ship +in which he was making his last voyage, and Fielding relates how the man +finally went down on his knees and begged his passenger's pardon. He was +living up to the last days of his life, and his spirit never gave in. His +vital power must have been immensely strong. Lady Mary Wortley +Montagu(151) prettily characterizes Fielding and this capacity for +happiness which he possessed, in a little notice of his death, when she +compares him to Steele, who was as improvident and as happy as he was, and +says that both should have gone on living for ever. One can fancy the +eagerness and gusto with which a man of Fielding's frame, with his vast +health and robust appetite, his ardent spirits, his joyful humour, and his +keen and hearty relish for life, must have seized and drunk that cup of +pleasure which the town offered to him. Can any of my hearers remember the +youthful feats of a college breakfast--the meats devoured and the cups +quaffed in that Homeric feast? I can call to mind some of the heroes of +those youthful banquets, and fancy young Fielding from Leyden rushing upon +the feast, with his great laugh and immense healthy young appetite, eager +and vigorous to enjoy. The young man's wit and manners made him friends +everywhere: he lived with the grand Man's society of those days; he was +courted by peers and men of wealth and fashion. As he had a paternal +allowance from his father, General Fielding, which, to use Henry's own +phrase, any man might pay who would; as he liked good wine, good clothes, +and good company, which are all expensive articles to purchase, Harry +Fielding began to run into debt, and borrow money in that easy manner in +which Captain Booth borrows money in the novel: was in nowise particular +in accepting a few pieces from the purses of his rich friends, and bore +down upon more than one of them, as Walpole tells us only too truly, for a +dinner or a guinea. To supply himself with the latter, he began to write +theatrical pieces, having already, no doubt, a considerable acquaintance +amongst the Oldfields and Bracegirdles behind the scenes. He laughed at +these pieces and scorned them. When the audience upon one occasion began +to hiss a scene which he was too lazy to correct, and regarding which, +when Garrick remonstrated with him, he said that the public was too stupid +to find out the badness of his work;--when the audience began to hiss, +Fielding said, with characteristic coolness--"They have found it out, have +they?" He did not prepare his novels in this way, and with a very +different care and interest laid the foundations and built up the edifices +of his future fame. + +Time and shower have very little damaged those. The fashion and ornaments +are, perhaps, of the architecture of that age; but the buildings remain +strong and lofty, and of admirable proportions--masterpieces of genius and +monuments of workmanlike skill. + +I cannot offer or hope to make a hero of Harry Fielding. Why hide his +faults? Why conceal his weaknesses in a cloud of periphrases? Why not show +him, like him as he is, not robed in a marble toga, and draped and +polished in a heroic attitude, but with inked ruffles, and claret stains +on his tarnished laced coat, and on his manly face the marks of good +fellowship, of illness, of kindness, of care, and wine. Stained as you see +him, and worn by care and dissipation, that man retains some of the most +precious and splendid human qualities and endowments. He has an admirable +natural love of truth, the keenest instinctive antipathy to hypocrisy, the +happiest satirical gift of laughing it to scorn. His wit is wonderfully +wise and detective; it flashes upon a rogue and lightens up a rascal like +a policeman's lantern. He is one of the manliest and kindliest of human +beings: in the midst of all his imperfections, he respects female +innocence and infantine tenderness, as you would suppose such a +great-hearted, courageous soul would respect and care for them. He could +not be so brave, generous, truth-telling as he is, were he not infinitely +merciful, pitiful, and tender. He will give any man his purse--he can't +help kindness and profusion. He may have low tastes, but not a mean mind; +he admires with all his heart good and virtuous men, stoops to no +flattery, bears no rancour, disdains all disloyal arts, does his public +duty uprightly, is fondly loved by his family, and dies at his work.(152) + +If that theory be--and I have no doubt it is--the right and safe one, that +human nature is always pleased with the spectacle of innocence rescued by +fidelity, purity, and courage; I suppose that of the heroes of Fielding's +three novels, we should like honest Joseph Andrews the best, and Captain +Booth the second, and Tom Jones the third.(153) + +Joseph Andrews, though he wears Lady Booby's cast-off livery, is, I think, +to the full as polite as Tom Jones in his fustian suit, or Captain Booth +in regimentals. He has, like those heroes, large calves, broad shoulders, +a high courage, and a handsome face. The accounts of Joseph's bravery and +good qualities; his voice, too musical to halloo to the dogs; his bravery +in riding races for the gentlemen of the county, and his constancy in +refusing bribes and temptation, have something affecting in their +_naivete_ and freshness, and prepossess one in favour of that handsome +young hero. The rustic bloom of Fanny, and the delightful simplicity of +Parson Adams are described with a friendliness which wins the reader of +their story; we part with them with more regret than from Booth and Jones. + +Fielding, no doubt, began to write this novel in ridicule of _Pamela_, for +which work one can understand the hearty contempt and antipathy which such +an athletic and boisterous genius as Fielding's must have entertained. He +couldn't do otherwise than laugh at the puny Cockney bookseller, pouring +out endless volumes of sentimental twaddle, and hold him up to scorn as a +moll-coddle and a milksop. _His_ genius had been nursed on sack-posset, +and not on dishes of tea. _His_ muse had sung the loudest in tavern +choruses, had seen the daylight streaming in over thousands of emptied +bowls, and reeled home to chambers on the shoulders of the watchman. +Richardson's goddess was attended by old maids and dowagers, and fed on +muffins and bohea. "Milksop!" roars Harry Fielding, clattering at the +timid shop-shutters. "Wretch! Monster! Mohock!" shrieks the sentimental +author of _Pamela_;(154) and all the ladies of his court cackle out an +affrighted chorus. Fielding proposes to write a book in ridicule of the +author, whom he disliked and utterly scorned and laughed at; but he is +himself of so generous, jovial, and kindly a turn that he begins to like +the characters which he invents, can't help making them manly and pleasant +as well as ridiculous, and before he has done with them all loves them +heartily every one. + +Richardson's sickening antipathy for Harry Fielding is quite as natural as +the other's laughter and contempt at the sentimentalist. I have not +learned that these likings and dislikings have ceased in the present day: +and every author must lay his account not only to misrepresentation but to +honest enmity among critics, and to being hated and abused for good as +well as for bad reasons. Richardson disliked Fielding's works quite +honestly: Walpole quite honestly spoke of them as vulgar and stupid. Their +squeamish stomachs sickened at the rough fare and the rough guests +assembled at Fielding's jolly revel. Indeed the cloth might have been +cleaner: and the dinner and the company were scarce such as suited a +dandy. The kind and wise old Johnson would not sit down with him.(155) But +a greater scholar than Johnson could afford to admire that astonishing +genius of Harry Fielding: and we all know the lofty panegyric which Gibbon +wrote of him, and which remains a towering monument to the great +novelist's memory. "Our immortal Fielding," Gibbon writes, "was of the +younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their origin from the +Counts of Hapsburgh. The successors of Charles V may disdain their +brethren of England: but the romance of _Tom Jones_, that exquisite +picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the +Imperial Eagle of Austria." + +There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great judge. To have your +name mentioned by Gibbon, is like having it written on the dome of St. +Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire and behold it. + +As a picture of manners, the novel of _Tom Jones_ is indeed exquisite: as +a work of construction quite a wonder: the by-play of wisdom; the power of +observation; the multiplied felicitous turns and thoughts; the varied +character of the great Comic Epic keep the reader in a perpetual +admiration and curiosity.(156) But against Mr. Thomas Jones himself we +have a right to put in a protest, and quarrel with the esteem the author +evidently has for that character. Charles Lamb says finely of Jones, that +a single hearty laugh from him "clears the air"--but then it is in a +certain state of the atmosphere. It might clear the air when such +personages as Blifil or Lady Bellaston poison it. But I fear very much +that (except until the very last scene of the story), when Mr. Jones +enters Sophia's drawing-room, the pure air there is rather tainted with +the young gentleman's tobacco-pipe and punch. I can't say that I think Mr. +Jones a virtuous character; I can't say but that I think Fielding's +evident liking and admiration for Mr. Jones, shows that the great +humourist's moral sense was blunted by his life, and that here in Art and +Ethics, there is a great error. If it is right to have a hero whom we may +admire, let us at least take care that he is admirable: if, as is the plan +of some authors (a plan decidedly against their interests, be it said), it +is propounded that there exists in life no such being, and therefore that +in novels, the picture of life, there should appear no such character; +then Mr. Thomas Jones becomes an admissible person, and we examine his +defects and good qualities, as we do those of Parson Thwackum, or Miss +Seagrim. But a hero with a flawed reputation; a hero spunging for a +guinea; a hero who can't pay his landlady, and is obliged to let his +honour out to hire, is absurd, and his claim to heroic rank untenable. I +protest against Mr. Thomas Jones holding such rank at all. I protest even +against his being considered a more than ordinary young fellow, +ruddy-cheeked, broad-shouldered, and fond of wine and pleasure. He would +not rob a church, but that is all; and a pretty long argument may be +debated, as to which of these old types, the spendthrift, the hypocrite, +Jones and Blifil, Charles and Joseph Surface,--is the worst member of +society and the most deserving of censure. The prodigal Captain Booth is a +better man than his predecessor Mr. Jones, in so far as he thinks much +more humbly of himself than Jones did: goes down on his knees, and owns +his weaknesses, and cries out, "Not for my sake, but for the sake of my +pure and sweet and beautiful wife Amelia, I pray you, O critical reader, +to forgive me." That stern moralist regards him from the bench (the +judge's practice out of court is not here the question), and says, +"Captain Booth, it is perfectly true that your life has been disreputable, +and that on many occasions you have shown yourself to be no better than a +scamp--you have been tippling at the tavern, when the kindest and sweetest +lady in the world has cooked your little supper of boiled mutton and +awaited you all the night; you have spoilt the little dish of boiled +mutton thereby, and caused pangs and pains to Amelia's tender heart.(157) +You have got into debt without the means of paying it. You have gambled +the money with which you ought to have paid your rent. You have spent in +drink or in worse amusements the sums which your poor wife has raised upon +her little home treasures, her own ornaments, and the toys of her +children. But, you rascal! you own humbly that you are no better than you +should be; you never for one moment pretend that you are anything but a +miserable weak-minded rogue. You do in your heart adore that angelic +woman, your wife, and for her sake, sirrah, you shall have your discharge. +Lucky for you and for others like you, that in spite of your failings and +imperfections, pure hearts pity and love you. For your wife's sake you are +permitted to go hence without a remand; and I beg you, by the way, to +carry to that angelical lady the expression of the cordial respect and +admiration of this court." Amelia pleads for her husband Will Booth: +Amelia pleads for her reckless kindly old father, Harry Fielding. To have +invented that character, is not only a triumph of art but it is a good +action. They say it was in his own home that Fielding knew her and loved +her: and from his own wife that he drew the most charming character in +English fiction--Fiction! why fiction? why not history? I know Amelia just +as well as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I believe in Colonel Bath almost as +much as in Colonel Gardiner or the Duke of Cumberland. I admire the author +of _Amelia_, and thank the kind master who introduced me to that sweet and +delightful companion and friend. _Amelia_ perhaps is not a better story +than _Tom Jones_, but it has the better ethics; the prodigal repents at +least, before forgiveness,--whereas that odious broad-backed Mr. Jones +carries off his beauty with scarce an interval of remorse for his manifold +errors and shortcomings; and is not half punished enough before the great +prize of fortune and love falls to his share. I am angry with Jones. Too +much of the plum-cake and rewards of life fall to that boisterous, +swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without a proper +sense of decorum; the fond, foolish, palpitating little creature,--"Indeed, +Mr. Jones," she says,--"it rests with you to appoint the day." I suppose +Sophia is drawn from life as well as Amelia; and many a young fellow, no +better than Mr. Thomas Jones, has carried by a _coup de main_ the heart of +many a kind girl who was a great deal too good for him. + +What a wonderful art! What an admirable gift of nature, was it by which +the author of these tales was endowed, and which enabled him to fix our +interest, to waken our sympathy, to seize upon our credulity, so that we +believe in his people--speculate gravely upon their faults or their +excellences, prefer this one or that, deplore Jones's fondness for drink +and play, Booth's fondness for play and drink, and the unfortunate +position of the wives of both gentlemen--love and admire those ladies with +all our hearts, and talk about them as faithfully as if we had breakfasted +with them this morning in their actual drawing-rooms, or should meet them +this afternoon in the Park! What a genius! what a vigour! what a +bright-eyed intelligence and observation! what a wholesome hatred for +meanness and knavery! what a vast sympathy! what a cheerfulness! what a +manly relish of life! what a love of human kind! what a poet is +here!--watching, meditating, brooding, creating! What multitudes of truths +has that man left behind him! What generations he has taught to laugh +wisely and fairly! What scholars he has formed and accustomed to the +exercise of thoughtful humour and the manly play of wit! What a courage he +had!(158) What a dauntless and constant cheerfulness of intellect, that +burned bright and steady through all the storms of his life, and never +deserted its last wreck! It is wonderful to think of the pains and misery +which the man suffered; the pressure of want, illness, remorse which he +endured; and that the writer was neither malignant nor melancholy, his +view of truth never warped, and his generous human kindness never +surrendered.(159) + +In the quarrel mentioned before, which happened on Fielding's last voyage +to Lisbon, and when the stout captain of the ship fell down on his knees +and asked the sick man's pardon--"I did not suffer," Fielding says, in his +hearty, manly way, his eyes lighting up as it were with their old fire--"I +did not suffer a brave man and an old man to remain a moment in that +posture, but immediately forgave him." Indeed, I think, with his noble +spirit and unconquerable generosity, Fielding reminds one of those brave +men of whom one reads in stories of English shipwrecks and disasters--of +the officer on the African shore, when disease has destroyed the crew, and +he himself is seized by fever, who throws the lead with a death-stricken +hand, takes the soundings, carries the ship out of the river or off the +dangerous coast, and dies in the manly endeavour--of the wounded captain, +when the vessel founders, who never loses his heart, who eyes the danger +steadily, and has a cheery word for all, until the inevitable fate +overwhelms him, and the gallant ship goes down. Such a brave and gentle +heart, such an intrepid and courageous spirit, I love to recognize in the +manly, the English Harry Fielding. + + + + +Lecture The Sixth. Sterne And Goldsmith + + +Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second son of a numerous race, +descendants of Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York, in the reign of James +II; and children of Simon Sterne and Mary Jaques, his wife, heiress of +Elvington, near York.(160) Roger was a lieutenant in Handyside's regiment, +and engaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars. He married the daughter of a +noted sutler--"N.B., he was in debt to him," his son writes, pursuing the +paternal biography--and marched through the world with this companion +following the regiment and bringing many children to poor Roger Sterne. +The captain was an irascible but kind and simple little man, Sterne says, +and informs us that his sire was run through the body at Gibraltar, by a +brother officer, in a duel, which arose out of a dispute about a goose. +Roger never entirely recovered from the effects of this rencontre, but +died presently at Jamaica, whither he had followed the drum. + +Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, in 1713, and +travelled for the first ten years of his life, on his father's march, from +barrack to transport, from Ireland to England.(161) + +One relative of his mother's took her and her family under shelter for ten +months at Mullingar: another collateral descendant of the Archbishop's +housed them for a year at his castle near Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was +put to school at Halifax in England, finally was adopted by his kinsman of +Elvington, and parted company with his father, the Captain, who marched on +his path of life till he met the fatal goose, which closed his career. The +most picturesque and delightful parts of Laurence Sterne's writings, we +owe to his recollections of the military life. Trim's montero cap, and Le +Fevre's sword, and dear Uncle Toby's roquelaure, are doubtless +reminiscences of the boy, who had lived with the followers of William and +Marlborough, and had beat time with his little feet to the fifes of +Ramillies in Dublin barrack-yard, or played with the torn flags and +halberds of Malplaquet on the parade-ground at Clonmel. + +Laurence remained at Halifax school till he was eighteen years old. His +wit and cleverness appear to have acquired the respect of his master here: +for when the usher whipped Laurence for writing his name on the newly +whitewashed schoolroom ceiling, the pedagogue in chief rebuked the +under-strapper, and said that the name should never be effaced, for Sterne +was a boy of genius, and would come to preferment. + +His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne to Jesus College, +Cambridge, where he remained five years, and taking orders, got, through +his uncle's interest, the living of Sutton and the prebendary of York. +Through his wife's connexions, he got the living of Stillington. He +married her in 1741; having ardently courted the young lady for some years +previously. It was not until the young lady fancied herself dying, that +she made Sterne acquainted with the extent of her liking for him. One +evening when he was sitting with her, with an almost broken heart to see +her so ill (the Rev. Mr. Sterne's heart was a good deal broken in the +course of his life), she said--"My dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I +verily believe I have not long to live, but I have left you every shilling +of my fortune," a generosity which overpowered Sterne: she recovered: and +so they were married, and grew heartily tired of each other before many +years were over. "Nescio quid est materia cum me," Sterne writes to one of +his friends (in dog-Latin, and very sad dog-Latin too), "sed sum fatigatus +et aegrotus de mea uxore plus quam unquam," which means, I am sorry to +say, "I don't know what is the matter with me: but I am more tired and +sick of my wife than ever."(162) + +This to be sure was five-and-twenty years after Laurey had been overcome +by her generosity and she by Laurey's love. Then he wrote to her of the +delights of marriage, saying--"We will be as merry and as innocent as our +first parents in Paradise, before the arch-fiend entered that +indescribable scene. The kindest affections will have room to expand in +our retirement--let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a distance, the +desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My L. has seen a polyanthus +blow in December?--Some friendly wall has sheltered it from the biting +wind--no planetary influence shall reach us, but that which presides and +cherishes the sweetest flowers. The gloomy family of care and distrust +shall be banished from our dwelling, guarded by thy kind and tutelar +deity--we will sing our choral songs of gratitude and rejoice to the end of +our pilgrimage. Adieu, my L. Return to one who languishes for thy +society!--As I take up my pen, my poor pulse quickens, my pale face glows, +and tears are trickling down on my paper as I trace the word L." + +And it is about this woman, with whom he finds no fault, but that she +bores him, that our philanthropist writes, "Sum fatigatus et +aegrotus"--_Sum mortaliter in amore_ with somebody else! That fine flower +of love, that polyanthus over which Sterne snivelled so many tears, could +not last for a quarter of a century! + +Or rather it could not be expected that a gentleman with such a fountain +at command, should keep it to _arroser_ one homely old lady, when a score +of younger and prettier people might be refreshed from the same gushing +source.(163) + +It was in December, 1767, that the Rev. Laurence Sterne, the famous +Shandean, the charming Yorick, the delight of the fashionable world, the +delicious divine, for whose sermons the whole polite world was +subscribing,(164) the occupier of Rabelais's easy chair, only fresh +stuffed and more elegant than when in possession of the cynical old curate +of Meudon(165)--the more than rival of the Dean of St. Patrick's, wrote the +above-quoted respectable letter to his friend in London: and it was in +April of the same year, that he was pouring out his fond heart to Mrs. +Elizabeth Draper, wife of "Daniel Draper, Esq., Counsellor of Bombay, and, +in 1775, chief of the factory of Surat--a gentleman very much respected in +that quarter of the globe". + +"I got thy letter last night, Eliza," Sterne writes, "on my return from +Lord Bathurst's, where I dined" (the letter has this merit in it that it +contains a pleasant reminiscence of better men than Sterne, and introduces +us to a portrait of a kind old gentleman)--"I got thy letter last night, +Eliza, on my return from Lord Bathurst's; and where I was heard--as I +talked of thee an hour without intermission--with so much pleasure and +attention, that the good old lord toasted your health three different +times; and now he is in his 85th year, says he hopes to live long enough +to be introduced as a friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see her +eclipse all other Nabobesses as much in wealth, as she does already in +exterior, and what is far better" (for Sterne is nothing without his +morality)--"and what is far better, in interior merit. This nobleman is an +old friend of mine. You know he was always the protector of men of wit and +genius, and has had those of the last century, Addison, Steele, Pope, +Swift, Prior, &c., always at his table. The manner in which his notice +began of me was as singular as it was polite. He came up to me one day as +I was at the Princess of Wales's court, and said, 'I want to know you, Mr. +Sterne, but it is fit you also should know who it is that wishes this +pleasure. You have heard of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and +Swifts have sung and spoken so much? I have lived my life with geniuses of +that cast; but have survived them; and, despairing ever to find their +equals, it is some years since I have shut up my books and closed my +accounts; but you have kindled a desire in me of opening them once more +before I die: which I now do: so go home and dine with me.' This nobleman, +I say, is a prodigy, for he has all the wit and promptness of a man of +thirty; a disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others, beyond +whatever I knew: added to which a man of learning, courtesy, and feeling." + +"He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with uncommon satisfaction--for there was +only a third person, _and of sensibility_, with us: and a most sentimental +afternoon till nine o'clock have we passed!(166) But thou, Eliza! wert the +star that conducted and enlivened the discourse! And when I talked not of +thee, still didst thou fill my mind, and warm every thought I uttered, for +I am not ashamed to acknowledge I greatly miss thee. Best of all good +girls!--the sufferings I have sustained all night in consequence of thine, +Eliza, are beyond the power of words.... And so thou hast fixed thy +Bramin's portrait over thy writing desk, and will consult it in all doubts +and difficulties?--Grateful and good girl! Yorick smiles contentedly over +all thou dost: his picture does not do justice to his own complacency. I +am glad your shipmates are friendly beings" (Eliza was at Deal, going back +to the Counsellor at Bombay, and indeed it was high time she should be +off). "You could least dispense with what is contrary to your own nature, +which is soft and gentle, Eliza; it would civilize savages--though pity +were it thou shouldst be tainted with the office. Write to me, my child, +thy delicious letters. Let them speak the easy carelessness of a heart +that opens itself anyhow, every how. Such, Eliza, I write to thee!" (The +artless rogue, of course he did!) "And so I should ever love thee, most +artlessly, most affectionately, if Providence permitted thy residence in +the same section of the globe: for I am all that honour and affection can +make me 'THY BRAMIN'." + +The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. Draper until the departure of the +_Earl of Chatham_, Indiaman, from Deal, on the 2nd of April, 1767. He is +amiably anxious about the fresh paint for Eliza's cabin; he is uncommonly +solicitous about her companions on board: "I fear the best of your +shipmates are only genteel by comparison with the contrasted crew with +which thou beholdest them. So was--you know who--from the same fallacy which +was put upon your judgement when--but I will not mortify you!" + +"You know who" was, of course, Daniel Draper, Esq., of Bombay--a gentleman +very much respected in that quarter of the globe, and about whose probable +health our worthy Bramin writes with delightful candour. + +"I honour you, Eliza, for keeping secret some things which, if explained, +had been a panegyric on yourself. There is a dignity in venerable +affliction which will not allow it to appeal to the world for pity or +redress. Well have you supported that character, my amiable, my +philosophic friend! And indeed, I begin to think you have as many virtues +as my Uncle Toby's widow. Talking of widows--pray, Eliza, if ever you are +such, do not think of giving yourself to some wealthy Nabob, because I +design to marry you myself. My wife cannot live long, and I know not the +woman I should like so well for her substitute as yourself. 'Tis true I am +ninety-five in constitution, and you but twenty-five; but what I want in +youth, I will make up in wit and good humour. Not Swift so loved his +Stella, Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller his Saccharissa. Tell me, in +answer to this, that you approve and honour the proposal." + +Approve and honour the proposal! The coward was writing gay letters to his +friends this while, with sneering allusions to this poor foolish +_Bramine_. Her ship was not out of the Downs, and the charming Sterne was +at the "Mount" Coffee-house, with a sheet of gilt-edged paper before him, +offering that precious treasure his heart to Lady P----, asking whether it +gave her pleasure to see him unhappy? whether it added to her triumph that +her eyes and lips had turned a man into a fool?--quoting the Lord's Prayer, +with a horrible baseness of blasphemy, as a proof that he had desired not +to be led into temptation, and swearing himself the most tender and +sincere fool in the world. It was from his home at Coxwould that he wrote +the Latin letter, which, I suppose, he was ashamed to put into English. I +find in my copy of the _Letters_, that there is a note of I can't call it +admiration, at Letter 112, which seems to announce that there was a No. 3 +to whom the wretched worn-out old scamp was paying his addresses;(167) and +the year after, having come back to his lodgings in Bond Street, with his +_Sentimental Journey_ to launch upon the town, eager as ever for praise +and pleasure; as vain, as wicked, as witty, as false as he had ever been, +death at length seized the feeble wretch, and, on the 18th of March, 1768, +that "bale of cadaverous goods", as he calls his body, was consigned to +Pluto.(168) In his last letter there is one sign of grace--the real +affection with which he entreats a friend to be a guardian to his daughter +Lydia.(169) All his letters to her are artless, kind, affectionate, and +_not_ sentimental; as a hundred pages in his writings are beautiful, and +full, not of surprising humour merely, but of genuine love and kindness. A +perilous trade, indeed, is that of a man who has to bring his tears and +laughter, his recollections, his personal griefs and joys, his private +thoughts and feelings to market, to write them on paper, and sell them for +money. Does he exaggerate his grief, so as to get his reader's pity for a +false sensibility? feign indignation, so as to establish a character for +virtue? elaborate repartees, so that he may pass for a wit? steal from +other authors, and put down the theft to the credit side of his own +reputation for ingenuity and learning? feign originality? affect +benevolence or misanthropy? appeal to the gallery gods with claptraps and +vulgar baits to catch applause? + +How much of the paint and emphasis is necessary for the fair business of +the stage, and how much of the rant and rouge is put on for the vanity of +the actor? His audience trusts him: can he trust himself? How much was +deliberate calculation and imposture--how much was false sensibility--and +how much true feeling? Where did the lie begin, and did he know where? and +where did the truth end in the art and scheme of this man of genius, this +actor, this quack? Some time since, I was in the company of a French +actor, who began after dinner, and at his own request, to sing French +songs of the sort called _des chansons grivoises_, and which he performed +admirably, and to the dissatisfaction of most persons present. Having +finished these, he commenced a sentimental ballad--it was so charmingly +sung that it touched all persons present, and especially the singer +himself, whose voice trembled, whose eyes filled with emotion, and who was +snivelling and weeping quite genuine tears by the time his own ditty was +over. I suppose Sterne had this artistical sensibility; he used to blubber +perpetually in his study, and finding his tears infectious, and that they +brought him a great popularity, he exercised the lucrative gift of +weeping; he utilized it, and cried on every occasion. I own that I don't +value or respect much the cheap dribble of those fountains. He fatigues me +with his perpetual disquiet and his uneasy appeals to my risible or +sentimental faculties. He is always looking in my face, watching his +effect, uncertain whether I think him an impostor or not; posture-making, +coaxing, and imploring me. "See what sensibility I have--own now that I'm +very clever--do cry now, you can't resist this." The humour of Swift and +Rabelais, whom he pretended to succeed, poured from them as naturally as +song does from a bird; they lose no manly dignity with it, but laugh their +hearty great laugh out of their broad chests as nature bade them. But this +man--who can make you laugh, who can make you cry, too--never lets his +reader alone, or will permit his audience repose: when you are quiet, he +fancies he must rouse you, and turns over head and heels, or sidles up and +whispers a nasty story. The man is a great jester, not a great humourist. +He goes to work systematically and of cold blood; paints his face, puts on +his ruff and motley clothes, and lays down his carpet and tumbles on it. + +For instance, take the _Sentimental Journey_, and see in the writer the +deliberate propensity to make points and seek applause. He gets to +Dessein's Hotel, he wants a carriage to travel to Paris, he goes to the +inn-yard, and begins what the actors call "business" at once. There is +that little carriage the _desobligeant_. "Four months had elapsed since it +had finished its career of Europe in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's +courtyard, and having sallied out thence but a vamped-up business at +first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had +not profited much by its adventures, but by none so little as the standing +so many months unpitied in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coachyard. +Much, indeed, was not to be said for it--but something might--and when a few +words will rescue misery out of her distress, I hate the man who can be a +churl of them." + +_Le tour est fait!_ Paillasse has tumbled! Paillasse has jumped over the +_desobligeant_, cleared it, hood and all, and bows to the noble company. +Does anybody believe that this is a real Sentiment? that this luxury of +generosity, this gallant rescue of Misery--out of an old cab, is genuine +feeling? It is as genuine as the virtuous oratory of Joseph Surface when +he begins, "The man who," &c. &c., and wishes to pass off for a saint with +his credulous, good-humoured dupes. + +Our friend purchases the carriage--after turning that notorious old monk to +good account, and effecting (like a soft and good-natured Paillasse as he +was, and very free with his money when he had it), an exchange of +snuff-boxes with the old Franciscan, jogs out of Calais; sets down in +immense figures on the credit side of his account the sous he gives away +to the Montreuil beggars; and, at Nampont, gets out of the chaise and +whimpers over that famous dead donkey, for which any sentimentalist may +cry who will. It is agreeably and skilfully done--that dead jackass; like +M. de Soubise's cook, on the campaign, Sterne dresses it, and serves it up +quite tender and with a very piquante sauce. But tears, and fine feelings, +and a white pocket-handkerchief, and a funeral sermon, and horses and +feathers, and a procession of mutes, and a hearse with a dead donkey +inside! Psha! Mountebank! I'll not give thee one penny more for that +trick, donkey and all! + +This donkey had appeared once before with signal effect. In 1765, three +years before the publication of the _Sentimental Journey_, the seventh and +eighth volumes of _Tristram Shandy_ were given to the world, and the +famous Lyons donkey makes his entry in those volumes (pp. 315, 316):-- + +"'Twas by a poor ass, with a couple of large panniers at his back, who had +just turned in to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves, and +stood dubious, with his two forefeet at the inside of the threshold, and +with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing very well +whether he was to go in or no. + +"Now 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike; +there is a patient endurance of suffering wrote so unaffectedly in his +looks and carriage which pleads so mightily for him, that it always +disarms me, and to that degree that I do not like to speak unkindly to +him: on the contrary, meet him where I will, whether in town or country, +in cart or under panniers, whether in liberty or bondage, I have ever +something civil to say to him on my part; and, as one word begets another +(if he has as little to do as I), I generally fall into conversation with +him; and surely never is my imagination so busy as in framing responses +from the etchings of his countenance; and where those carry me not deep +enough, in flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural +for an ass to think--as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is +the only creature of all the classes of beings below me with whom I can do +this.... With an ass I can commune for ever. + +" 'Come, Honesty,' said I, seeing it was impracticable to pass betwixt him +and the gate, 'art thou for coming in or going out?' + +"The ass twisted his head round to look up the street. + +" 'Well!' replied I, 'we'll wait a minute for thy driver.' + +"He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the opposite +way. + +" 'I understand thee perfectly,' answered I: 'if thou takest a wrong step +in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death. Well! a minute is but a +minute; and if it saves a fellow creature a drubbing, it shall not be set +down as ill spent.' + +"He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and, in +the little peevish contentions between hunger and unsavouriness, had +dropped it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and had picked it up +again. 'God help thee, Jack!' said I, 'thou hast a bitter breakfast +on't--and many a bitter day's labour, and many a bitter blow, I fear, for +its wages! 'Tis all, all bitterness to thee--whatever life is to others! +And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter. I dare say, +as soot' (for he had cast aside the stem), 'and thou hast not a friend +perhaps in all this world that will give thee a macaroon.' In saying this, +I pulled out a paper of 'em, which I had just bought, and gave him +one;--and, at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me that +there was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing _how_ an ass would +eat a macaroon than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in +the act. + +"When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to come in. The poor +beast was heavy loaded--his legs seemed to tremble under him--he hung rather +backward, and, as I pulled at his halter, it broke in my hand. He looked +up pensive in my face: 'Don't thrash me with it: but if you will you may.' +'If I do,' said I, 'I'll be d----.' " + +A critic who refuses to see in this charming description wit, humour, +pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real sentiment, must be hard indeed +to move and to please. A page or two farther we come to a description not +less beautiful--a landscape and figures, deliciously painted by one who had +the keenest enjoyment and the most tremulous sensibility:-- + +"'Twas in the road between Nismes and Lunel, where is the best Muscatto +wine in all France: the sun was set, they had done their work; the nymphs +had tied up their hair afresh, and the swains were preparing for a +carousal. My mule made a dead point. ''Tis the pipe and tambourine,' said +I--'I never will argue a point with one of your family as long as I live;' +so leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch and +t'other into that, 'I'll take a dance,' said I, 'so stay you here.' + +"A sunburnt daughter of labour rose up from the group to meet me as I +advanced towards them; her hair, which was of a dark chestnut approaching +to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a single tress. + +" 'We want a cavalier,' said she, holding out both her hands, as if to +offer them. 'And a cavalier you shall have,' said I, taking hold of both +of them. 'We could not have done without you,' said she, letting go one +hand, with self-taught politeness, and leading me up with the other. + +"A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, and to which he +had added a tambourine of his own accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as +he sat upon the bank. 'Tie me up this tress instantly,' said Nannette, +putting a piece of string into my hand. It taught me to forget I was a +stranger. The whole knot fell down--we had been seven years acquainted. The +youth struck the note upon the tambourine, his pipe followed, and off we +bounded. + +"The sister of the youth--who had stolen her voice from Heaven--sang +alternately with her brother. 'Twas a Gascoigne roundelay. '_Viva la joia, +fidon la tristessa!_'--the nymphs joined in unison, and their swains an +octave below them. + +"_Viva la joia_ was in Nannette's lips, _viva la joia_ in her eyes. A +transient spark of amity shot across the space betwixt us. She looked +amiable. Why could I not live and end my days thus? 'Just Disposer of our +joys and sorrows!' cried I, 'why could not a man sit down in the lap of +content here, and dance, and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven +with this nut-brown maid?' Capriciously did she bend her head on one side, +and dance up insidious. 'Then 'tis time to dance off,' quoth I." + +And with this pretty dance and chorus, the volume artfully concludes. Even +here one can't give the whole description. There is not a page in Sterne's +writing but has something that were better away, a latent corruption--a +hint, as of an impure presence.(170) + +Some of that dreary _double entendre_ may be attributed to freer times and +manners than ours, but not all. The foul Satyr's eyes leer out of the +leaves constantly: the last words the famous author wrote were bad and +wicked--the last lines the poor stricken wretch penned were for pity and +pardon. I think of these past writers and of one who lives amongst us now, +and am grateful for the innocent laughter and the sweet and unsullied page +which the author of _David Copperfield_ gives to my children. + + ------------------------------------- + + + Jete sur cette boule, + Laid, chetif et souffrant; + Etouffe dans la foule, + Faute d'etre assez grand; + + Une plainte touchante + De ma bouche sortit; + Le bon Dieu me dit: Chante, + Chante, pauvre petit! + + Chanter, ou je m'abuse, + Est ma tache ici-bas. + Tous ceux qu'ainsi j'amuse, + Ne m'aimeront-ils pas? + + +In those charming lines of Beranger, one may fancy described the career, +the sufferings, the genius, the gentle nature of GOLDSMITH, and the esteem +in which we hold him. Who, of the millions whom he has amused, doesn't +love him? To be the most beloved of English writers, what a title that is +for a man!(171) A wild youth, wayward, but full of tenderness and +affection, quits the country village where his boyhood has been passed in +happy musing, in idle shelter, in fond longing to see the great world out +of doors, and achieve name and fortune--and after years of dire struggle, +and neglect and poverty, his heart turning back as fondly to his native +place, as it had longed eagerly for change when sheltered there, he writes +a book and a poem, full of the recollections and feelings of home--he +paints the friends and scenes of his youth, and peoples Auburn and +Wakefield with remembrances of Lissoy. Wander he must, but he carries away +a home-relic with him, and dies with it on his breast. His nature is +truant; in repose it longs for change: as on the journey it looks back for +friends and quiet. He passes to-day in building an air-castle for +to-morrow, or in writing yesterday's elegy; and he would fly away this +hour, but that a cage and necessity keep him. What is the charm of his +verse, of his style, and humour? His sweet regrets, his delicate +compassion, his soft smile, his tremulous sympathy, the weakness which he +owns? Your love for him is half pity. You come hot and tired from the +day's battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you. Who could harm the +kind vagrant harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries no weapon--save the +harp on which he plays to you; and with which he delights great and +humble, young and old, the captains in the tents, or the soldiers round +the fire, or the women and children in the villages, at whose porches he +stops and sings his simple songs of love and beauty. With that sweet story +of the _Vicar of Wakefield_,(172) he has found entry into every castle and +every hamlet in Europe. Not one of us, however busy or hard, but once or +twice in our lives has passed an evening with him, and undergone the charm +of his delightful music. + +Goldsmith's father was no doubt the good Doctor Primrose, whom we all of +us know.(173) Swift was yet alive, when the little Oliver was born at +Pallas, or Pallasmore, in the county of Longford, in Ireland. In 1730, two +years after the child's birth, Charles Goldsmith removed his family to +Lissoy, in the county Westmeath, that sweet "Auburn" which every person +who hears me has seen in fancy. Here the kind parson(174) brought up his +eight children; and loving all the world, as his son says, fancied all the +world loved him. He had a crowd of poor dependants besides those hungry +children. He kept an open table; round which sat flatterers and poor +friends, who laughed at the honest rector's many jokes, and ate the +produce of his seventy acres of farm. Those who have seen an Irish house +in the present day can fancy that one of Lissoy. The old beggar still has +his allotted corner by the kitchen turf; the maimed old soldier still gets +his potatoes and buttermilk; the poor cottier still asks his honour's +charity, and prays God bless his Reverence for the sixpence; the ragged +pensioner still takes his place by right and sufferance. There's still a +crowd in the kitchen, and a crowd round the parlour-table, profusion, +confusion, kindness, poverty. If an Irishman comes to London to make his +fortune, he has a half-dozen of Irish dependants who take a percentage of +his earnings. The good Charles Goldsmith(175) left but little provision +for his hungry race when death summoned him; and one of his daughters +being engaged to a squire of rather superior dignity, Charles Goldsmith +impoverished the rest of his family to provide the girl with a dowry. + +The small-pox, which scourged all Europe at that time, and ravaged the +roses off the cheeks of half the world, fell foul of poor little Oliver's +face, when the child was eight years old, and left him scarred and +disfigured for his life. An old woman in his father's village taught him +his letters, and pronounced him a dunce: Paddy Byrne, the +hedge-schoolmaster, took him in hand; and from Paddy Byrne, he was +transmitted to a clergyman at Elphin. When a child was sent to school in +those days, the classic phrase was that he was placed under Mr. +So-and-so's _ferule_. Poor little ancestors! It is hard to think how +ruthlessly you were birched; and how much of needless whipping and tears +our small forefathers had to undergo! A relative--kind Uncle Contarine, +took the main charge of little Noll; who went through his school-days +righteously doing as little work as he could: robbing orchards, playing at +ball, and making his pocket-money fly about whenever fortune sent it to +him. Everybody knows the story of that famous "Mistake of a Night", when +the young schoolboy, provided with a guinea and a nag, rode up to the +"best house" in Ardagh, called for the landlord's company over a bottle of +wine at supper, and for a hot cake for breakfast in the morning; and +found, when he asked for the bill, that the best house was Squire +Featherstone's, and not the inn for which he mistook it. Who does not know +every story about Goldsmith? That is a delightful and fantastic picture of +the child dancing and capering about in the kitchen at home, when the old +fiddler gibed at him for his ugliness--and called him Aesop, and little +Noll made his repartee of "Heralds proclaim aloud this saying--See Aesop +dancing and his monkey playing". One can fancy a queer pitiful look of +humour and appeal upon that little scarred face--the funny little dancing +figure, the funny little brogue. In his life, and his writings, which are +the honest expression of it, he is constantly bewailing that homely face +and person; anon, he surveys them in the glass ruefully; and presently +assumes the most comical dignity. He likes to deck out his little person +in splendour and fine colours. He presented himself to be examined for +ordination in a pair of scarlet breeches, and said honestly that he did +not like to go into the Church, because he was fond of coloured clothes. +When he tried to practise as a doctor, he got by hook or by crook a black +velvet suit, and looked as big and grand as he could, and kept his hat +over a patch on the old coat: in better days he bloomed out in +plum-colour, in blue silk, and in new velvet. For some of those splendours +the heirs and assignees of Mr. Filby, the tailor, have never been paid to +this day; perhaps the kind tailor and his creditor have met and settled +the little account in Hades.(176) + +They showed until lately a window at Trinity College, Dublin, on which the +name of O. Goldsmith was engraved with a diamond. Whose diamond was it? +Not the young sizar's, who made but a poor figure in that place of +learning. He was idle, penniless, and fond of pleasure:(177) he learned +his way early to the pawnbroker's shop. He wrote ballads, they say, for +the street-singers, who paid him a crown for a poem: and his pleasure was +to steal out at night and hear his verses sung. He was chastised by his +tutor for giving a dance in his rooms, and took the box on the ear so much +to heart, that he packed up his all, pawned his books and little property, +and disappeared from college and family. He said he intended to go to +America, but when his money was spent, the young prodigal came home +ruefully, and the good folks there killed their calf--it was but a lean +one--and welcomed him back. + +After college, he hung about his mother's house, and lived for some years +the life of a buckeen--passed a month with this relation and that, a year +with one patron, a great deal of time at the public-house.(178) Tired of +this life, it was resolved that he should go to London, and study at the +Temple; but he got no farther on the road to London and the woolsack than +Dublin, where he gambled away the fifty pounds given to him for his +outfit, and whence he returned to the indefatigable forgiveness of home. +Then he determined to be a doctor, and Uncle Contarine helped him to a +couple of years at Edinburgh. Then from Edinburgh he felt that he ought to +hear the famous professors of Leyden and Paris, and wrote most amusing +pompous letters to his uncle about the great Farheim, Du Petit, and +Duhamel du Monceau, whose lectures he proposed to follow. If Uncle +Contarine believed those letters--if Oliver's mother believed that story +which the youth related of his going to Cork, with the purpose of +embarking for America, of his having paid his passage-money, and having +sent his kit on board; of the anonymous captain sailing away with Oliver's +valuable luggage in a nameless ship, never to return; if Uncle Contarine +and the mother at Ballymahon believed his stories, they must have been a +very simple pair; as it was a very simple rogue indeed who cheated them. +When the lad, after failing in his clerical examination, after failing in +his plan for studying the law, took leave of these projects and of his +parents, and set out for Edinburgh, he saw mother, and uncle, and lazy +Ballymahon, and green native turf, and sparkling river for the last time. +He was never to look on old Ireland more, and only in fancy revisit her. + + + But me not destined such delights to share, + My prime of life in wandering spent and care, + Impelled, with step unceasing, to pursue + Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view; + + That like the circle bounding earth and skies + Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies: + My fortune leads to traverse realms unknown, + And find no spot of all the world my own. + + +I spoke in a former lecture of that high courage which enabled Fielding, +in spite of disease, remorse, and poverty, always to retain a cheerful +spirit and to keep his manly benevolence and love of truth intact, as if +these treasures had been confided to him for the public benefit, and he +was accountable to posterity for their honourable employ; and a constancy +equally happy and admirable I think was shown by Goldsmith, whose sweet +and friendly nature bloomed kindly always in the midst of a life's storm, +and rain, and bitter weather.(179) The poor fellow was never so friendless +but he could befriend some one; never so pinched and wretched but he could +give of his crust, and speak his word of compassion. If he had but his +flute left, he could give that, and make the children happy in the dreary +London court. He could give the coals in that queer coal-scuttle we read +of to his poor neighbour: he could give away his blankets in college to +the poor widow, and warm himself as he best might in the feathers: he +could pawn his coat to save his landlord from gaol: when he was a +school-usher, he spent his earnings in treats for the boys, and the +good-natured schoolmaster's wife said justly that she ought to keep Mr. +Goldsmith's money as well as the young gentlemen's. When he met his pupils +in later life, nothing would satisfy the Doctor but he must treat them +still. "Have you seen the print of me after Sir Joshua Reynolds?" he asked +of one of his old pupils. "Not seen it? not bought it? Sure, Jack, if your +picture had been published, I'd not have been without it half an hour." +His purse and his heart were everybody's, and his friends' as much as his +own. When he was at the height of his reputation, and the Earl of +Northumberland, going as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland, asked if he could be +of any service to Dr. Goldsmith, Goldsmith recommended his brother, and +not himself, to the great man. "My patrons," he gallantly said, "are the +booksellers, and I want no others."(180) Hard patrons they were, and hard +work he did; but he did not complain much: if in his early writings some +bitter words escaped him, some allusions to neglect and poverty, he +withdrew these expressions when his works were republished, and better +days seemed to open for him; and he did not care to complain that printer +or publisher had overlooked his merit, or left him poor. The Court face +was turned from honest Oliver, the Court patronized Beattie; the fashion +did not shine on him--fashion adored Sterne.(181) + +Fashion pronounced Kelly to be the great writer of comedy of his day. A +little--not ill humour, but plaintiveness--a little betrayal of wounded +pride which he showed render him not the less amiable. The author of the +_Vicar of Wakefield_ had a right to protest when Newbery kept back the MS. +for two years; had a right to be a little peevish with Sterne; a little +angry when Colman's actors declined their parts in his delightful comedy, +when the manager refused to have a scene painted for it, and pronounced +its damnation before hearing. He had not the great public with him; but he +had the noble Johnson, and the admirable Reynolds, and the great Gibbon, +and the great Burke, and the great Fox--friends and admirers illustrious +indeed, as famous as those who, fifty years before, sat round Pope's +table. + +Nobody knows, and I dare say Goldsmith's buoyant temper kept no account of +all the pains which he endured during the early period of his literary +career. Should any man of letters in our day have to bear up against such, +Heaven grant he may come out of the period of misfortune with such a pure +kind heart as that which Goldsmith obstinately bore in his breast. The +insults to which he had to submit are shocking to read of--slander, +contumely, vulgar satire, brutal malignity perverting his commonest +motives and actions: he had his share of these, and one's anger is roused +at reading of them, as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a child +assaulted, at the notion that a creature so very gentle and weak, and full +of love, should have had to suffer so. And he had worse than insult to +undergo--to own to fault, and deprecate the anger of ruffians. There is a +letter of his extant to one Griffiths, a bookseller, in which poor +Goldsmith is forced to confess that certain books sent by Griffiths are in +the hands of a friend from whom Goldsmith had been forced to borrow money. +"He was wild, sir," Johnson said, speaking of Goldsmith to Boswell, with +his great, wise benevolence and noble mercifulness of heart, "Dr. +Goldsmith was wild, sir; but he is so no more." Ah! if we pity the good +and weak man who suffers undeservedly, let us deal very gently with him +from whom misery extorts not only tears, but shame; let us think humbly +and charitably of the human nature that suffers so sadly and falls so low. +Whose turn may it be tomorrow? What weak heart, confident before trial, +may not succumb under temptation invincible? Cover the good man who has +been vanquished--cover his face and pass on. + +For the last half-dozen years of his life, Goldsmith was far removed from +the pressure of any ignoble necessity: and in the receipt, indeed, of a +pretty large income from the booksellers, his patrons. Had he lived but a +few years more, his public fame would have been as great as his private +reputation, and he might have enjoyed alive a part of that esteem which +his country has ever since paid to the vivid and versatile genius who has +touched on almost every subject of literature, and touched nothing that he +did not adorn. Except in rare instances, a man is known in our profession, +and esteemed as a skilful workman, years before the lucky hit which +trebles his usual gains, and stamps him a popular author. In the strength +of his age, and the dawn of his reputation, having for backers and friends +the most illustrious literary men of his time,(182) fame and prosperity +might have been in store for Goldsmith, had fate so willed it; and, at +forty-six, had not sudden disease carried him off. I say prosperity rather +than competence, for it is probable that no sum could have put order into +his affairs or sufficed for his irreclaimable habits of dissipation. It +must be remembered that he owed 2,000_l._ when he died. "Was ever poet," +Johnson asked, "so trusted before?" As has been the case with many another +good fellow of his nation, his life was tracked and his substance wasted +by crowds of hungry beggars, and lazy dependants. If they came at a lucky +time (and be sure they knew his affairs better than he did himself, and +watched his pay-day), he gave them of his money: if they begged on +empty-purse days he gave them his promissory bills: or he treated them to +a tavern where he had credit; or he obliged them with an order upon honest +Mr. Filby for coats, for which he paid as long as he could earn, and until +the shears of Filby were to cut for him no more. Staggering under a load +of debt and labour, tracked by bailiffs and reproachful creditors, running +from a hundred poor dependants, whose appealing looks were perhaps the +hardest of all pains for him to bear, devising fevered plans for the +morrow, new histories, new comedies, all sorts of new literary schemes, +flying from all these into seclusion, and out of seclusion into +pleasure--at last, at five-and-forty, death seized him and closed his +career.(183) I have been many a time in the chambers in the Temple which +were his, and passed up the staircase, which Johnson, and Burke, and +Reynolds trod to see their friend, their poet, their kind Goldsmith--the +stair on which the poor women sat weeping bitterly when they heard that +the greatest and most generous of all men was dead within the black oak +door.(184) Ah, it was a different lot from that for which the poor fellow +sighed, when he wrote with heart yearning for home those most charming of +all fond verses, in which he fancies he revisits Auburn-- + + + Here as I take my solitary rounds, + Amidst thy tangled walks and ruined grounds, + And, many a year elapsed, return to view + Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, + Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train, + Swells at my heart, and turns the past to pain. + + In all my wanderings round this world of care + In all my griefs--and God has given my share, + I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, + Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; + To husband out life's taper at the close, + And keep the flame from wasting by repose; + I still had hopes--for pride attends us still-- + Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, + Around my fire an evening group to draw, + And tell of all I felt and all I saw; + And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue. + Pants to the place from whence at first she flew-- + I still had hopes--my long vexations past, + Here to return, and die at home at last. + + O blest retirement, friend to life's decline! + Retreats from care that never must be mine-- + How blest is he who crowns in shades like these, + A youth of labour with an age of ease; + Who quits a world where strong temptations try, + And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! + For him no wretches born to work and weep + Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep; + No surly porter stands in guilty state + To spurn imploring famine from his gate: + But on he moves to meet his latter end, + Angels around befriending virtue's friend; + Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, + Whilst resignation gently slopes the way; + And all his prospects brightening at the last, + His heaven commences ere the world be past. + + +In these verses, I need not say with what melody, with what touching +truth, with what exquisite beauty of comparison--as indeed in hundreds more +pages of the writings of this honest soul--the whole character of the man +is told--his humble confession of faults and weakness; his pleasant little +vanity, and desire that his village should admire him; his simple scheme +of good in which everybody was to be happy--no beggar was to be refused his +dinner--nobody in fact was to work much, and he to be the harmless chief of +the Utopia, and the monarch of the Irish Yvetot. He would have told again, +and without fear of their failing, those famous jokes(185) which had hung +fire in London; he would have talked of his great friends of the Club--of +my Lord Clare and my Lord Bishop, my Lord Nugent--sure he knew them +intimately, and was hand and glove with some of the best men in town--and +he would have spoken of Johnson and of Burke, from Cork, and of Sir Joshua +who had painted him--and he would have told wonderful sly stories of +Ranelagh and the Pantheon, and the masquerades at Madame Cornelys'; and he +would have toasted, with a sigh, the Jessamy Bride--the lovely Mary +Horneck. + +The figure of that charming young lady forms one of the prettiest +recollections of Goldsmith's life. She and her beautiful sister, who +married Bunbury, the graceful and humorous amateur artist of those days, +when Gilray had but just begun to try his powers, were among the kindest +and dearest of Goldsmith's many friends, cheered and pitied him, travelled +abroad with him; made him welcome at their home, and gave him many a +pleasant holiday. He bought his finest clothes to figure at their country +house at Barton--he wrote them droll verses. They loved him, laughed at +him, played him tricks and made him happy. He asked for a loan from +Garrick, and Garrick kindly supplied him, to enable him to go to +Barton--but there were to be no more holidays, and only one brief struggle +more for poor Goldsmith--a lock of his hair was taken from the coffin and +given to the Jessamy Bride. She lived quite into our time. Hazlitt saw her +an old lady, but beautiful still, in Northcote's painting-room, who told +the eager critic how proud she always was that Goldsmith had admired her. +The younger Colman has left a touching reminiscence of him (vol. i. 63, +64). + +"I was only five years old," he says, "when Goldsmith took me on his knee +one evening whilst he was drinking coffee with my father, and began to +play with me, which amiable act I returned, with the ingratitude of a +peevish brat, by giving him a very smart slap on the face: it must have +been a tingler, for it left the marks of my spiteful paw on his cheek. +This infantile outrage was followed by summary justice, and I was locked +up by my indignant father in an adjoining room to undergo solitary +imprisonment in the dark. Here I began to howl and scream most abominably, +which was no bad step towards my liberation, since those who were not +inclined to pity me might be likely to set me free for the purpose of +abating a nuisance. + +"At length a generous friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy, and +that generous friend was no other than the man I had so wantonly molested +by assault and battery--it was the tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a +lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was +still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed +as he fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. Goldsmith seized the +propitious moment of returning good humour, when he put down the candle +and began to conjure. He placed three hats, which happened to be in the +room, and a shilling under each. The shillings he told me were England, +France, and Spain. 'Hey presto cockalorum!' cried the Doctor, and lo, on +uncovering the shillings, which had been dispersed each beneath a separate +hat, they were all found congregated under one. I was no politician at +five years old, and therefore might not have wondered at the sudden +revolution which brought England, France, and Spain all under one crown; +but, as also I was no conjurer, it amazed me beyond measure.... From that +time, whenever the Doctor came to visit my father, 'I plucked his gown to +share the good man's smile'; a game at romps constantly ensued, and we +were always cordial friends and merry playfellows. Our unequal +companionship varied somewhat as to sports as I grew older; but it did not +last long: my senior playmate died in his forty-fifth year, when I had +attained my eleventh.... In all the numerous accounts of his virtues and +foibles, his genius and absurdities, his knowledge of nature and ignorance +of the world, his 'compassion for another's woe' was always predominant; +and my trivial story of his humouring a froward child weighs but as a +feather in the recorded scale of his benevolence." + +Think of him reckless, thriftless, vain if you like--but merciful, gentle, +generous, full of love and pity. He passes out of our life, and goes to +render his account beyond it. Think of the poor pensioners weeping at his +grave; think of the noble spirits that admired and deplored him; think of +the righteous pen that wrote his epitaph--and of the wonderful and +unanimous response of affection with which the world has paid back the +love he gave it. His humour delighting us still: his song fresh and +beautiful as when first he charmed with it: his words in all our mouths: +his very weaknesses beloved and familiar--his benevolent spirit seems still +to smile upon us: to do gentle kindnesses: to succour with sweet charity: +to soothe, caress, and forgive: to plead with the fortunate for the +unhappy and the poor. + +His name is the last in the list of those men of humour who have formed +the themes of the discourses which you have heard so kindly. + + ------------------------------------- + +Long before I had ever hoped for such an audience, or dreamed of the +possibility of the good fortune which has brought me so many friends, I +was at issue with some of my literary brethren upon a point--which they +held from tradition I think rather than experience--that our profession was +neglected in this country; and that men of letters were ill-received and +held in slight esteem. It would hardly be grateful of me now to alter my +old opinion that we do meet with goodwill and kindness, with generous +helping hands in the time of our necessity, with cordial and friendly +recognition. What claim had any one of these of whom I have been speaking, +but genius? What return of gratitude, fame, affection, did it not bring to +all? + +What punishment befell those who were unfortunate among them, but that +which follows reckless habits and careless lives? For these faults a wit +must suffer like the dullest prodigal that ever ran in debt. He must pay +the tailor if he wears the coat; his children must go in rags if he spends +his money at the tavern; he can't come to London and be made Lord +Chancellor if he stops on the road and gambles away his last shilling at +Dublin. And he must pay the social penalty of these follies too, and +expect that the world will shun the man of bad habits, that women will +avoid the man of loose life, that prudent folks will close their doors as +a precaution, and before a demand should be made on their pockets by the +needy prodigal. With what difficulty had any one of these men to contend, +save that eternal and mechanical one of want of means and lack of capital, +and of which thousands of young lawyers, young doctors, young soldiers and +sailors, of inventors, manufacturers, shopkeepers, have to complain? +Hearts as brave and resolute as ever beat in the breast of any wit or +poet, sicken and break daily in the vain endeavour and unavailing struggle +against life's difficulty. Don't we see daily ruined inventors, +grey-haired midshipmen, balked heroes, blighted curates, barristers pining +a hungry life out in chambers, the attorneys never mounting to their +garrets, whilst scores of them are rapping at the door of the successful +quack below? If these suffer, who is the author, that he should be exempt? +Let us bear our ills with the same constancy with which others endure +them, accept our manly part in life, hold our own, and ask no more. I can +conceive of no kings or laws causing or curing Goldsmith's improvidence, +or Fielding's fatal love of pleasure, or Dick Steele's mania for running +races with the constable. You never can outrun that sure-footed +officer--not by any swiftness or by dodges devised by any genius, however +great; and he carries off the Tatler to the spunging-house, or taps the +Citizen of the World on the shoulder as he would any other mortal. + +Does society look down on a man because he is an author? I suppose if +people want a buffoon they tolerate him only in so far as he is amusing; +it can hardly be expected that they should respect him as an equal. Is +there to be a guard of honour provided for the author of the last new +novel or poem? how long is he to reign, and keep other potentates out of +possession? He retires, grumbles, and prints a lamentation that literature +is despised. If Captain A. is left out of Lady B.'s parties he does not +state that the army is despised: if Lord C. no longer asks Counsellor D. +to dinner, Counsellor D. does not announce that the Bar is insulted. He is +not fair to society if he enters it with this suspicion hankering about +him; if he is doubtful about his reception, how hold up his head honestly, +and look frankly in the face that world about which he is full of +suspicion? Is he place-hunting, and thinking in his mind that he ought to +be made an Ambassador, like Prior, or a Secretary of State, like Addison? +his pretence of equality falls to the ground at once: he is scheming for a +patron, not shaking the hand of a friend, when he meets the world. Treat +such a man as he deserves; laugh at his buffoonery, and give him a dinner +and a _bon jour_; laugh at his self-sufficiency and absurd assumptions of +superiority, and his equally ludicrous airs of martyrdom: laugh at his +flattery and his scheming, and buy it, if it's worth the having. Let the +wag have his dinner and the hireling his pay, if you want him, and make a +profound bow to the _grand homme incompris_, and the boisterous martyr, +and show him the door. The great world, the great aggregate experience, +has its good sense, as it has its good humour. It detects a pretender, as +it trusts a loyal heart. It is kind in the main: how should it be +otherwise than kind, when it is so wise and clear-headed? To any literary +man who says, "It despises my profession," I say, with all my might--no, +no, no. It may pass over your individual case--how many a brave fellow has +failed in the race, and perished unknown in the struggle!--but it treats +you as you merit in the main. If you serve it, it is not unthankful; if +you please it, it is pleased; if you cringe to it, it detects you, and +scorns you if you are mean; it returns your cheerfulness with its good +humour; it deals not ungenerously with your weaknesses; it recognizes most +kindly your merits; it gives you a fair place and fair play. To any one of +those men of whom we have spoken was it in the main ungrateful? A king +might refuse Goldsmith a pension, as a publisher might keep his +masterpiece and the delight of all the world in his desk for two years; +but it was mistake, and not ill will. Noble and illustrious names of +Swift, and Pope, and Addison! dear and honoured memories of Goldsmith and +Fielding! kind friends, teachers, benefactors! who shall say that our +country, which continues to bring you such an unceasing tribute of +applause, admiration, love, sympathy, does not do honour to the literary +calling in the honour which it bestows upon _you!_ + + + + + +THE GEORGES + + + + +The Poems + + +[_Punch_, October 11, 1845] + +As the statues of these beloved Monarchs are to be put up in the +Parliament palace--we have been favoured by a young lady (connected with +the Court) with copies of the inscriptions which are to be engraven under +the images of those Stars of Brunswick. + + + GEORGE I--STAR OF BRUNSWICK + + He preferred Hanover to England, + He preferred two hideous Mistresses + To a beautiful and innocent Wife. + He hated Arts and despised Literature; + But He liked train-oil in his salads, + And gave an enlightened patronage to bad oysters. + And he had Walpole as a Minister: + Consistent in his Preference for every kind of Corruption. + + GEORGE II + + In most things I did as my father had done, + I was false to my wife and I hated my son: + + My spending was small and my avarice much, + My kingdom was English, my heart was High Dutch: + + At Dettingen fight I was known not to blench + I butchered the Scotch, and I bearded the French: + + I neither had morals, nor manners, nor wit; + I wasn't much missed when I died in a fit. + + Here set up my statue, and make it complete--With + Pitt on his knees at my dirty old feet. + + GEORGE III + + Give me a royal niche--it is my due, + The virtuousest king the realm e'er knew. + + I, through a decent reputable life, + Was constant to plain food and a plain wife. + + Ireland I risked, and lost America; + But dined on legs of mutton every day. + + My brain, perhaps, might be a feeble part; + But yet I think I had an English heart. + + When all the kings were prostrate, I alone + Stood face to face against Napoleon; + + Nor ever could the ruthless Frenchman forge + A fetter for Old England and Old George: + + I let loose flaming Nelson on his fleets; + I met his troops with Wellesley's bayonets. + + Triumphant waved my flag on land and sea: + Where was the king in Europe like to me? + + Monarchs exiled found shelter on my shores; + My bounty rescued kings and emperors. + + But what boots victory by land or sea? + What boots that kings found refuge at my knee? + + I was a conqueror, but yet not proud; + And careless, even though Napoleon bow'd. + + The rescued kings came kiss my garments' hem: + The rescued kings I never heeded them. + + My guns roar'd triumph, but I never heard: + All England thrilled with joy, I never stirred. + + What care had I of pomp, or fame, or power,-- + A crazy old blind man in Windsor Tower? + + GEORGIUS ULTIMUS + + He left an example for age and for youth + To avoid. + He never acted well by Man or Woman, + And was as false to his Mistress as to his Wife. + He deserted his Friends and his Principles. + He was so ignorant that he could scarcely Spell; + But he had some Skill in Cutting out Coats, + And an undeniable Taste for Cookery. + He built the Palaces of Brighton and of Buckingham, + And for these Qualities and Proofs of Genius, + An admiring Aristocracy + Christened him the "First Gentleman in Europe". + Friends, respect the King whose Statue is here, + And the generous Aristocracy who admired him. + + + + +Sketches Of Manners, Morals, Court And Town Life + + +[_Cornhill Magazine_, 1860; first edition in book form, 1861] + + + +George The First + + +A very few years since, I knew familiarly a lady, who had been asked in +marriage by Horace Walpole, who had been patted on the head by George I. +This lady had knocked at Johnson's door; had been intimate with Fox, the +beautiful Georgina of Devonshire, and that brilliant Whig society of the +reign of George III; had known the Duchess of Queensberry, the patroness +of Gay and Prior, the admired young beauty of the Court of Queen Anne. I +often thought as I took my kind old friend's hand, how with it I held on +to the old society of wits and men of the world. I could travel back for +sevenscore years of time--have glimpses of Brummell, Selwyn, Chesterfield +and the men of pleasure; of Walpole and Conway; of Johnson, Reynolds, +Goldsmith; of North, Chatham, Newcastle; of the fair maids of honour of +George II's Court; of the German retainers of George I's; where Addison +was secretary of state; where Dick Steele held a place; whither the great +Marlborough came with his fiery spouse; when Pope, and Swift, and +Bolingbroke yet lived and wrote. Of a society so vast, busy, brilliant, it +is impossible in four brief chapters to give a complete notion; but we may +peep here and there into that bygone world of the Georges, see what they +and their Courts were like; glance at the people round about them; look at +past manners, fashions, pleasures, and contrast them with our own. I have +to say thus much by way of preface, because the subject of these lectures +has been misunderstood, and I have been taken to task for not having given +grave historical treatises, which it never was my intention to attempt. +Not about battles, about politics, about statesmen and measures of state, +did I ever think to lecture you: but to sketch the manners and life of the +old world; to amuse for a few hours with talk about the old society; and, +with the result of many a day's and night's pleasant reading, to try and +wile away a few winter evenings for my hearers. + + ------------------------------------- + +Among the German princes who sat under Luther at Wittenberg, was Duke +Ernest of Celle, whose younger son, William of Lueneburg, was the +progenitor of the illustrious Hanoverian house at present reigning in +Great Britain. Duke William held his Court at Celle, a little town of ten +thousand people that lies on the railway line between Hamburg and Hanover, +in the midst of great plains of sand, upon the river Aller. When Duke +William had it, it was a very humble wood-built place, with a great brick +church, which he sedulously frequented, and in which he and others of his +house lie buried. He was a very religious lord, and called William the +Pious by his small circle of subjects, over whom he ruled till fate +deprived him both of sight and reason. Sometimes, in his latter days, the +good duke had glimpses of mental light, when he would bid his musicians +play the psalm-tunes which he loved. One thinks of a descendant of his, +two hundred years afterwards, blind, old, and lost of wits, singing Handel +in Windsor Tower. + +William the Pious had fifteen children, eight daughters and seven sons, +who, as the property left among them was small, drew lots to determine +which one of them should marry, and continue the stout race of the +Guelphs. The lot fell on Duke George, the sixth brother. The others +remained single, or contracted left-handed marriages after the princely +fashion of those days. It is a queer picture--that of the old prince dying +in his little wood-built capital, and his seven sons tossing up which +should inherit and transmit the crown of Brentford. Duke George, the lucky +prizeman, made the tour of Europe, during which he visited the Court of +Queen Elizabeth; and in the year 1617, came back and settled at Zell, with +a wife out of Darmstadt. His remaining brothers all kept their house at +Zell, for economy's sake. And presently, in due course, they all died--all +the honest dukes; Ernest, and Christian, and Augustus, and Magnus, and +George, and John--and they are buried in the brick church of Brentford +yonder, by the sandy banks of the Aller. + +Dr. Vehse gives a pleasant glimpse of the way of life of our dukes in +Zell. "When the trumpeter on the tower has blown," Duke Christian +orders--viz. at nine o'clock in the morning, and four in the evening, every +one must be present at meals, and those who are not must go without. None +of the servants, unless it be a knave who has been ordered to ride out, +shall eat or drink in the kitchen or cellar; or, without special leave, +fodder his horses at the prince's cost. When the meal is served in the +Court-room, a page shall go round and bid every one be quiet and orderly, +forbidding all cursing, swearing, and rudeness; all throwing about of +bread, bones, or roast, or pocketing of the same. Every morning, at seven, +the squires shall have their morning soup, along with which, and dinner, +they shall be served with their under-drink--every morning, except Friday +morning, when there was sermon, and no drink. Every evening they shall +have their beer, and at night their sleep-drink. The butler is especially +warned not to allow noble or simple to go into the cellar: wine shall only +be served at the prince's or councillor's table; and every Monday, the +honest old Duke Christian ordains the accounts shall be ready, and the +expenses in the kitchen, the wine and beer cellar, the bakehouse and +stable, made out. + +Duke George, the marrying duke, did not stop at home to partake of the +beer and wine, and the sermons. He went about fighting wherever there was +profit to be had. He served as general in the army of the circle of Lower +Saxony, the Protestant army; then he went over to the emperor, and fought +in his armies in Germany and Italy; and when Gustavus Adolphus appeared in +Germany, George took service as a Swedish general, and seized the Abbey of +Hildesheim, as his share of the plunder. Here, in the year 1641, Duke +George died, leaving four sons behind him, from the youngest of whom +descend our royal Georges. + +Under these children of Duke George, the old God-fearing, simple ways of +Zell appear to have gone out of mode. The second brother was constantly +visiting Venice, and leading a jolly, wicked life there. It was the most +jovial of all places at the end of the seventeenth century; and military +men, after a campaign, rushed thither, as the warriors of the Allies +rushed to Paris in 1814, to gamble, and rejoice, and partake of all sorts +of godless delights. This prince, then, loving Venice and its pleasures, +brought Italian singers and dancers back with him to quiet old Zell; and, +worse still, demeaned himself by marrying a French lady of birth quite +inferior to his own--Eleanor d'Olbreuse, from whom our queen is descended. +Eleanor had a pretty daughter, who inherited a great fortune, which +inflamed her cousin, George Louis of Hanover, with a desire to marry her; +and so, with her beauty and her riches, she came to a sad end. + +It is too long to tell how the four sons of Duke George divided his +territories amongst them, and how, finally, they came into possession of +the son of the youngest of the four. In this generation the Protestant +faith was very nearly extinguished in the family: and then where should we +in England have gone for a king? The third brother also took delight in +Italy, where the priests converted him and his Protestant chaplain too. +Mass was said in Hanover once more; and Italian soprani piped their Latin +rhymes in place of the hymns which William the Pious and Dr. Luther sang. +Louis XIV gave this and other converts a splendid pension. Crowds of +Frenchmen and brilliant French fashions came into his Court. It is +incalculable how much that royal bigwig cost Germany. Every prince +imitated the French king, and had his Versailles, his Wilhelmshoehe or +Ludwigslust; his court and its splendours; his gardens laid out with +statues; his fountains, and waterworks, and Tritons; his actors, and +dancers, and singers, and fiddlers; his harem, with its inhabitants; his +diamonds and duchies for these latter; his enormous festivities, his +gaming-tables, tournaments, masquerades, and banquets lasting a week long, +for which the people paid with their money, when the poor wretches had it; +with their bodies and very blood when they had none; being sold in +thousands by their lords and masters, who gaily dealt in soldiers, staked +a regiment upon the red at the gambling-table; swapped a battalion against +a dancing-girl's diamond necklace; and, as it were, pocketed their people. + +As one views Europe, through contemporary books of travel in the early +part of the last century, the landscape is awful--wretched wastes, beggarly +and plundered; half-burned cottages and trembling peasants gathering +piteous harvests; gangs of such tramping along with bayonets behind them, +and corporals with canes and cats-of-nine-tails to flog them to barracks. +By these passes my lord's gilt carriage floundering through the ruts, as +he swears at the postilions, and toils on to the Residenz. Hard by, but +away from the noise and brawling of the citizens and buyers, is +Wilhelmslust or Ludwigsruhe, or Monbijou, or Versailles--it scarcely +matters which--near to the city, shut out by woods from the beggared +country, the enormous, hideous, gilded, monstrous marble palace, where the +prince is, and the Court, and the trim gardens, and huge fountains, and +the forest where the ragged peasants are beating the game in (it is death +to them to touch a feather); and the jolly hunt sweeps by with its uniform +of crimson and gold; and the prince gallops ahead puffing his royal horn; +and his lords and mistresses ride after him; and the stag is pulled down; +and the grand huntsman gives the knife in the midst of a chorus of bugles; +and 'tis time the Court go home to dinner; and our noble traveller, it may +be the Baron of Poellnitz, or the Count de Koenigsmarck, or the excellent +Chevalier de Seingalt, sees the procession gleaming through the trim +avenues of the wood, and hastens to the inn, and sends his noble name to +the marshal of the Court. Then our nobleman arrays himself in green and +gold, or pink and silver, in the richest Paris mode, and is introduced by +the chamberlain, and makes his bow to the jolly prince, and the gracious +princess; and is presented to the chief lords and ladies, and then comes +supper and a bank at faro, where he loses or wins a thousand pieces by +daylight. If it is a German Court, you may add not a little drunkenness to +this picture of high life; but German, or French, or Spanish, if you can +see out of your palace-windows beyond the trim-cut forest vistas, misery +is lying outside; hunger is stalking about the bare villages, listlessly +following precarious husbandry; ploughing stony fields with starved +cattle; or fearfully taking in scanty harvests. Augustus is fat and jolly +on his throne; he can knock down an ox, and eat one almost; his mistress +Aurora von Koenigsmarck is the loveliest, the wittiest creature; his +diamonds are the biggest and most brilliant in the world, and his feasts +as splendid as those of Versailles. As for Louis the Great, he is more +than mortal. Lift up your glances respectfully, and mark him eyeing Madame +de Fontanges or Madame de Montespan from under his sublime periwig, as he +passes through the great gallery where Villars and Vendome, and Berwick, +and Bossuet, and Massillon are waiting. Can Court be more splendid; nobles +and knights more gallant and superb; ladies more lovely? A grander +monarch, or a more miserable starved wretch than the peasant his subject, +you cannot look on. Let us bear both these types in mind, if we wish to +estimate the old society properly. Remember the glory and the chivalry? +Yes! Remember the grace and beauty, the splendour and lofty politeness; +the gallant courtesy of Fontenoy, where the French line bids the gentlemen +of the English guard to fire first; the noble constancy of the old king +and Villars his general, who fits out the last army with the last +crown-piece from the treasury, and goes to meet the enemy and die or +conquer for France at Denain. But round all that royal splendour lies a +nation enslaved and ruined: there are people robbed of their +rights--communities laid waste--faith, justice, commerce trampled upon, and +wellnigh destroyed--nay, in the very centre of royalty itself, what +horrible stains and meanness, crime and shame! It is but to a silly harlot +that some of the noblest gentlemen, and some of the proudest women in the +world, are bowing down; it is the price of a miserable province that the +king ties in diamonds round his mistress's white neck. In the first half +of the last century, I say, this is going on all Europe over. Saxony is a +waste as well as Picardy or Artois; and Versailles is only larger and not +worse than Herrenhausen. + + [Illustration] + + Two Portraits + + +It was the first Elector of Hanover who made the fortunate match which +bestowed the race of Hanoverian Sovereigns upon us Britons. Nine years +after Charles Stuart lost his head, his niece Sophia, one of many children +of another luckless dethroned sovereign, the Elector Palatine, married +Ernest Augustus of Brunswick, and brought the reversion to the crown of +the three kingdoms in her scanty trousseau. One of the handsomest, the +most cheerful, sensible, shrewd, accomplished of women was Sophia,(186) +daughter of poor Frederick, the winter king of Bohemia. The other +daughters of lovely, unhappy Elizabeth Stuart went off into the Catholic +Church; this one, luckily for her family, remained, I cannot say faithful +to the Reformed Religion, but at least she adopted no other. An agent of +the French king's, Gourville, a convert himself, strove to bring her and +her husband to a sense of the truth; and tells us that he one day asked +madame the Duchess of Hanover, of what religion her daughter was, then a +pretty girl of thirteen years old. The duchess replied that the princess +_was of no religion as yet_. They were waiting to know of what religion +her husband would be, Protestant or Catholic, before instructing her! And +the Duke of Hanover having heard all Gourville's proposal, said that a +change would be advantageous to his house, but that he himself was too old +to change. + +This shrewd woman had such keen eyes that she knew how to shut them upon +occasion, and was blind to many faults which it appeared that her husband +the Bishop of Osnaburg and Duke of Hanover committed. He loved to take his +pleasure like other sovereigns--was a merry prince, fond of dinner and the +bottle; liked to go to Italy, as his brothers had done before him; and we +read how he jovially sold 6,700 of his Hanoverians to the seigniory of +Venice. They went bravely off to the Morea, under command of Ernest's son, +Prince Max, and only 1,400 of them ever came home again. The German +princes sold a good deal of this kind of stock. You may remember how +George III's Government purchased Hessians, and the use we made of them +during the War of Independence. + +The ducats Duke Ernest got for his soldiers he spent in a series of the +most brilliant entertainments. Nevertheless, the jovial prince was +economical, and kept a steady eye upon his own interests. He achieved the +electoral dignity for himself: he married his eldest son George to his +beautiful cousin of Zell; and sending his sons out in command of armies to +fight--now on this side, now on that--he lived on, taking his pleasure, and +scheming his schemes, a merry, wise prince enough, not, I fear, a moral +prince, of which kind we shall have but very few specimens in the course +of these lectures. + +Ernest Augustus had seven children in all, some of whom were scapegraces, +and rebelled against the parental system of primogeniture and non-division +of property which the Elector ordained. "Gustchen," the Electress writes +about her second son:--"Poor Gus is thrust out, and his father will give +him no more keep. I laugh in the day, and cry all night about it; for I am +a fool with my children." Three of the six died fighting against Turks, +Tartars, Frenchmen. One of them conspired, revolted, fled to Rome, leaving +an agent behind him, whose head was taken off. The daughter, of whose +early education we have made mention, was married to the Elector of +Brandenburg, and so her religion settled finally on the Protestant side. + +A niece of the Electress Sophia--who had been made to change her religion, +and marry the Duke of Orleans, brother of the French king; a woman whose +honest heart was always with her friends and dear old Deutschland, though +her fat little body was confined at Paris or Marly, or Versailles--has left +us, in her enormous correspondence (part of which has been printed in +German and French), recollections of the Electress, and of George her son. +Elizabeth Charlotte was at Osnaburg when George was born (1660). She +narrowly escaped a whipping for being in the way on that auspicious day. +She seems not to have liked little George, nor George grown up; and +represents him as odiously hard, cold, and silent. Silent he may have +been: not a jolly prince like his father before him, but a prudent, quiet, +selfish potentate, going his own way, managing his own affairs, and +understanding his own interests remarkably well. + +In his father's lifetime, and at the head of the Hanover forces of 8,000 +or 10,000 men, George served the Emperor, on the Danube against Turks, at +the siege of Vienna, in Italy, and on the Rhine. When he succeeded to the +Electorate, he handled its affairs with great prudence and dexterity. He +was very much liked by his people of Hanover. He did not show his feelings +much, but he cried heartily on leaving them; as they used for joy when he +came back. He showed an uncommon prudence and coolness of behaviour when +he came into his kingdom; exhibiting no elation; reasonably doubtful +whether he should not be turned out some day; looking upon himself only as +a lodger, and making the most of his brief tenure of St. James's and +Hampton Court; plundering, it is true, somewhat, and dividing amongst his +German followers; but what could be expected of a sovereign who at home +could sell his subjects at so many ducats per head, and made no scruple in +so disposing of them? I fancy a considerable shrewdness, prudence, and +even moderation in his ways. The German Protestant was a cheaper, and +better, and kinder king than the Catholic Stuart in whose chair he sat, +and so far loyal to England, that he let England govern herself. + +Having these lectures in view I made it my business to visit that ugly +cradle in which our Georges were nursed. The old town of Hanover must look +still pretty much as in the time when George Louis left it. The gardens +and pavilions of Herrenhausen are scarce changed since the day when the +stout old Electress Sophia fell down in her last walk there, preceding but +by a few weeks to the tomb James II's daughter, whose death made way for +the Brunswick Stuarts in England. + +The two first royal Georges, and their father, Ernest Augustus, had quite +royal notions regarding marriage; and Louis XIV and Charles II scarce +distinguished themselves more at Versailles or St. James's, than these +German sultans in their little city on the banks of the Leine. You may see +at Herrenhausen the very rustic theatre in which the Platens danced and +performed masques, and sang before the Elector and his sons. There are the +very fauns and dryads of stone still glimmering through the branches, +still grinning and piping their ditties of no tone, as in the days when +painted nymphs hung garlands round them; appeared under their leafy +arcades with gilt crooks, guiding rams with gilt horns; descended from +"machines" in the guise of Diana or Minerva; and delivered immense +allegorical compliments to the princes returned home from the campaign. + +That was a curious state of morals and politics in Europe; a queer +consequence of the triumph of the monarchical principle. Feudalism was +beaten down. The nobility, in its quarrels with the crown, had pretty well +succumbed, and the monarch was all in all. He became almost divine: the +proudest and most ancient gentry of the land did menial service for him. +Who should carry Louis XIV's candle when he went to bed? What prince of +the blood should hold the king's shirt when his Most Christian Majesty +changed that garment?--the French memoirs of the seventeenth century are +full of such details and squabbles. The tradition is not yet extinct in +Europe. Any of you who were present, as myriads were, at that splendid +pageant, the opening of our Crystal Palace in London, must have seen two +noble lords, great officers of the household, with ancient pedigrees, with +embroidered coats, and stars on their breasts and wands in their hands, +walking backwards for near the space of a mile, while the royal procession +made its progress. Shall we wonder--shall we be angry--shall we laugh at +these old-world ceremonies? View them as you will, according to your mood; +and with scorn or with respect, or with anger and sorrow, as your temper +leads you. Up goes Gesler's hat upon the pole. Salute that symbol of +sovereignty with heartfelt awe; or with a sulky shrug of acquiescence, or +with a grinning obeisance; or with a stout rebellious No--clap your own +beaver down on your pate, and refuse to doff it, to that spangled velvet +and flaunting feather. I make no comment upon the spectators' behaviour; +all I say is, that Gesler's cap is still up in the market-place of Europe, +and not a few folks are still kneeling to it. + +Put clumsy, High Dutch statues in place of the marbles of Versailles: +fancy Herrenhausen waterworks in place of those of Marly: spread the +tables with _Schweinskopf_, _Specksuppe_, _Leberkuchen_, and the like +delicacies, in place of the French _cuisine_; and fancy Frau von +Kielmansegge dancing with Count Kammerjunker Quirini, or singing French +songs with the most awful German accent: imagine a coarse Versailles, and +we have a Hanover before us. "I am now got into the region of beauty," +writes Mary Wortley, from Hanover in 1716; "all the women have literally +rosy cheeks, snowy foreheads and necks, jet eyebrows, to which may +generally be added coal-black hair. These perfections never leave them to +the day of their death, and have a very fine effect by candlelight; but I +could wish they were handsome with a little variety. They resemble one +another as Mrs. Salmon's Court of Great Britain, and are in as much danger +of melting away by too nearly approaching the fire." The sly Mary Wortley +saw this painted seraglio of the first George at Hanover, the year after +his accession to the British throne. There were great doings and feasts +there. Here Lady Mary saw George II too. "I can tell you, without flattery +or partiality," she says, "that our young prince has all the +accomplishments that it is possible to have at his age, with an air of +sprightliness and understanding, and a something so very engaging in his +behaviour that needs not the advantage of his rank to appear charming." I +find elsewhere similar panegyrics upon Frederick Prince of Wales, George +II's son; and upon George III, of course, and upon George IV in an eminent +degree. It was the rule to be dazzled by princes, and people's eyes winked +quite honestly at that royal radiance. + +The Electoral Court of Hanover was numerous--pretty well paid, as times +went; above all, paid with a regularity which few other European Courts +could boast of. Perhaps you will be amused to know how the Electoral Court +was composed. There were the princes of the house in the first class; in +the second, the single field-marshal of the army (the contingent was +18,000, Poellnitz says, and the Elector had other 14,000 troops in his +pay). Then follow, in due order, the authorities civil and military, the +working privy councillors, the generals of cavalry and infantry, in the +third class; the high chamberlain, high marshals of the Court, high +masters of the horse, the major-generals of cavalry and infantry, in the +fourth class; down to the majors, the Hofjunkers or pages, the secretaries +or assessors, of the tenth class, of whom all were noble. + +We find the master of the horse had 1,090 thalers of pay; the high +chamberlain, 2,000--a thaler being about three shillings of our money. +There were two chamberlains, and one for the princess; five gentlemen of +the chamber, and five gentlemen ushers; eleven pages and personages to +educate these young noblemen--such as a governor, a preceptor, a +_Fechtmeister_, or fencing-master, and a dancing ditto, this latter with a +handsome salary of 400 thalers. There were three body and Court +physicians, with 800 and 500 thalers; a Court barber, 600 thalers; a Court +organist; two _Musikanten_; four French fiddlers; twelve trumpeters, and a +bugler; so that there was plenty of music, profane and pious, in Hanover. +There were ten chamber waiters, and twenty-four lackeys in livery; a +_maitre-d'hotel_, and attendants of the kitchen; a French cook; a body +cook; ten cooks; six cooks' assistants; two _Braten_ masters, or masters +of the roast--(one fancies enormous spits turning slowly, and the honest +masters of the roast beladling the dripping); a pastry baker; a pie baker; +and finally, three scullions, at the modest remuneration of eleven +thalers. In the sugar-chamber there were four pastry-cooks (for the +ladies, no doubt); seven officers in the wine and beer cellars; four bread +bakers; and five men in the plate-room. There were 600 horses in the +Serene stables--no less than twenty teams of princely carriage horses, +eight to a team; sixteen coachmen; fourteen postilions; nineteen ostlers; +thirteen helps, besides smiths, carriage-masters, horse-doctors, and other +attendants of the stable. The female attendants were not so numerous: I +grieve to find but a dozen or fourteen of them about the Electoral +premises, and only two washerwomen for all the Court. These functionaries +had not so much to do as in the present age. I own to finding a pleasure +in these small-beer chronicles. I like to people the old world, with its +everyday figures and inhabitants--not so much with heroes fighting immense +battles and inspiring repulsed battalions to engage; or statesmen locked +up in darkling cabinets and meditating ponderous laws or dire +conspiracies--as with people occupied with their every-day work or +pleasure: my lord and lady hunting in the forest, or dancing in the Court, +or bowing to their serene highnesses as they pass in to dinner; John Cook +and his procession bringing the meal from the kitchen; the jolly butlers +bearing in the flagons from the cellar; the stout coachman driving the +ponderous gilt wagon, with eight cream-coloured horses in housings of +scarlet velvet and morocco leather; a postilion on the leaders, and a pair +or a half-dozen of running footmen scudding along by the side of the +vehicle, with conical caps, long silver-headed maces, which they poised as +they ran, and splendid jackets laced all over with silver and gold. I +fancy the citizens' wives and their daughters looking out from the +balconies; and the burghers over their beer and mumm, rising up, cap in +hand, as the cavalcade passes through the town with torchbearers, +trumpeters blowing their lusty cheeks out, and squadrons of jack-booted +life-guardsmen, girt with shining cuirasses, and bestriding thundering +chargers, escorting his highness's coach from Hanover to Herrenhausen: or +halting, mayhap, at Madame Platen's country house of Monplaisir, which +lies half-way between the summer palace and the Residenz. + +In the good old times of which I am treating, whilst common men were +driven off by herds, and sold to fight the emperor's enemies on the +Danube, or to bayonet King Louis's troops of common men on the Rhine, +noblemen passed from Court to Court, seeking service with one prince or +the other, and naturally taking command of the ignoble vulgar of soldiery +which battled and died almost without hope of promotion. Noble adventurers +travelled from Court to Court in search of employment; not merely noble +males, but noble females too; and if these latter were beauties, and +obtained the favourable notice of princes, they stopped in the Courts, +became the favourites of their serene or royal highnesses; and received +great sums of money and splendid diamonds; and were promoted to be +duchesses, marchionesses, and the like; and did not fall much in public +esteem for the manner in which they won their advancement. In this way +Mdlle. de Querouailles, a beautiful French lady, came to London on a +special mission of Louis XIV, and was adopted by our grateful country and +sovereign, and figured as Duchess of Portsmouth. In this way the beautiful +Aurora of Koenigsmarck travelling about found favour in the eyes of +Augustus of Saxony, and became the mother of Marshal Saxe, who gave us a +beating at Fontenoy; and in this manner the lovely sisters Elizabeth and +Melusina of Meissenbach (who had actually been driven out of Paris, +whither they had travelled on a like errand, by the wise jealousy of the +female favourite there in possession) journeyed to Hanover, and became +favourites of the serene house there reigning. + +That beautiful Aurora von Koenigsmarck and her brother are wonderful as +types of bygone manners, and strange illustrations of the morals of old +days. The Koenigsmarcks were descended from an ancient noble family of +Brandenburgh, a branch of which passed into Sweden, where it enriched +itself and produced several mighty men of valour. + +The founder of the race was Hans Christof, a famous warrior and plunderer +of the Thirty Years' War. One of Hans's sons, Otto, appeared as ambassador +at the Court of Louis XIV, and had to make a Swedish speech at his +reception before the Most Christian King. Otto was a famous dandy and +warrior, but he forgot the speech, and what do you think he did? Far from +being disconcerted, he recited a portion of the Swedish Catechism to His +Most Christian Majesty and his Court, not one of whom understood his lingo +with the exception of his own suite, who had to keep their gravity as best +they might. + +Otto's nephew, Aurora's elder brother, Carl Johann of Koenigsmarck, a +favourite of Charles II, a beauty, a dandy, a warrior, a rascal of more +than ordinary mark, escaped but deserved being hanged in England, for the +murder of Tom Thynne of Longleat. He had a little brother in London with +him at this time,--as great a beauty, as great a dandy, as great a villain +as his elder. This lad, Philip of Koenigsmarck, also was implicated in the +affair; and perhaps it is a pity he ever brought his pretty neck out of +it. He went over to Hanover, and was soon appointed colonel of a regiment +of H. E. Highness's dragoons. In early life he had been page in the Court +of Celle; and it was said that he and the pretty Princess Sophia Dorothea, +who by this time was married to her cousin George the Electoral prince, +had been in love with each other as children. Their loves were now to be +renewed, not innocently, and to come to a fearful end. + +A biography of the wife of George I, by Dr. Doran, has lately appeared, +and I confess I am astounded at the verdict which that writer has +delivered, and at his acquittal of this most unfortunate lady. That she +had a cold selfish libertine of a husband no one can doubt; but that the +bad husband had a bad wife is equally clear. She was married to her cousin +for money or convenience, as all princesses were married. She was most +beautiful, lively, witty, accomplished: his brutality outraged her: his +silence and coldness chilled her: his cruelty insulted her. No wonder she +did not love him. How could love be a part of the compact in such a +marriage as that? With this unlucky heart to dispose of, the poor creature +bestowed it on Philip of Koenigsmarck, than whom a greater scamp does not +walk the history of the seventeenth century. A hundred and eighty years +after the fellow was thrust into his unknown grave, a Swedish professor +lights upon a box of letters in the University Library at Upsala, written +by Philip and Dorothea to each other, and telling their miserable story. + +The bewitching Koenigsmarck had conquered two female hearts in Hanover. +Besides the Electoral prince's lovely young wife Sophia Dorothea, Philip +had inspired a passion in a hideous old Court lady, the Countess of +Platen. The princess seems to have pursued him with the fidelity of many +years. Heaps of letters followed him on his campaigns, and were answered +by the daring adventurer. The princess wanted to fly with him; to quit her +odious husband at any rate. She besought her parents to receive her back; +had a notion of taking refuge in France and going over to the Catholic +religion; had absolutely packed her jewels for flight, and very likely +arranged its details with her lover, in that last long night's interview, +after which Philip of Koenigsmarck was seen no more. + +Koenigsmarck, inflamed with drink--there is scarcely any vice of which, +according to his own showing, this gentleman was not a practitioner--had +boasted at a supper at Dresden of his intimacy with the two Hanoverian +ladies, not only with the princess, but with another lady powerful in +Hanover. The Countess Platen, the old favourite of the Elector, hated the +young Electoral princess. The young lady had a lively wit, and constantly +made fun of the old one. The princess's jokes were conveyed to the old +Platen just as our idle words are carried about at this present day: and +so they both hated each other. + +The characters in the tragedy, of which the curtain was now about to fall, +are about as dark a set as eye ever rested on. There is the jolly prince, +shrewd, selfish, scheming, loving his cups and his ease (I think his good +humour makes the tragedy but darker); his princess, who speaks little but +observes all; his old, painted Jezebel of a mistress; his son, the +Electoral prince, shrewd too, quiet, selfish, not ill-humoured, and +generally silent, except when goaded into fury by the intolerable tongue +of his lovely wife; there is poor Sophia Dorothea, with her coquetry and +her wrongs, and her passionate attachment to her scamp of a lover, and her +wild imprudences, and her mad artifices, and her insane fidelity, and her +furious jealousy regarding her husband (though she loathed and cheated +him), and her prodigious falsehoods; and the confidante, of course, into +whose hands the letters are slipped; and there is Lothario, finally, than +whom, as I have said, one can't imagine a more handsome, wicked, worthless +reprobate. + + [Illustration] + + A Deed Of Darkness + + +How that perverse fidelity of passion pursues the villain! How madly true +the woman is, and how astoundingly she lies! She has bewitched two or +three persons who have taken her up, and they won't believe in her wrong. +Like Mary of Scotland, she finds adherents ready to conspire for her even +in history, and people who have to deal with her are charmed, and +fascinated, and bedevilled. How devotedly Miss Strickland has stood by +Mary's innocence! Are there not scores of ladies in this audience who +persist in it too? Innocent! I remember as a boy how a great party +persisted in declaring Caroline of Brunswick was a martyred angel. So was +Helen of Greece innocent. She never ran away with Paris, the dangerous +young Trojan. Menelaus, her husband, ill-used her, and there never was any +siege of Troy at all. So was Bluebeard's wife innocent. She never peeped +into the closet where the other wives were with their heads off. She never +dropped the key, or stained it with blood; and her brothers were quite +right in finishing Bluebeard, the cowardly brute! Yes, Caroline of +Brunswick was innocent: and Madame Laffarge never poisoned her husband; +and Mary of Scotland never blew up hers; and poor Sophia Dorothea was +never unfaithful; and Eve never took the apple--it was a cowardly +fabrication of the serpent's. + +George Louis has been held up to execration as a murderous Bluebeard, +whereas the Electoral prince had no share in the transaction in which +Philip of Koenigsmarck was scuffled out of this mortal scene. The prince +was absent when the catastrophe came. The princess had had a hundred +warnings; mild hints from her husband's parents; grim remonstrances from +himself--but took no more heed of this advice than such besotted poor +wretches do. On the night of Sunday, the 1st of July, 1694, Koenigsmarck +paid a long visit to the princess, and left her to get ready for flight. +Her husband was away at Berlin; her carriages and horses were prepared and +ready for the elopement. Meanwhile, the spies of Countess Platen had +brought the news to their mistress. She went to Ernest Augustus, and +procured from the Elector an order for the arrest of the Swede. On the way +by which he was to come, four guards were commissioned to take him. He +strove to cut his way through the four men, and wounded more than one of +them. They fell upon him; cut him down; and, as he was lying wounded on +the ground, the countess, his enemy, whom he had betrayed and insulted, +came out and beheld him prostrate. He cursed her with his dying lips, and +the furious woman stamped upon his mouth with her heel. He was dispatched +presently; his body burnt the next day; and all traces of the man +disappeared. The guards who killed him were enjoined silence under severe +penalties. The princess was reported to be ill in her apartments, from +which she was taken in October of the same year, being then +eight-and-twenty years old, and consigned to the castle of Ahlden, where +she remained a prisoner for no less than thirty-two years. A separation +had been pronounced previously between her and her husband. She was called +henceforth the "Princess of Ahlden", and her silent husband no more +uttered her name. + +Four years after the Koenigsmarck catastrophe, Ernest Augustus, the first +Elector of Hanover, died, and George Louis, his son, reigned in his stead. +Sixteen years he reigned in Hanover, after which he became, as we know, +King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith. The +wicked old Countess Platen died in the year 1706. She had lost her sight, +but nevertheless the legend says that she constantly saw Koenigsmarck's +ghost by her wicked old bed. And so there was an end of her. + +In the year 1700, the little Duke of Gloucester, the last of poor Queen +Anne's children, died, and the folks of Hanover straightway became of +prodigious importance in England. The Electress Sophia was declared the +next in succession to the English throne. George Louis was created Duke of +Cambridge; grand deputations were sent over from our country to +Deutschland; but Queen Anne, whose weak heart hankered after her relatives +at St. Germains, never could be got to allow her cousin, the Elector Duke +of Cambridge, to come and pay his respects to her Majesty, and take his +seat in her House of Peers. Had the queen lasted a month longer; had the +English Tories been as bold and resolute as they were clever and crafty; +had the prince whom the nation loved and pitied been equal to his fortune, +George Louis had never talked German in St. James's Chapel Royal. + +When the crown did come to George Louis he was in no hurry about putting +it on. He waited at home for awhile; took an affecting farewell of his +dear Hanover and Herrenhausen; and set out in the most leisurely manner to +ascend "the throne of his ancestors", as he called it in his first speech +to Parliament. He brought with him a compact body of Germans, whose +society he loved, and whom he kept round the royal person. He had his +faithful German chamberlains; his German secretaries; his negroes, +captives of his bow and spear in Turkish wars; his two ugly, elderly +German favourites, Mesdames of Kielmansegge and Schulenberg, whom he +created respectively Countess of Darlington and Duchess of Kendal. The +duchess was tall, and lean of stature, and hence was irreverently +nicknamed the Maypole. The countess was a large-sized noblewoman, and this +elevated personage was denominated the Elephant. Both of these ladies +loved Hanover and its delights; clung round the linden-trees of the great +Herrenhausen avenue, and at first would not quit the place. Schulenberg, +in fact, could not come on account of her debts; but finding the Maypole +would not come, the Elephant packed up her trunk and slipped out of +Hanover unwieldy as she was. On this the Maypole straightway put herself +in motion, and followed her beloved George Louis. One seems to be speaking +of Captain Macheath, and Polly, and Lucy. The king we had selected; the +courtiers who came in his train; the English nobles who came to welcome +him, and on many of whom the shrewd old cynic turned his back--I protest it +is a wonderful satirical picture. I am a citizen waiting at Greenwich +pier, say, and crying hurrah for King George; and yet I can scarcely keep +my countenance, and help laughing at the enormous absurdity of this +advent! + +Here we are, all on our knees. Here is the Archbishop of Canterbury +prostrating himself to the head of his Church, with Kielmansegge and +Schulenberg with their raddled cheeks grinning behind the Defender of the +Faith. Here is my Lord Duke of Marlborough kneeling too, the greatest +warrior of all times; he who betrayed King William--betrayed King James +II--betrayed Queen Anne--betrayed England to the French, the Elector to the +Pretender, the Pretender to the Elector; and here are my Lords Oxford and +Bolingbroke, the latter of whom has just tripped up the heels of the +former; and if a month's more time had been allowed him, would have had +King James at Westminster. The great Whig gentlemen made their bows and +congees with proper decorum and ceremony; but yonder keen old schemer +knows the value of their loyalty. "Loyalty," he must think, "as applied to +me--it is absurd! There are fifty nearer heirs to the throne than I am. I +am but an accident, and you fine Whig gentlemen take me for your own sake, +not for mine. You Tories hate me; you archbishop, smirking on your knees, +and prating about Heaven, you know I don't care a fig for your Thirty-nine +Articles, and can't understand a word of your stupid sermons. You, my +Lords Bolingbroke and Oxford--you know you were conspiring against me a +month ago; and you, my Lord Duke of Marlborough--you would sell me or any +man else, if you found your advantage in it. Come, my good Melusina, come, +my honest Sophia, let us go into my private room, and have some oysters +and some Rhine wine, and some pipes afterwards: let us make the best of +our situation; let us take what we can get, and leave these bawling, +brawling, lying English to shout, and fight, and cheat, in their own way!" + +If Swift had not been committed to the statesmen of the losing side, what +a fine satirical picture we might have had of that general _sauve qui +peut_ amongst the Tory party! How mum the Tories became; how the House of +Lords and House of Commons chopped round; and how decorously the +majorities welcomed King George! + +Bolingbroke, making his last speech in the House of Lords, pointed out the +shame of peerage, where several lords concurred to condemn in one general +vote all that they had approved in former Parliaments by many particular +resolutions. And so their conduct was shameful. St. John had the best of +the argument, but the worst of the vote. Bad times were come for him. He +talked philosophy, and professed innocence. He courted retirement, and was +ready to meet persecution; but, hearing that honest Mat Prior, who had +been recalled from Paris, was about to peach regarding the past +transactions, the philosopher bolted, and took that magnificent head of +his out of the ugly reach of the axe. Oxford, the lazy and good-humoured, +had more courage, and awaited the storm at home. He and Mat Prior both had +lodgings in the Tower, and both brought their heads safe out of that +dangerous menagerie. When Atterbury was carried off to the same den a few +years afterwards, and it was asked, what next should be done with him? +"Done with him? Fling him to the lions," Cadogan said, Marlborough's +lieutenant. But the British lion of those days did not care much for +drinking the blood of peaceful peers and poets, or crunching the bones of +bishops. Only four men were executed in London for the rebellion of 1715; +and twenty-two in Lancashire. Above a thousand taken in arms, submitted to +the king's mercy, and petitioned to be transported to his Majesty's +colonies in America. I have heard that their descendants took the loyalist +side in the disputes which arose sixty years after. It is pleasant to find +that a friend of ours, worthy Dick Steele, was for letting off the rebels +with their lives. + +As one thinks of what might have been, how amusing the speculation is! We +know how the doomed Scottish gentlemen came out at Lord Mar's summons, +mounted the white cockade, that has been a flower of sad poetry ever +since, and rallied round the ill-omened Stuart standard at Braemar. Mar, +with 8,000 men, and but 1,500 opposed to him, might have driven the enemy +over the Tweed, and taken possession of the whole of Scotland; but that +the Pretender's duke did not venture to move when the day was his own. +Edinburgh Castle might have been in King James's hands; but that the men +who were to escalade it stayed to drink his health at the tavern, and +arrived two hours too late at the rendezvous under the castle wall. There +was sympathy enough in the town--the projected attack seems to have been +known there--Lord Mahon quotes Sinclair's account of a gentleman not +concerned, who told Sinclair, that he was in a house that evening where +eighteen of them were drinking, as the facetious landlady said, "powdering +their hair," for the attack of the castle. Suppose they had not stopped to +powder their hair? Edinburgh Castle, and town, and all Scotland were King +James's. The north of England rises, and marches over Barnet Heath upon +London. Wyndham is up in Somersetshire; Packington in Worcestershire; and +Vivian in Cornwall. The Elector of Hanover, and his hideous mistresses, +pack up the plate, and perhaps the crown jewels in London, and are off +_via_ Harwich and Helvoetsluys, for dear old Deutschland. The king--God +save him!--lands at Dover, with tumultuous applause; shouting multitudes, +roaring cannon, the Duke of Marlborough weeping tears of joy, and all the +bishops kneeling in the mud. In a few years, mass is said in St. Paul's; +matins and vespers are sung in York Minster; and Dr. Swift is turned out +of his stall and deanery house at St. Patrick's, to give place to Father +Dominic, from Salamanca. All these changes were possible then, and once +thirty years afterwards--all this we might have had, but for the _pulveris +exigui jactu_, that little toss of powder for the hair which the Scotch +conspirators stopped to take at the tavern. + +You understand the distinction I would draw between history--of which I do +not aspire to be an expounder--and manners and life such as these sketches +would describe. The rebellion breaks out in the north; its story is before +you in a hundred volumes, in none more fairly than in the excellent +narrative of Lord Mahon, The clans are up in Scotland; Derwentwater, +Nithsdale and Forster are in arms in Northumberland--these are matters of +history, for which you are referred to the due chroniclers. The Guards are +set to watch the streets, and prevent the people wearing white roses. I +read presently of a couple of soldiers almost flogged to death for wearing +oak boughs in their hats on the 29th of May--another badge of the beloved +Stuarts. It is with these we have to do, rather than the marches and +battles of the armies to which the poor fellows belonged--with statesmen, +and how they looked, and how they lived, rather than with measures of +state, which belong to history alone. For example, at the close of the old +queen's reign, it is known the Duke of Marlborough left the kingdom--after +what menaces, after what prayers, lies, bribes offered, taken, refused, +accepted; after what dark doubling and tacking, let history, if she can or +dare, say. The queen dead; who so eager to return as my lord duke? Who +shouts God save the king! so lustily as the great conqueror of Blenheim +and Malplaquet? (By the way, he will send over some more money for the +Pretender yet, on the sly.) Who lays his hand on his blue ribbon, and +lifts his eyes more gracefully to heaven than this hero? He makes a +quasi-triumphal entrance into London, by Temple Bar, in his enormous gilt +coach--and the enormous gilt coach breaks down somewhere by Chancery Lane, +and his highness is obliged to get another. There it is we have him. We +are with the mob in the crowd, not with the great folks in the procession. +We are not the Historic Muse, but her ladyship's attendant, +tale-bearer--valet de chambre--for whom no man is a hero; and, as yonder one +steps from his carriage to the next handy conveyance, we take the number +of the hack; we look all over at his stars, ribbons, embroidery; we think +within ourselves, O you unfathomable schemer! O you warrior invincible! O +you beautiful smiling Judas! What master would you not kiss or betray? +What traitor's head, blackening on the spikes on yonder gate, ever hatched +a tithe of the treason which has worked under your periwig? + +We have brought our Georges to London city, and if we would behold its +aspect, may see it in Hogarth's lively perspective of Cheapside, or read +of it in a hundred contemporary books which paint the manners of that age. +Our dear old _Spectator_ looks smiling upon the streets, with their +innumerable signs, and describes them with his charming humour. "Our +streets are filled with 'Blue Boars', 'Black Swans', and 'Red Lions', not +to mention 'Flying Pigs' and 'Hogs in Armour', with other creatures more +extraordinary than any in the deserts of Africa." A few of these quaint +old figures still remain in London town. You may still see there, and over +its old hostel in Ludgate Hill, the "Belle Sauvage" to whom the +_Spectator_ so pleasantly alludes in that paper; and who was, probably, no +other than the sweet American Pocahontas, who rescued from death the +daring Captain Smith. There is the "Lion's Head'" down whose jaws the +_Spectator's_ own letters were passed; and over a great banker's in Fleet +Street, the effigy of the wallet, which the founder of the firm bore when +he came into London a country boy. People this street, so ornamented with +crowds of swinging chairmen, with servants bawling to clear the way, with +Mr. Dean in his cassock, his lackey marching before him; or Mrs. Dinah in +her sack, tripping to chapel, her footboy carrying her ladyship's great +Prayer-book; with itinerant tradesmen, singing their hundred cries (I +remember forty years ago, as a boy in London city, a score of cheery, +familiar cries that are silent now). Fancy the beaux thronging to the +chocolate-houses, tapping their snuff-boxes as they issue thence, their +periwigs appearing over the red curtains. Fancy Saccharissa beckoning and +smiling from the upper windows, and a crowd of soldiers brawling and +bustling at the door--gentlemen of the Life Guards, clad in scarlet, with +blue facings, and laced with gold at the seams; gentlemen of the Horse +Grenadiers, in their caps of sky-blue cloth, with the garter embroidered +on the front in gold and silver; men of the Halberdiers, in their long red +coats, as bluff Harry left them, with their ruffs and velvet flat caps. +Perhaps the king's Majesty himself is going to St. James's as we pass. If +he is going to Parliament, he is in his coach-and-eight, surrounded by his +guards and the high officers of his crown. Otherwise his Majesty only uses +a chair, with six footmen walking before, and six yeomen of the guard at +the sides of the sedan. The officers in waiting follow the king in +coaches. It must be rather slow work. + +Our _Spectator_ and _Tatler_ are full of delightful glimpses of the town +life of those days. In the company of that charming guide, we may go to +the opera, the comedy, the puppet show, the auction, even the cockpit: we +can take boat at Temple Stairs, and accompany Sir Roger de Coverley and +Mr. Spectator to Spring Garden--it will be called Vauxhall a few years +since, when Hogarth will paint for it. Would you not like to step back +into the past, and be introduced to Mr. Addison?--not the Right Honourable +Joseph Addison, Esq., George I's Secretary of State, but to the delightful +painter of contemporary manners; the man who, when in good humour himself, +was the pleasantest companion in all England. I should like to go into +Lockit's with him, and drink a bowl along with Sir R. Steele (who has just +been knighted by King George, and who does not happen to have any money to +pay his share of the reckoning). I should not care to follow Mr. Addison +to his secretary's office in Whitehall. There we get into politics. Our +business is pleasure, and the town, and the coffee-house, and the theatre, +and the Mall. Delightful _Spectator!_ kind friend of leisure hours! happy +companion! true Christian gentleman! How much greater, better, you are +than the king Mr. Secretary kneels to! + +You can have foreign testimony about old-world London, if you like; and my +before-quoted friend, Charles Louis, Baron de Poellnitz, will conduct us to +it. "A man of sense," says he, "or a fine gentleman, is never at a loss +for company in London, and this is the way the latter passes his time. He +rises late, puts on a frock, and, leaving his sword at home, takes his +cane, and goes where he pleases. The Park is commonly the place where he +walks, because 'tis the Exchange for men of quality. 'Tis the same thing +as the Tuileries at Paris, only the Park has a certain beauty of +simplicity which cannot be described. The grand walk is called the Mall; +is full of people at every hour of the day, but especially at morning and +evening, when their Majesties often walk with the royal family, who are +attended only by a half-dozen yeomen of the guard, and permit all persons +to walk at the same time with them. The ladies and gentlemen always appear +in rich dresses, for the English, who, twenty years ago, did not wear gold +lace but in their army, are now embroidered and bedaubed as much as the +French. I speak of persons of quality; for the citizen still contents +himself with a suit of fine cloth, a good hat and wig, and fine linen. +Everybody is well clothed here, and even the beggars don't make so ragged +an appearance as they do elsewhere." After our friend, the man of quality, +has had his morning or undress walk in the Mall, he goes home to dress, +and then saunters to some coffee-house or chocolate-house frequented by +the persons he would see. "For 'tis a rule with the English to go once a +day at least to houses of this sort, where they talk of business and news, +read the papers, and often look at one another without opening their lips. +And 'tis very well they are so mute: for were they all as talkative as +people of other nations, the coffee-houses would be intolerable, and there +would be no hearing what one man said where they are so many. The +chocolate-house in St. James's Street, where I go every morning to pass +away the time, is always so full that a man can scarce turn about in it." + +Delightful as London city was, King George I liked to be out of it as much +as ever he could; and when there, passed all his time with his Germans. It +was with them as with Bluecher 100 years afterwards, when the bold old +Reiter looked down from St. Paul's, and sighed out, "_Was fuer Plunder!_" +The German women plundered; the German secretaries plundered; the German +cooks and intendants plundered; even Mustapha and Mahomet, the German +negroes, had a share of the booty. Take what you can get, was the old +monarch's maxim. He was not a lofty monarch, certainly: he was not a +patron of the fine arts: but he was not a hypocrite, he was not +revengeful, he was not extravagant. Though a despot in Hanover, he was a +moderate ruler in England. His aim was to leave it to itself as much as +possible, and to live out of it as much as he could. His heart was in +Hanover. When taken ill on his last journey, as he was passing through +Holland, he thrust his livid head out of the coach-window, and gasped out, +"Osnaburg, Osnaburg!" He was more than fifty years of age when he came +amongst us: we took him because we wanted him, because he served our turn; +we laughed at his uncouth German ways, and sneered at him. He took our +loyalty for what it was worth; laid hands on what money he could; kept us +assuredly from Popery and wooden shoes. I, for one, would have been on his +side in those days. Cynical, and selfish, as he was, he was better than a +king out of St. Germains with the French king's orders in his pocket, and +a swarm of Jesuits in his train. + +The Fates are supposed to interest themselves about royal personages; and +so this one had omens and prophecies specially regarding him. He was said +to be much disturbed at a prophecy that he should die very soon after his +wife; and sure enough, pallid Death, having seized upon the luckless +princess in her castle of Ahlden, presently pounced upon H.M. King George +I, in his travelling chariot, on the Hanover road. What postilion can +outride that pale horseman? It is said, George promised one of his +left-handed widows to come to her after death, if leave were granted to +him to revisit the glimpses of the moon; and soon after his demise, a +great raven actually flying or hopping in at the Duchess of Kendal's +window at Twickenham, she chose to imagine the king's spirit inhabited +these plumes, and took special care of her sable visitor. Affecting +metempsychosis--funereal royal bird! How pathetic is the idea of the +duchess weeping over it! When this chaste addition to our English +aristocracy died, all her jewels, her plate, her plunder went over to her +relations in Hanover. I wonder whether her heirs took the bird, and +whether it is still flapping its wings over Herrenhausen? + +The days are over in England of that strange religion of king-worship, +when priests flattered princes in the Temple of God; when servility was +held to be ennobling duty; when beauty and youth tried eagerly for royal +favour; and woman's shame was held to be no dishonour. Mended morals and +mended manners in Courts and people, are among the priceless consequences +of the freedom which George I came to rescue and secure. He kept his +compact with his English subjects; and if he escaped no more than other +men and monarchs from the vices of his age, at least we may thank him for +preserving and transmitting the liberties of ours. In our free air, royal +and humble homes have alike been purified; and Truth, the birthright of +high and low among us, which quite fearlessly judges our greatest +personages, can only speak of them now in words of respect and regard. +There are stains in the portrait of the first George, and traits in it +which none of us need admire; but, among the nobler features are justice, +courage, moderation--and these we may recognize ere we turn the picture to +the wall. + + + +George The Second + + +On the afternoon of the 14th of June, 1727, two horsemen might have been +perceived galloping along the road from Chelsea to Richmond. The foremost, +cased in the jackboots of the period, was a broad-faced, jolly-looking, +and very corpulent cavalier; but, by the manner in which he urged his +horse, you might see that he was a bold as well as a skilful rider. +Indeed, no man loved sport better; and in the hunting-fields of Norfolk, +no squire rode more boldly after the fox, or cheered Ringwood and +Sweettips more lustily, than he who now thundered over the Richmond road. + +He speedily reached Richmond Lodge, and asked to see the owner of the +mansion. The mistress of the house and her ladies, to whom our friend was +admitted, said he could not be introduced to the master, however pressing +the business might be. The master was asleep after his dinner; he always +slept after his dinner: and woe be to the person who interrupted him! +Nevertheless, our stout friend of the jackboots put the affrighted ladies +aside, opened the forbidden door of the bedroom, wherein upon the bed lay +a little gentleman; and here the eager messenger knelt down in his +jackboots. + +He on the bed started up, and with many oaths and a strong German accent +asked who was there, and who dared to disturb him? + +"I am Sir Robert Walpole," said the messenger. The awakened sleeper hated +Sir Robert Walpole. "I have the honour to announce to your Majesty that +your royal father, King George I, died at Osnaburg, on Saturday last, the +10th inst." + +"_Dat is one big lie!_" roared out his sacred Majesty King George II: but +Sir Robert Walpole stated the fact, and from that day until +three-and-thirty years after, George, the second of the name, ruled over +England. + +How the king made away with his father's will under the astonished nose of +the Archbishop of Canterbury; how he was a choleric little sovereign; how +he shook his fist in the face of his father's courtiers; how he kicked his +coat and wig about in his rages, and called everybody thief, liar, rascal, +with whom he differed: you will read in all the history books; and how he +speedily and shrewdly reconciled himself with the bold minister, whom he +had hated during his father's life, and by whom he was served during +fifteen years of his own with admirable prudence, fidelity, and success. +But for Sir Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pretender back again. +But for his obstinate love of peace, we should have had wars, which the +nation was not strong enough nor united enough to endure. But for his +resolute counsels and good-humoured resistance we might have had German +despots attempting a Hanoverian regimen over us: we should have had +revolt, commotion, want, and tyrannous misrule, in place of a quarter of a +century of peace, freedom, and material prosperity, such as the country +never enjoyed, until that corrupter of Parliaments, that dissolute tipsy +cynic, that courageous lover of peace and liberty, that great citizen, +patriot, and statesman governed it. In religion he was little better than +a heathen; cracked ribald jokes at bigwigs and bishops, and laughed at +High Church and Low. In private life the old pagan revelled in the lowest +pleasures: he passed his Sundays tippling at Richmond; and his holidays +bawling after dogs, or boozing at Houghton with boors over beef and punch. +He cared for letters no more than his master did: he judged human nature +so meanly that one is ashamed to have to own that he was right, and that +men could be corrupted by means so base. But, with his hireling House of +Commons, he defended liberty for us; with his incredulity he kept +Church-craft down. There were parsons at Oxford as double-dealing and +dangerous as any priests out of Rome, and he routed them both. He gave +Englishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace, and ease, and freedom; +the three per cents nearly at par; and wheat at five-and six-and-twenty +shillings a quarter. + + [Illustration] + + Ave Caesar + + +It was lucky for us that our first Georges were not more high-minded men; +especially fortunate that they loved Hanover so much as to leave England +to have her own way. Our chief troubles began when we got a king who +gloried in the name of Briton, and, being born in the country, proposed to +rule it. He was no more fit to govern England than his grandfather and +great-grandfather, who did not try. It was righting itself during their +occupation. The dangerous, noble old spirit of cavalier loyalty was dying +out; the stately old English High Church was emptying itself: the +questions dropping, which, on one side and the other;--the side of loyalty, +prerogative, church, and king;--the side of right, truth, civil and +religious freedom,--had set generations of brave men in arms. By the time +when George III came to the throne, the combat between loyalty and liberty +was come to an end; and Charles Edward, old, tipsy, and childless, was +dying in Italy. + +Those who are curious about European Court history of the last age know +the memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth, and what a Court was that of +Berlin, where George II's cousins ruled sovereign. Frederick the Great's +father knocked down his sons, daughters, officers of state; he kidnapped +big men all Europe over to make grenadiers of; his feasts, his parades, +his wine parties, his tobacco parties, are all described. Jonathan Wild +the Great in language, pleasures, and behaviour, is scarcely more delicate +than this German sovereign. Louis XV, his life, and reign, and doings, are +told in a thousand French memoirs. Our George II, at least, was not a +worse king than his neighbours. He claimed and took the royal exemption +from doing right which sovereigns assumed. A dull little man of low tastes +he appears to us in England; yet Hervey tells us that this choleric prince +was a great sentimentalist, and that his letters--of which he wrote +prodigious quantities--were quite dangerous in their powers of fascination. +He kept his sentimentalities for his Germans and his queen. With us +English, he never chose to be familiar. He has been accused of avarice, +yet he did not give much money, and did not leave much behind him. He did +not love the fine arts, but he did not pretend to love them. He was no +more a hypocrite about religion than his father. He judged men by a low +standard; yet, with such men as were near him, was he wrong in judging as +he did? He readily detected lying and flattery, and liars and flatterers +were perforce his companions. Had he been more of a dupe he might have +been more amiable. A dismal experience made him cynical. No boon was it to +him to be clear-sighted, and see only selfishness and flattery round about +him. What could Walpole tell him about his Lords and Commons, but that +they were all venal? Did not his clergy, his courtiers, bring him the same +story? Dealing with men and women in his rude, sceptical way, he comes to +doubt about honour, male and female, about patriotism, about religion. "He +is wild, but he fights like a man," George I, the taciturn, said of his +son and successor. Courage George II certainly had. The Electoral Prince, +at the head of his father's contingent, had approved himself a good and +brave soldier under Eugene and Marlborough. At Oudenarde he specially +distinguished himself. At Malplaquet the other claimant to the English +throne won but little honour. There was always a question about James's +courage. Neither then in Flanders, nor afterwards in his own ancient +kingdom of Scotland, did the luckless Pretender show much resolution. But +dapper little George had a famous tough spirit of his own, and fought like +a Trojan. He called out his brother of Prussia, with sword and pistol; and +I wish, for the interest of romancers in general, that that famous duel +could have taken place. The two sovereigns hated each other with all their +might; their seconds were appointed; the place of meeting was settled; and +the duel was only prevented by strong representations made to the two, of +the European laughter which would have been caused by such a transaction. + +Whenever we hear of dapper George at war, it is certain that he demeaned +himself like a little man of valour. At Dettingen his horse ran away with +him, and with difficulty was stopped from carrying him into the enemy's +lines. The king, dismounting from the fiery quadruped, said bravely: "Now +I know I shall not run away;" and placed himself at the head of the foot, +drew his sword, brandishing it at the whole of the French army, and +calling out to his own men to come on, in bad English, but with the most +famous pluck and spirit. In '45, when the Pretender was at Derby, and many +people began to look pale, the king never lost his courage--not he. "Pooh! +don't talk to me that stuff!" he said, like a gallant little prince as he +was, and never for one moment allowed his equanimity, or his business, or +his pleasures, or his travels, to be disturbed. On public festivals he +always appeared in the hat and coat he wore on the famous day of +Oudenarde; and the people laughed, but kindly, at the odd old garment, for +bravery never goes out of fashion. + +In private life the prince showed himself a worthy descendant of his +father. In this respect, so much has been said about the first George's +manners, that we need not enter into a description of the son's German +harem. In 1705 he married a princess remarkable for beauty, for +cleverness, for learning, for good temper--one of the truest and fondest +wives ever prince was blessed with, and who loved him and was faithful to +him, and he, in his coarse fashion, loved her to the last. It must be told +to the honour of Caroline of Anspach, that, at the time when German +princes thought no more of changing their religion than you of altering +your cap, she refused to give up Protestantism for the other creed, +although an Archduke, afterwards to be an Emperor, was offered to her for +a bridegroom. Her Protestant relations in Berlin were angry at her +rebellious spirit; it was they who tried to convert her (it is droll to +think that Frederick the Great, who had no religion at all, was known for +a long time in England as the Protestant hero), and these good Protestants +set upon Caroline a certain Father Urban, a very skilful Jesuit, and +famous winner of souls. But she routed the Jesuit; and she refused Charles +VI; and she married the little Electoral Prince of Hanover, whom she +tended with love, and with every manner of sacrifice, with artful +kindness, with tender flattery, with entire self-devotion, thenceforward +until her life's end. + +When George I made his first visit to Hanover, his son was appointed +regent during the royal absence. But this honour was never again conferred +on the Prince of Wales; he and his father fell out presently. On the +occasion of the christening of his second son, a royal row took place, and +the prince, shaking his fist in the Duke of Newcastle's face, called him a +rogue, and provoked his august father. He and his wife were turned out of +St. James's, and their princely children taken from them, by order of the +royal head of the family. Father and mother wept piteously at parting from +their little ones. The young ones sent some cherries, with their love, to +papa and mamma; the parents watered the fruit with tears. They had no +tears thirty-five years afterwards, when Prince Frederick died--their +eldest son, their heir, their enemy. + +The king called his daughter-in-law "_cette diablesse madame la +princesse_". The frequenters of the latter's Court were forbidden to +appear at the king's: their royal highnesses going to Bath, we read how +the courtiers followed them thither, and paid that homage in Somersetshire +which was forbidden in London. That phrase of "_cette diablesse madame la +princesse_" explains one cause of the wrath of her royal papa. She was a +very clever woman: she had a keen sense of humour: she had a dreadful +tongue: she turned into ridicule the antiquated sultan and his hideous +harem. She wrote savage letters about him home to members of her family. +So, driven out from the royal presence, the prince and princess set up for +themselves in Leicester Fields, "where," says Walpole, "the most promising +of the young gentlemen of the next party, and the prettiest and liveliest +of the young ladies, formed the new Court." Besides Leicester House, they +had their lodge at Richmond, frequented by some of the pleasantest company +of those days. There were the Herveys, and Chesterfield, and little Mr. +Pope from Twickenham, and with him, sometimes, the savage Dean of St. +Patrick's, and quite a bevy of young ladies, whose pretty faces smile on +us out of history. There was Lepell, famous in ballad song; and the saucy, +charming Mary Bellenden, who would have none of the Prince of Wales's fine +compliments, who folded her arms across her breast, and bade H.R.H. keep +off; and knocked his purse of guineas into his face, and told him she was +tired of seeing him count them. He was not an august monarch, this +Augustus. Walpole tells how, one night at the royal card-table, the +playful princesses pulled a chair away from under Lady Deloraine, who, in +revenge, pulled the king's from under him, so that his Majesty fell on the +carpet. In whatever posture one sees this royal George, he is ludicrous +somehow; even at Dettingen, where he fought so bravely, his figure is +absurd--calling out in his broken English, and lunging with his rapier, +like a fencing-master. In contemporary caricatures, George's son, "the +Hero of Culloden," is also made an object of considerable fun, as witness +the following picture of him defeated by the French (1757) at Hastenbeck: + + [Illustration] + +I refrain to quote from Walpole regarding George--for those charming +volumes are in the hands of all who love the gossip of the last century. +Nothing can be more cheery than Horace's letters. Fiddles sing all through +them: wax-lights, fine dresses, fine jokes, fine plate, fine equipages, +glitter and sparkle there: never was such a brilliant, jigging, smirking +Vanity Fair as that through which he leads us. Hervey, the next great +authority, is a darker spirit. About him there is something frightful: a +few years since his heirs opened the lid of the Ickworth box; it was as if +a Pompeii was opened to us--the last century dug up, with its temples and +its games, its chariots, its public places--lupanaria. Wandering through +that city of the dead, that dreadfully selfish time, through those godless +intrigues and feasts, through those crowds, pushing, and eager, and +struggling--rouged, and lying, and fawning--I have wanted some one to be +friends with. I have said to friends conversant with that history, Show me +some good person about that Court; find me, among those selfish courtiers, +those dissolute, gay people, some one being that I can love and regard. +There is that strutting little sultan, George II; there is that +hunchbacked, beetle-browed Lord Chesterfield; there is John Hervey, with +his deadly smile, and ghastly, painted face--I hate them. There is Hoadly, +cringing from one bishopric to another: yonder comes little Mr. Pope, from +Twickenham, with his friend, the Irish dean, in his new cassock, bowing +too, but with rage flashing from under his bushy eyebrows, and scorn and +hate quivering in his smile. Can you be fond of these? Of Pope I might: at +least I might love his genius, his wit, his greatness, his +sensibility--with a certain conviction that at some fancied slight, some +sneer which he imagined, he would turn upon me and stab me. Can you trust +the queen? She is not of our order: their very position makes kings and +queens lonely. One inscrutable attachment that inscrutable woman has. To +that she is faithful, through all trial, neglect, pain, and time. Save her +husband, she really cares for no created being. She is good enough to her +children, and even fond enough of them: but she would chop them all up +into little pieces to please him. In her intercourse with all around her, +she was perfectly kind, gracious, and natural; but friends may die, +daughters may depart, she will be as perfectly kind and gracious to the +next set. If the king wants her, she will smile upon him, be she ever so +sad; and walk with him, be she ever so weary; and laugh at his brutal +jokes, be she in ever so much pain of body or heart. Caroline's devotion +to her husband is a prodigy to read of. What charm had the little man? +What was there in those wonderful letters of thirty pages long, which he +wrote to her when he was absent, and to his mistresses at Hanover, when he +was in London with his wife? Why did Caroline, the most lovely and +accomplished princess of Germany, take a little red-faced staring +princeling for a husband, and refuse an emperor? Why, to her last hour, +did she love him so? She killed herself because she loved him so. She had +the gout, and would plunge her feet in cold water in order to walk with +him. With the film of death over her eyes, writhing in intolerable pain, +she yet had a livid smile and a gentle word for her master. You have read +the wonderful history of that death-bed? How she bade him marry again, and +the reply the old king blubbered out, "_Non, non: j'aurai des +maitresses_." There never was such a ghastly farce. I watch the +astonishing scene--I stand by that awful bedside, wondering at the ways in +which God has ordained the lives, loves, rewards, successes, passions, +actions, ends of his creatures--and can't but laugh, in the presence of +death, and with the saddest heart. In that often-quoted passage from Lord +Hervey, in which the queen's death-bed is described, the grotesque horror +of the details surpasses all satire: the dreadful humour of the scene is +more terrible than Swift's blackest pages, or Fielding's fiercest irony. +The man who wrote the story had something diabolical about him: the +terrible verses which Pope wrote respecting Hervey, in one of his own +moods of almost fiendish malignity, I fear are true. I am frightened as I +look back into the past, and fancy I behold that ghastly, beautiful face; +as I think of the queen writhing on her death-bed, and crying out, +"Pray!--pray!"--of the royal old sinner by her side, who kisses her dead +lips with frantic grief, and leaves her to sin more;--of the bevy of +courtly clergymen, and the archbishop, whose prayers she rejects, and who +are obliged for propriety's sake to shuffle off the anxious inquiries of +the public, and vow that her Majesty quitted this life "in a heavenly +frame of mind". What a life!--to what ends devoted! What a vanity of +vanities! It is a theme for another pulpit than the lecturer's. For a +pulpit?--I think the part which pulpits play in the deaths of kings is the +most ghastly of all the ceremonial: the lying eulogies, the blinking of +disagreeable truths, the sickening flatteries, the simulated grief, the +falsehood and sycophancies--all uttered in the name of Heaven in our State +churches: these monstrous threnodies have been sung from time immemorial +over kings and queens, good, bad, wicked, licentious. The State parson +must bring out his commonplaces; his apparatus of rhetorical +black-hangings. Dead king or live king, the clergyman must flatter +him--announce his piety whilst living, and when dead, perform the obsequies +of "our most religious and gracious king". + +I read that Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and gracious king's +favourite) sold a bishopric to a clergyman for 5,000_l._ (She betted him +5,000_l._ that he would not be made a bishop, and he lost, and paid her.) +Was he the only prelate of his time led up by such hands for consecration? +As I peep into George II's St. James's, I see crowds of cassocks rustling +up the back-stairs of the ladies of the Court; stealthy clergy slipping +purses into their laps; that godless old king yawning under his canopy in +his Chapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing. Discoursing +about what?--about righteousness and judgement? Whilst the chaplain is +preaching, the king is chattering in German almost as loud as the +preacher; so loud that the clergyman--it may be one Dr. Young, he who wrote +_Night Thoughts_, and discoursed on the splendours of the stars, the +glories of heaven, and utter vanities of this world--actually burst out +crying in his pulpit because the Defender of the Faith and dispenser of +bishoprics would not listen to him! No wonder that the clergy were corrupt +and indifferent amidst this indifference and corruption. No wonder that +sceptics multiplied and morals degenerated, so far as they depended on the +influence of such a king. No wonder that Whitfield cried out in the +wilderness, that Wesley quitted the insulted temple to pray on the +hillside. I look with reverence on those men at that time. Which is the +sublimer spectacle--the good John Wesley, surrounded by his congregation of +miners at the pit's mouth, or the queen's chaplains mumbling through their +morning office in their ante-room, under the picture of the great Venus, +with the door opened into the adjoining chamber, where the queen is +dressing, talking scandal to Lord Hervey, or uttering sneers at Lady +Suffolk, who is kneeling with the basin at her mistress's side? I say I am +scared as I look round at this society--at this king, at these courtiers, +at these politicians, at these bishops--at this flaunting vice and levity. +Whereabouts in this Court is the honest man? Where is the pure person one +may like? The air stifles one with its sickly perfumes. There are some +old-world follies and some absurd ceremonials about our Court of the +present day, which I laugh at, but as an Englishman, contrasting it with +the past, shall I not acknowledge the change of to-day? As the mistress of +St. James's passes me now, I salute the sovereign, wise, moderate, +exemplary of life; the good mother; the good wife; the accomplished lady; +the enlightened friend of art; the tender sympathizer in her people's +glories and sorrows. + +Of all the Court of George and Caroline, I find no one but Lady Suffolk +with whom it seems pleasant and kindly to hold converse. Even the +misogynist Croker, who edited her letters, loves her, and has that regard +for her with which her sweet graciousness seems to have inspired almost +all men and some women who came near her. I have noted many little traits +which go to prove the charms of her character (it is not merely because +she is charming, but because she is characteristic, that I allude to her). +She writes delightfully sober letters. Addressing Mr. Gay at Tunbridge (he +was, you know, a poet, penniless and in disgrace), she says: "The place +you are in, has strangely filled your head with physicians and cures; but, +take my word for it, many a fine lady has gone there to drink the waters +without being sick; and many a man has complained of the loss of his +heart, who had it in his own possession. I desire you will keep yours; for +I shall not be very fond of a friend without one, and I have a great mind +you should be in the number of mine." + +When Lord Peterborough was seventy years old, that indomitable youth +addressed some flaming love-, or rather gallantry-, letters to Mrs. +Howard--curious relics they are of the romantic manner of wooing sometimes +in use in those days. It is not passion; it is not love; it is gallantry: +a mixture of earnest and acting; high-flown compliments, profound bows, +vows, sighs, and ogles, in the manner of the Clelie romances, and +Millamont and Doricourt in the comedy. There was a vast elaboration of +ceremonies and etiquette, of raptures--a regulated form for kneeling and +wooing which has quite passed out of our downright manners. Henrietta +Howard accepted the noble old earl's philandering; answered the queer +love-letters with due acknowledgement; made a profound curtsey to +Peterborough's profound bow; and got John Gay to help her in the +composition of her letters in reply to her old knight. He wrote her +charming verses, in which there was truth as well as grace. "O wonderful +creature!" he writes:-- + + + O wonderful creature, a woman of reason! + Never grave out of pride, never gay out of season! + When so easy to guess who this angel should be, + Who would think Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was she? + + +The great Mr. Pope also celebrated her in lines not less pleasant, and +painted a portrait of what must certainly have been a delightful lady:-- + + + I know a thing that's most uncommon-- + Envy, be silent and attend!-- + I know a reasonable woman, + Handsome, yet witty, and a friend: + + Not warp'd by passion, aw'd by rumour, + Not grave through pride, or gay through folly: + An equal mixture of good humour + And exquisite soft melancholy. + + Has she no faults, then (Envy says), sir? + Yes, she has one, I must aver-- + When all the world conspires to praise her, + The woman's deaf, and does not hear! + + +Even the women concurred in praising and loving her. The Duchess of +Queensberry bears testimony to her amiable qualities, and writes to her: +"I tell you so and so, because you love children, and to have children +love you." The beautiful, jolly Mary Bellenden, represented by +contemporaries as "the most perfect creature ever known", writes very +pleasantly to her "dear Howard", her "dear Swiss", from the country, +whither Mary had retired after her marriage, and when she gave up being a +maid of honour. "How do you do, Mrs. Howard?" Mary breaks out. "How do you +do, Mrs. Howard? that is all I have to say. This afternoon I am taken with +a fit of writing; but as to matter, I have nothing better to entertain +you, than news of my farm. I therefore give you the following list of the +stock of eatables that I am fatting for my private tooth. It is well known +to the whole county of Kent, that I have four fat calves, two fat hogs, +fit for killing, twelve promising black pigs, two young chickens, three +fine geese, with thirteen eggs under each (several being duck-eggs, else +the others do not come to maturity); all this, with rabbits, and pigeons, +and carp in plenty, beef and mutton at reasonable rates. Now, Howard, if +you have a mind to stick a knife into anything I have named, say so!" + +A jolly set must they have been, those maids of honour. Pope introduces us +to a whole bevy of them, in a pleasant letter. "I went," he says, "by +water to Hampton Court, and met the Prince, with all his ladies, on +horseback, coming from hunting. Mrs. Bellenden and Mrs. Lepell took me +into protection, contrary to the laws against harbouring Papists, and gave +me a dinner, with something I liked better, an opportunity of conversation +with Mrs. Howard. We all agreed that the life of a maid of honour was of +all things the most miserable, and wished that all women who envied it had +a specimen of it. To eat Westphalia ham of a morning, ride over hedges and +ditches on borrowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, +and (what is worse a hundred times) with a red mark on the forehead from +an uneasy hat--all this may qualify them to make excellent wives for +hunters. As soon as they wipe off the heat of the day, they must simper an +hour and catch cold in the princess's apartment; from thence to dinner +with what appetite they may; and after that till midnight, work, walk, or +think which way they please. No lone house in Wales, with a mountain and +rookery, is more contemplative than this Court. Miss Lepell walked with me +three or four hours by moonlight, and we met no creature of any quality +but the king, who gave audience to the vice-chamberlain all alone under +the garden wall." + +I fancy it was a merrier England, that of our ancestors, than the island +which we inhabit. People high and low amused themselves very much more. I +have calculated the manner in which statesmen and persons of condition +passed their time--and what with drinking, and dining, and supping, and +cards, wonder how they got through their business at all. They played all +sorts of games, which, with the exception of cricket and tennis, have +quite gone out of our manners now. In the old prints of St. James's Park, +you still see the marks along the walk, to note the balls when the Court +played at Mall. Fancy Birdcage Walk now so laid out, and Lord John and +Lord Palmerston knocking balls up and down the avenue! Most of those jolly +sports belong to the past, and the good old games of England are only to +be found in old novels, in old ballads, or the columns of dingy old +newspapers, which say how a main of cocks is to be fought at Winchester +between the Winchester men and the Hampton men; or how the Cornwall men +and the Devon men are going to hold a great wrestling match at Totnes, and +so on. + +A hundred and twenty years ago there were not only country towns in +England, but people who inhabited them. We were very much more gregarious; +we were amused by very simple pleasures. Every town had its fair, every +village its wake. The old poets have sung a hundred jolly ditties about +great cudgel-playings, famous grinning through horse-collars, great +maypole meetings, and morris-dances. The girls used to run races clad in +very light attire; and the kind gentry and good parsons thought no shame +in looking on. Dancing bears went about the country with pipe and tabor. +Certain well-known tunes were sung all over the land for hundreds of +years, and high and low rejoiced in that simple music. Gentlemen who +wished to entertain their female friends constantly sent for a band. When +Beau Fielding, a mighty fine gentleman, was courting the lady whom he +married, he treated her and her companion at his lodgings to a supper from +the tavern, and after supper they sent out for a fiddler--three of them. +Fancy the three, in a great wainscoted room, in Covent Garden or Soho, +lighted by two or three candles in silver sconces, some grapes and a +bottle of Florence wine on the table, and the honest fiddler playing old +tunes in quaint old minor keys, as the Beau takes out one lady after the +other, and solemnly dances with her! + +The very great folks, young noblemen, with their governors, and the like, +went abroad and made the great tour; the home satirists jeered at the +Frenchified and Italian ways which they brought back; but the greater +number of people never left the country. The jolly squire often had never +been twenty miles from home. Those who did go went to the baths, to +Harrogate, or Scarborough, or Bath, or Epsom. Old letters are full of +these places of pleasure. Gay writes to us about the fiddlers at +Tunbridge; of the ladies having merry little private balls amongst +themselves; and the gentlemen entertaining them by turns with tea and +music. One of the young beauties whom he met did not care for tea: "We +have a young lady here," he says, "that is very particular in her desires. +I have known some young ladies, who, if ever they prayed, would ask for +some equipage or title, a husband or matadores: but this lady, who is but +seventeen, and has 30,000_l._ to her fortune, places all her wishes on a +pot of good ale. When her friends, for the sake of her shape and +complexion, would dissuade her from it, she answers, with the truest +sincerity, that by the loss of shape and complexion she could only lose a +husband, whereas ale is her passion." + +Every country town had its assembly-room--mouldy old tenements, which we +may still see in deserted inn-yards, in decayed provincial cities, out of +which the great wen of London has sucked all the life. York, at assize +time, and throughout the winter, harboured a large society of northern +gentry. Shrewsbury was celebrated for its festivities. At Newmarket, I +read of "a vast deal of good company, besides rogues and blacklegs"; at +Norwich, of two assemblies, with a prodigious crowd in the hall, the +rooms, and the gallery. In Cheshire (it is a maid of honour of Queen +Caroline who writes, and who is longing to be back at Hampton Court, and +the fun there) I peep into a country house, and see a very merry party: +"We meet in the work-room before nine, eat and break a joke or two till +twelve, then we repair to our own chambers and make ourselves ready, for +it cannot be called dressing. At noon the great bell fetches us into a +parlour, adorned with all sorts of fine arms, poisoned darts, several pair +of old boots and shoes worn by men of might, with the stirrups of King +Charles I, taken from him at Edgehill,"--and there they have their dinner, +after which comes dancing and supper. + +As for Bath, all history went and bathed and drank there. George II and +his queen, Prince Frederick and his Court, scarce a character one can +mention of the early last century, but was seen in that famous Pump-room +where Beau Nash presided, and his picture hung between the busts of Newton +and Pope: + + + This picture, placed these busts between, + Gives satire all its strength: + Wisdom and Wit are little seen, + But Folly at full length. + + +I should like to have seen the Folly. It was a splendid, embroidered, +be-ruffled, snuff-boxed, red-heeled, impertinent Folly, and knew how to +make itself respected. I should like to have seen that noble old madcap +Peterborough in his boots (he actually had the audacity to walk about Bath +in boots!), with his blue ribbon and stars, and a cabbage under each arm, +and a chicken in his hand, which he had been cheapening for his dinner. +Chesterfield came there many a time and gambled for hundreds, and grinned +through his gout. Mary Wortley was there, young and beautiful; and Mary +Wortley, old, hideous, and snuffy. Miss Chudleigh came there, slipping +away from one husband, and on the look-out for another. Walpole passed +many a day there; sickly, supercilious, absurdly dandified, and affected; +with a brilliant wit, a delightful sensibility; and for his friends, a +most tender, generous, and faithful heart. And if you and I had been alive +then, and strolling down Milsom Street--hush! we should have taken our hats +off, as an awful, long, lean, gaunt figure, swathed in flannels, passed by +in its chair, and a livid face looked out from the window--great fierce +eyes staring from under a bushy, powdered wig, a terrible frown, a +terrible Roman nose--and we whisper to one another, "There he is! There's +the great commoner! There is Mr. Pitt!" As we walk away, the abbey bells +are set a-ringing; and we meet our testy friend Toby Smollett, on the arm +of James Quin the actor, who tells us that the bells ring for Mr. Bullock, +an eminent cowkeeper from Tottenham, who has just arrived to drink the +waters; and Toby shakes his cane at the door of Colonel Ringworm--the +Creole gentleman's lodgings next his own--where the colonel's two negroes +are practising on the French horn. + +When we try to recall social England, we must fancy it playing at cards +for many hours every day. The custom is wellnigh gone out among us now, +but fifty years ago was general, fifty years before that almost universal, +in the country. "Gaming has become so much the fashion," writes Seymour, +the author of the _Court Gamester_, "that he who in company should be +ignorant of the games in vogue, would be reckoned low-bred, and hardly fit +for conversation." There were cards everywhere. It was considered ill-bred +to read in company. "Books were not fit articles for drawing-rooms," old +ladies used to say. People were jealous, as it were, and angry with them. +You will find in Hervey that George II was always furious at the sight of +books; and his queen, who loved reading, had to practise it in secret in +her closet. But cards were the resource of all the world. Every night, for +hours, kings and queens of England sat down and handled their majesties of +spades and diamonds. In European Courts, I believe the practice still +remains, not for gambling, but for pastime. Our ancestors generally +adopted it. "Books! prithee, don't talk to me about books," said old Sarah +Marlborough. "The only books I know are men and cards." "Dear old Sir +Roger de Coverley sent all his tenants a string of hogs' puddings and a +pack of cards at Christmas," says the _Spectator_, wishing to depict a +kind landlord. One of the good old lady writers in whose letters I have +been dipping cries out, "Sure, cards have kept us women from a great deal +of scandal!" Wise old Johnson regretted that he had not learnt to play. +"It is very useful in life," he says; "it generates kindness, and +consolidates society." David Hume never went to bed without his whist. We +have Walpole, in one of his letters, in a transport of gratitude for the +cards. "I shall build an order to Pam," says he, in his pleasant dandified +way, "for the escape of my charming Duchess of Grafton." The duchess had +been playing cards at Rome, when she ought to have been at a cardinal's +concert, where the floor fell in, and all the monsignors were precipitated +into the cellar. Even the Nonconformist clergy looked not unkindly on the +practice. "I do not think," says one of them, "that honest Martin Luther +committed sin by playing at backgammon for an hour or two after dinner, in +order by unbending his mind to promote digestion." As for the High Church +parsons, they all played, bishops and all. On Twelfth Day the Court used +to play in state. "This being Twelfth Day, his Majesty, the Prince of +Wales, and the Knights Companions of the Garter, Thistle, and Bath, +appeared in the collars of their respective orders. Their Majesties, the +Prince of Wales, and three eldest Princesses, went to the Chapel Royal, +preceded by the heralds. The Duke of Manchester carried the sword of +state. The king and prince made offering at the altar of gold, +frankincense, and myrrh, according to the annual custom. At night their +Majesties played at hazard with the nobility, for the benefit of the +groom-porter; and 'twas said the king won 600 guineas; the queen, 360; +Princess Amelia, twenty; Princess Caroline, ten; the Duke of Grafton and +the Earl of Portmore, several thousands." + +Let us glance at the same chronicle, which is of the year 1731, and see +how others of our forefathers were engaged. + +"Cork, 15th January.--This day, one Tim Croneen was, for the murder and +robbery of Mr. St. Leger and his wife, sentenced to be hanged two minutes, +then his head to be cut off, and his body divided in four quarters, to be +placed in four crossways. He was servant to Mr. St. Leger, and committed +the murder with the privity of the servant-maid, who was sentenced to be +burned; also of the gardener, whom he knocked on the head, to deprive him +of his share of the booty." + +"January 3.--A postboy was shot by an Irish gentleman on the road near +Stone, in Staffordshire, who died in two days, for which the gentleman was +imprisoned." + +"A poor man was found hanging in a gentleman's stables at Bungay, in +Norfolk, by a person who cut him down, and running for assistance, left +his penknife behind him. The poor man recovering, cut his throat with the +knife; and a river being nigh, jumped into it; but company coming, he was +dragged out alive, and was like to remain so." + +"The Honourable Thomas Finch, brother to the Earl of Nottingham, is +appointed ambassador at the Hague, in the room of the Earl of +Chesterfield, who is on his return home." + +"William Cowper, Esq., and the Rev. Mr. John Cowper, chaplain in ordinary +to her Majesty, and rector of Great Berkhampstead, in the county of +Hertford, are appointed clerks of the commissioners of bankruptcy." + +"Charles Creagh, Esq., and ---- Macnamara, Esq., between whom an old grudge +of three years had subsisted, which had occasioned their being bound over +about fifty times for breaking the peace, meeting in company with Mr. +Eyres, of Galloway, they discharged their pistols, and all three were +killed on the spot--to the great joy of their peaceful neighbours, say the +Irish papers." + +"Wheat is 26_s._ to 28_s._, and barley 20_s._ to 22_s._ a quarter; three +per cents, 92; best loaf sugar, 9-1/4_d._; Bohea, 12_s._ to 14_s._; Pekoe, +18_s._, and Hyson, 35_s._ per pound." + +"At Exon was celebrated with great magnificence the birthday of the son of +Sir W. Courtney, Bart., at which more than 1,000 persons were present. A +bullock was roasted whole; a butt of wine and several tuns of beer and +cider were given to the populace. At the same time Sir William delivered +to his son, then of age, Powdram Castle, and a great estate." + +"Charlesworth and Cox, two solicitors, convicted of forgery, stood on the +pillory at the Royal Exchange. The first was severely handled by the +populace, but the other was very much favoured, and protected by six or +seven fellows who got on the pillory to protect him from the insults of +the mob." + +"A boy killed by falling upon iron spikes, from a lamppost, which he +climbed to see Mother Needham stand in the pillory." + +"Mary Lynn was burned to ashes at the stake for being concerned in the +murder of her mistress." + +"Alexander Russell, the foot soldier, who was capitally convicted for a +street robbery in January sessions, was reprieved for transportation; but +having an estate fallen to him, obtained a free pardon." + +"The Lord John Russell married to the Lady Diana Spencer, at Marlborough +House. He has a fortune of 30,000_l._ down, and is to have 100,000_l._ at +the death of the Duchess Dowager of Marlborough, his grandmother." + +"March 1 being the anniversary of the queen's birthday, when her Majesty +entered the forty-ninth year of her age, there was a splendid appearance +of nobility at St. James's. Her Majesty was magnificently dressed, and +wore a flowered muslin head-edging, as did also her Royal Highness. The +Lord Portmore was said to have had the richest dress, though an Italian +Count had twenty-four diamonds instead of buttons." + +New clothes on the birthday were the fashion for all loyal people. Swift +mentions the custom several times. Walpole is constantly speaking of it; +laughing at the practice, but having the very finest clothes from Paris, +nevertheless. If the king and queen were unpopular, there were very few +new clothes at the Drawing-room. In a paper in the _True Patriot_, No. 3, +written to attack the Pretender, the Scotch, French, and Popery, Fielding +supposes the Scotch and the Pretender in possession of London, and himself +about to be hanged for loyalty,--when, just as the rope is round his neck, +he says: "My little girl entered my bedchamber, and put an end to my dream +by pulling open my eyes, and telling me that the tailor had just brought +home my clothes for his Majesty's birthday." In his _Temple Beau_, the +beau is dunned for a birthday suit of velvet, 40_l._ Be sure that Mr. +Harry Fielding was dunned too. + +The public days, no doubt, were splendid, but the private Court life must +have been awfully wearisome. "I will not trouble you," writes Hervey to +Lady Sundon, "with any account of our occupations at Hampton Court. No +mill-horse ever went in a more constant track, or a more unchanging +circle; so that by the assistance of an almanac for the day of the week, +and a watch for the hour of the day, you may inform yourself fully, +without any other intelligence but your memory, of every transaction +within the verge of the Court. Walking, chaises, levees, and audiences +fill the morning. At night the king plays at commerce and backgammon, and +the queen at quadrille, where poor Lady Charlotte runs her usual nightly +gauntlet, the queen pulling her hood, and the Princess Royal rapping her +knuckles. The Duke of Grafton takes his nightly opiate of lottery, and +sleeps as usual between the Princesses Amelia and Caroline. Lord Grantham +strolls from one room to another (as Dryden says), like some discontented +ghost that oft appears, and is forbid to speak; and stirs himself about as +people stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes to make it burn +brisker. At last the king gets up; the pool finishes; and everybody has +their dismission. Their Majesties retire to Lady Charlotte and my Lord +Lifford; my Lord Grantham, to Lady Frances and Mr. Clark: some to supper, +some to bed; and thus the evening and the morning make the day." + +The king's fondness for Hanover occasioned all sorts of rough jokes among +his English subjects, to whom _Sauerkraut_ and sausages have ever been +ridiculous objects. When our present Prince Consort came among us, the +people bawled out songs in the streets indicative of the absurdity of +Germany in general. The sausage-shops produced enormous sausages which we +might suppose were the daily food and delight of German princes. I +remember the caricatures at the marriage of Prince Leopold with the +Princess Charlotte. The bridegroom was drawn in rags. George III's wife +was called by the people a beggarly German duchess; the British idea being +that all princes were beggarly except British princes. King George paid us +back. He thought there were no manners out of Germany. Sarah Marlborough +once coming to visit the princess, whilst her Royal Highness was whipping +one of the roaring royal children, "Ah!" says George, who was standing by, +"you have no good manners in England, because you are not properly brought +up when you are young." He insisted that no English cooks could roast, no +English coachman could drive: he actually questioned the superiority of +our nobility, our horses, and our roast beef! + +Whilst he was away from his beloved Hanover, everything remained there +exactly as in the prince's presence. There were 800 horses in the stables, +there was all the apparatus of chamberlains, Court-marshals, and +equerries; and Court assemblies were held every Saturday, where all the +nobility of Hanover assembled at what I can't but think a fine and +touching ceremony. A large armchair was placed in the assembly-room, and +on it the king's portrait. The nobility advanced, and made a bow to the +armchair, and to the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and +spoke under their voices before the august picture, just as they would +have done had the King Churfuerst been present himself. + +He was always going back to Hanover. In the year 1729, he went for two +whole years, during which Caroline reigned for him in England, and he was +not in the least missed by his British subjects. He went again in '35 and +'36; and between the years 1740 and 1755 was no less than eight times on +the Continent, which amusement he was obliged to give up at the outbreak +of the Seven Years' War. Here every day's amusement was the same. "Our +life is as uniform as that of a monastery," writes a courtier whom Vehse +quotes. "Every morning at eleven, and every evening at six, we drive in +the heat to Herrenhausen, through an enormous linden avenue; and twice a +day cover our coats and coaches with dust. In the king's society there +never is the least change. At table, and at cards, he sees always the same +faces, and at the end of the game retires into his chamber. Twice a week +there is a French theatre; the other days there is play in the gallery. In +this way, were the king always to stop in Hanover, one could make a ten +years' calendar of his proceedings; and settle beforehand what his time of +business, meals, and pleasure would be." + +The old pagan kept his promise to his dying wife. Lady Yarmouth was now in +full favour, and treated with profound respect by the Hanover society, +though it appears rather neglected in England when she came among us. In +1740, a couple of the king's daughters went to see him at Hanover; Anna, +the Princess of Orange (about whom, and whose husband and marriage-day, +Walpole and Hervey have left us the most ludicrous descriptions), and +Maria of Hesse-Cassel, with their respective lords. This made the Hanover +Court very brilliant. In honour of his high guests, the king gave several +fetes; among others, a magnificent masked ball, in the green theatre at +Herrenhausen--the garden theatre, with linden and box for screen, and grass +for a carpet, where the Platens had danced to George and his father the +late sultan. The stage and a great part of the garden were illuminated +with coloured lamps. Almost the whole Court appeared in white dominos, +"like," says the describer of the scene, "like spirits in the Elysian +fields. At night, supper was served in the gallery with three great +tables, and the king was very merry. After supper dancing was resumed, and +I did not get home till five o'clock by full daylight to Hanover. Some +days afterwards we had in the opera-house at Hanover, a great assembly. +The king appeared in a Turkish dress; his turban was ornamented with a +magnificent agraffe of diamonds; the Lady Yarmouth was dressed as a +sultana; nobody was more beautiful than the Princess of Hesse." So, while +poor Caroline was resting in her coffin, dapper little George, with his +red face and his white eyebrows and goggle-eyes, at sixty years of age, is +dancing a pretty dance with Madame Walmoden, and capering about dressed up +like a Turk! For twenty years more, that little old Bajazet went on in +this Turkish fashion, until the fit came which choked the old man, when he +ordered the side of his coffin to be taken out, as well as that of poor +Caroline's who had preceded him, so that his sinful old bones and ashes +might mingle with those of the faithful creature. O strutting Turkey-cock +of Herrenhausen! O naughty little Mahomet! in what Turkish paradise are +you now, and where be your painted houris? So Countess Yarmouth appeared +as a sultana, and his Majesty in a Turkish dress wore an agraffe of +diamonds, and was very merry, was he? Friends! he was your fathers' king +as well as mine--let us drop a respectful tear over his grave. + +He said of his wife that he never knew a woman who was worthy to buckle +her shoe: he would sit alone weeping before her portrait, and when he had +dried his eyes, he would go off to his Walmoden and talk of her. On the +25th day of October, 1760, he being then in the seventy-seventh year of +his age, and the thirty-fourth of his reign, his page went to take him his +royal chocolate, and behold! the most religious and gracious king was +lying dead on the floor. They went and fetched Walmoden; but Walmoden +could not wake him. The sacred Majesty was but a lifeless corpse. The king +was dead; God save the king! But, of course, poets and clergymen +decorously bewailed the late one. Here are some artless verses, in which +an English divine deplored the famous departed hero, and over which you +may cry or you may laugh, exactly as your humour suits:-- + + + While at his feet expiring Faction lay, + No contest left but who should best obey; + Saw in his offspring all himself renewed; + The same fair path of glory still pursued; + Saw to young George Augusta's care impart + Whate'er could raise and humanize the heart; + Blend all his grandsire's virtues with his own, + And form their mingled radiance for the throne-- + No farther blessing could on earth be given-- + The next degree of happiness was--heaven! + + +If he had been good, if he had been just, if he had been pure in life, and +wise in council, could the poet have said much more? It was a parson who +came and wept over this grave, with Walmoden sitting on it, and claimed +heaven for the poor old man slumbering below. Here was one who had neither +dignity, learning, morals, nor wit--who tainted a great society by a bad +example; who in youth, manhood, old age, was gross, low, and sensual; and +Mr. Porteus, afterwards my Lord Bishop Porteus, says the earth was not +good enough for him, and that his only place was heaven! Bravo, Mr. +Porteus! The divine who wept these tears over George II's memory wore +George III's lawn. I don't know whether people still admire his poetry or +his sermons. + + + +George The Third + + +We have to glance over sixty years in as many minutes. To read the mere +catalogue of characters who figured during that long period, would occupy +our allotted time, and we should have all text and no sermon. England has +to undergo the revolt of the American colonies; to submit to defeat and +separation; to shake under the volcano of the French Revolution; to +grapple and fight for the life with her gigantic enemy Napoleon; to gasp +and rally after that tremendous struggle. The old society, with its +courtly splendours, has to pass away; generations of statesmen to rise and +disappear; Pitt to follow Chatham to the tomb; the memory of Rodney and +Wolfe to be superseded by Nelson's and Wellington's glory; the old poets +who unite us to Queen Anne's time to sink into their graves; Johnson to +die, and Scott and Byron to arise; Garrick to delight the world with his +dazzling dramatic genius, and Kean to leap on the stage and take +possession of the astonished theatre. Steam has to be invented; kings to +be beheaded, banished, deposed, restored. Napoleon to be but an episode, +and George III is to be alive through all these varied changes, to +accompany his people through all these revolutions of thought, government, +society; to survive out of the old world into ours. + +When I first saw England, she was in mourning for the young Princess +Charlotte, the hope of the empire. I came from India as a child, and our +ship touched at an island on the way home, where my black servant took me +a long walk over rocks and hills until we reached a garden, where we saw a +man walking. "That is he," said the black man: "that is Bonaparte! He eats +three sheep every day, and all the little children he can lay hands on!" +There were people in the British dominions besides that poor Calcutta +serving-man, with an equal horror of the Corsican ogre. + +With the same childish attendant, I remember peeping through the colonnade +at Carlton House, and seeing the abode of the great Prince Regent. I can +see yet the Guards pacing before the gates of the place. The place? What +place? The palace exists no more than the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. It is +but a name now. Where be the sentries who used to salute as the Royal +chariots drove in and out? The chariots, with the kings inside, have +driven to the realms of Pluto; the tall Guards have marched into darkness, +and the echoes of their drums are rolling in Hades. Where the palace once +stood, a hundred little children are paddling up and down the steps to St. +James's Park. A score of grave gentlemen are taking their tea at the +Athenaeum Club; as many grizzly warriors are garrisoning the United +Service Club opposite. Pall Mall is the great social Exchange of London +now--the mart of news, of politics, of scandal, of rumour--the English +forum, so to speak, where men discuss the last dispatch from the Crimea, +the last speech of Lord Derby, the next move of Lord John. And, now and +then, to a few antiquarians, whose thoughts are with the past rather than +with the present, it is a memorial of old times and old people, and Pall +Mall is our Palmyra. Look! About this spot, Tom of Ten Thousand was killed +by Koenigsmarck's gang. In that great red house Gainsborough lived, and +Culloden Cumberland, George III's uncle. Yonder is Sarah Marlborough's +palace, just as it stood when that termagant occupied it. At 25, Walter +Scott used to live; at the house, now No. 79, and occupied by the Society +for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, resided Mrs. Eleanor +Gwynn, comedian. + +How often has Queen Caroline's chair issued from under yonder arch! All +the men of the Georges have passed up and down the street. It has seen +Walpole's chariot and Chatham's sedan; and Fox, Gibbon, Sheridan, on their +way to Brookes's; and stately William Pitt stalking on the arm of Dundas; +and Hanger and Tom Sheridan reeling out of Raggett's; and Byron limping +into Wattier's; and Swift striding out of Bury Street; and Mr. Addison and +Dick Steele, both perhaps a little the better for liquor; and the Prince +of Wales and the Duke of York clattering over the pavement; and Johnson +counting the posts along the streets, after dawdling before Dodsley's +window; and Horry Walpole hobbling into his carriage, with a gimcrack just +bought out at Christie's; and George Selwyn sauntering into White's. + +In the published letters to George Selwyn we get a mass of correspondence +by no means so brilliant and witty as Walpole's, or so bitter and bright +as Hervey's, but as interesting, and even more descriptive of the time, +because the letters are the work of many hands. You hear more voices +speaking, as it were, and more natural than Horace's dandified treble, and +Sporus's malignant whisper. As one reads the Selwyn letters--as one looks +at Reynolds's noble pictures illustrative of those magnificent times and +voluptuous people--one almost hears the voice of the dead past; the +laughter and the chorus; the toast called over the brimming cups; the +shout at the racecourse or the gaming-table; the merry joke frankly spoken +to the laughing fine lady. How fine those ladies were, those ladies who +heard and spoke such coarse jokes; how grand those gentlemen! + +I fancy that peculiar product of the past, the fine gentleman, has almost +vanished off the face of the earth, and is disappearing like the beaver or +the Red Indian. We can't have fine gentlemen any more, because we can't +have the society in which they lived. The people will not obey: the +parasites will not be as obsequious as formerly: children do not go down +on their knees to beg their parents' blessing: chaplains do not say grace +and retire before the pudding: servants do not say "your honour" and "your +worship" at every moment: tradesmen do not stand hat in hand as the +gentleman passes: authors do not wait for hours in gentlemen's ante-rooms +with a fulsome dedication, for which they hope to get five guineas from +his lordship. In the days when there were fine gentlemen, Mr. Secretary +Pitt's under-secretaries did not dare to sit down before him; but Mr. +Pitt, in his turn, went down on his gouty knees to George II; and when +George III spoke a few kind words to him, Lord Chatham burst into tears of +reverential joy and gratitude; so awful was the idea of the monarch, and +so great the distinctions of rank. Fancy Lord John Russell or Lord +Palmerston on their knees whilst the sovereign was reading a dispatch, or +beginning to cry because Prince Albert said something civil! + +At the accession of George III, the patricians were yet at the height of +their good fortune. Society recognized their superiority, which they +themselves pretty calmly took for granted. They inherited not only titles +and estates, and seats in the House of Peers, but seats in the House of +Commons. There were a multitude of Government places, and not merely +these, but bribes of actual 500_l._ notes, which Members of the House took +not much shame in assuming. Fox went into Parliament at 20: Pitt was just +of age: his father not much older. It was the good time for Patricians. +Small blame to them if they took and enjoyed, and over-enjoyed, the prizes +of politics, the pleasures of social life. + +In these letters to Selwyn, we are made acquainted with a whole society of +these defunct fine gentlemen: and can watch with a curious interest a +life, which the novel-writers of that time, I think, have scarce touched +upon. To Smollett, to Fielding even, a lord was a lord: a gorgeous being +with a blue ribbon, a coroneted chair, and an immense star on his bosom, +to whom commoners paid reverence. Richardson, a man of humbler birth than +either of the above two, owned that he was ignorant regarding the manners +of the aristocracy, and besought Mrs. Donnellan, a lady who had lived in +the great world, to examine a volume of _Sir Charles Grandison_, and point +out any errors which she might see in this particular. Mrs. Donnellan +found so many faults, that Richardson changed colour; shut up the book; +and muttered that it were best to throw it in the fire. Here, in Selwyn, +we have the real original men and women of fashion of the early time of +George III. We can follow them to the new club at Almack's: we can travel +over Europe with them: we can accompany them not only to the public +places, but to their country-houses and private society. Here is a whole +company of them; wits and prodigals; some persevering in their bad ways; +some repentant, but relapsing; beautiful ladies, parasites, humble +chaplains, led captains. Those fair creatures whom we love in Reynolds's +portraits, and who still look out on us from his canvases with their sweet +calm faces and gracious smiles--those fine gentlemen who did us the honour +to govern us; who inherited their boroughs; took their ease in their +patent places; and slipped Lord North's bribes so elegantly under their +ruffles--we make acquaintance with a hundred of these fine folks, hear +their talk and laughter, read of their loves, quarrels, intrigues, debts, +duels, divorces; can fancy them alive if we read the book long enough. We +can attend at Duke Hamilton's wedding, and behold him marry his bride with +the curtain-ring: we can peep into her poor sister's death-bed: we can see +Charles Fox cursing over the cards, or March bawling out the odds at +Newmarket: we can imagine Burgoyne tripping off from St. James's Street to +conquer the Americans, and slinking back into the club somewhat +crestfallen after his beating: we can see the young king dressing himself +for the Drawing-room and asking ten thousand questions regarding all the +gentlemen: we can have high life or low, the struggle at the Opera to +behold the Violetta or the Zamperini--the Macaronis and fine ladies in +their chairs trooping to the masquerade or Madame Cornelys's--the crowd at +Drury Lane to look at the body of Miss Ray, whom Parson Hackman has just +pistolled--or we can peep into Newgate, where poor Mr. Rice the forger is +waiting his fate and his supper. "You need not be particular about the +sauce for his fowl," says one turnkey to another: "for you know he is to +be hanged in the morning." "Yes," replies the second janitor, "but the +chaplain sups with him, and he is a terrible fellow for melted butter." + +Selwyn has a chaplain and parasite, one Dr. Warner, than whom Plautus, or +Ben Jonson, or Hogarth, never painted a better character. In letter after +letter he adds fresh strokes to the portrait of himself, and completes a +portrait not a little curious to look at now that the man has passed away; +all the foul pleasures and gambols in which he revelled, played out; all +the rouged faces into which he leered, worms and skulls; all the fine +gentlemen whose shoebuckles he kissed, laid in their coffins. This worthy +clergyman takes care to tell us that he does not believe in his religion, +though, thank Heaven, he is not so great a rogue as a lawyer. He goes on +Mr. Selwyn's errands, any errands, and is proud, he says, to be that +gentleman's proveditor. He waits upon the Duke of Queensberry--old Q.--and +exchanges pretty stories with that aristocrat. He comes home "after a hard +day's christening", as he says, and writes to his patron before sitting +down to whist and partridges for supper. He revels in the thoughts of +ox-cheek and burgundy--he is a boisterous, uproarious parasite, licks his +master's shoes with explosions of laughter and cunning smack and gusto, +and likes the taste of that blacking as much as the best claret in old +Q.'s cellar. He has Rabelais and Horace at his greasy fingers' ends. He is +inexpressibly mean, curiously jolly; kindly and good-natured in secret--a +tender-hearted knave, not a venomous lickspittle. Jesse says, that at his +chapel in Long Acre, "he attained a considerable popularity by the +pleasing, manly, and eloquent style of his delivery." Was infidelity +endemic, and corruption in the air? Around a young king, himself of the +most exemplary life and undoubted piety, lived a Court society as +dissolute as our country ever knew. George II's bad morals bore their +fruit in George III's early years; as I believe that a knowledge of that +good man's example, his moderation, his frugal simplicity, and God-fearing +life, tended infinitely to improve the morals of the country and purify +the whole nation. + +After Warner, the most interesting of Selwyn's correspondents is the Earl +of Carlisle, grandfather of the amiable nobleman at present Viceroy in +Ireland. The grandfather, too, was Irish Viceroy, having previously been +treasurer of the king's household; and, in 1778, the principal +commissioner for treating, consulting, and agreeing upon the means of +quieting the divisions subsisting in his Majesty's colonies, plantations, +and possessions in North America. You may read his lordship's manifestos +in the _Royal New York Gazette_. He returned to England, having by no +means quieted the colonies; and speedily afterwards the _Royal New York +Gazette_ somehow ceased to be published. + +This good, clever, kind, highly-bred Lord Carlisle was one of the English +fine gentlemen who were wellnigh ruined by the awful debauchery and +extravagance which prevailed in the great English society of those days. +Its dissoluteness was awful: it had swarmed over Europe after the Peace; +it had danced, and raced, and gambled in all the Courts. It had made its +bow at Versailles; it had run its horses on the plain of Sablons, near +Paris, and created the Anglomania there: it had exported vast quantities +of pictures and marbles from Rome and Florence: it had ruined itself by +building great galleries and palaces for the reception of the statues and +pictures: it had brought over singing-women and dancing-women from all the +operas of Europe, on whom my lords lavished their thousands, whilst they +left their honest wives and honest children languishing in the lonely, +deserted splendours of the castle and park at home. + +Besides the great London society of those days, there was another +unacknowledged world, extravagant beyond measure, tearing about in the +pursuit of pleasure; dancing, gambling, drinking, singing; meeting the +real society in the public places (at Ranelaghs, Vauxhalls, and Ridottos, +about which our old novelists talk so constantly), and outvying the real +leaders of fashion, in luxury, and splendour, and beauty. For instance, +when the famous Miss Gunning visited Paris as Lady Coventry, where she +expected that her beauty would meet with the applause which had followed +her and her sister through England, it appears she was put to flight by an +English lady still more lovely in the eyes of the Parisians. A certain +Mrs. Pitt took a box at the opera opposite the countess; and was so much +handsomer than her ladyship, that the parterre cried out that this was the +real English angel, whereupon Lady Coventry quitted Paris in a huff. The +poor thing died presently of consumption, accelerated, it was said, by the +red and white paint with which she plastered those luckless charms of +hers. (We must represent to ourselves all fashionable female Europe, at +that time, as plastered with white, and raddled with red.) She left two +daughters behind her, whom George Selwyn loved (he was curiously fond of +little children), and who are described very drolly and pathetically in +these letters, in their little nursery, where passionate little Lady +Fanny, if she had not good cards, flung hers into Lady Mary's face; and +where they sat conspiring how they should receive a new mother-in-law whom +their papa presently brought home. They got on very well with their +mother-in-law, who was very kind to them; and they grew up, and they were +married, and they were both divorced afterwards--poor little souls! Poor +painted mother, poor society, ghastly in its pleasures, its loves, its +revelries! + +As for my lord commissioner, we can afford to speak about him: because, +though he was a wild and weak commissioner at one time, though he hurt his +estate, though he gambled and lost ten thousand pounds at a sitting--"five +times more," says the unlucky gentleman, "than I ever lost before;" though +he swore he never would touch a card again; and yet, strange to say, went +back to the table and lost still more: yet he repented of his errors, +sobered down, and became a worthy peer and a good country gentleman, and +returned to the good wife and the good children whom he had always loved +with the best part of his heart. He had married at one-and-twenty. He +found himself, in the midst of a dissolute society, at the head of a great +fortune. Forced into luxury, and obliged to be a great lord and a great +idler, he yielded to some temptations, and paid for them a bitter penalty +of manly remorse; from some others he fled wisely, and ended by conquering +them nobly. But he always had the good wife and children in his mind, and +they saved him. "I am very glad you did not come to me the morning I left +London," he writes to G. Selwyn, as he is embarking for America. "I can +only say, I never knew till that moment of parting, what grief was." There +is no parting now, where they are. The faithful wife, the kind, generous +gentleman, have left a noble race behind them: an inheritor of his name +and titles, who is beloved as widely as he is known; a man most kind, +accomplished, gentle, friendly, and pure; and female descendants occupying +high stations and embellishing great names; some renowned for beauty, and +all for spotless lives, and pious matronly virtues. + +Another of Selwyn's correspondents is the Earl of March, afterwards Duke +of Queensberry, whose life lasted into this century; and who certainly as +earl or duke, young man or greybeard, was not an ornament to any possible +society. The legends about old Q. are awful. In _Selwyn_, in _Wraxall_, +and contemporary chronicles, the observer of human nature may follow him, +drinking, gambling, intriguing to the end of his career; when the +wrinkled, palsied, toothless old Don Juan died, as wicked and unrepentant +as he had been at the hottest season of youth and passion. There is a +house in Piccadilly, where they used to show a certain low window at which +old Q. sat to his very last days, ogling through his senile glasses the +women as they passed by. + +There must have been a great deal of good about this lazy, sleepy George +Selwyn, which, no doubt, is set to his present credit. "Your friendship," +writes Carlisle to him, "is so different from anything I have ever met +with or seen in the world, that when I recollect the extraordinary proofs +of your kindness, it seems to me like a dream." "I have lost my oldest +friend, and acquaintance, G. Selwyn," writes Walpole to Miss Berry: "I +really loved him, not only for his infinite wit, but for a thousand good +qualities." I am glad, for my part, that such a lover of cakes and ale +should have had a thousand good qualities--that he should have been +friendly, generous, warm-hearted, trustworthy. "I rise at six," writes +Carlisle to him, from Spa (a great resort of fashionable people in our +ancestors' days), "play at cricket till dinner, and dance in the evening, +till I can scarcely crawl to bed at eleven. There is a life for you! You +get up at nine; play with Raton your dog till twelve, in your +dressing-gown; then creep down to White's; are five hours at table; sleep +till supper-time; and then make two wretches carry you in a sedan-chair, +with three pints of claret in you, three miles for a shilling." +Occasionally, instead of sleeping at White's, George went down and snoozed +in the House of Commons by the side of Lord North. He represented +Gloucester for many years, and had a borough of his own, Ludgershall, for +which, when he was too lazy to contest Gloucester, he sat himself. "I have +given directions for the election of Ludgershall to be of Lord Melbourne +and myself," he writes to the Premier, whose friend he was, and who was +himself as sleepy, as witty, and as good-natured as George. + +If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and +fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, +we must make allowances for the rich men's failings, and recollect that +we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for +work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a +large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a +great fortune, do but be splendid and idle? In these letters of Lord +Carlisle's from which I have been quoting, there is many a just complaint +made by the kind-hearted young nobleman of the state which he is obliged +to keep; the magnificence in which he must live; the idleness to which his +position as a peer of England bound him. Better for him had he been a +lawyer at his desk, or a clerk in his office;--a thousand times better +chance for happiness, education, employment, security from temptation. A +few years since the profession of arms was the only one which our nobles +could follow. The Church, the Bar, medicine, literature, the arts, +commerce, were below them. It is to the middle class we must look for the +safety of England: the working educated men, away from Lord North's +bribery in the senate; the good clergy not corrupted into parasites by +hopes of preferment; the tradesmen rising into manly opulence; the +painters pursuing their gentle calling; the men of letters in their quiet +studies; these are the men whom we love and like to read of in the last +age. How small the grandees and the men of pleasure look beside them! how +contemptible the story of the George III Court squabbles are beside the +recorded talk of dear old Johnson! What is the grandest entertainment at +Windsor, compared to a night at the club over its modest cups, with Percy +and Langton, and Goldsmith, and poor Bozzy at the table? I declare I +think, of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest +gentleman. And they were good, as well as witty and wise, those dear old +friends of the past. Their minds were not debauched by excess, or +effeminate with luxury. They toiled their noble day's labour: they rested, +and took their kindly pleasure: they cheered their holiday meetings with +generous wit and hearty interchange of thought: they were no prudes, but +no blush need follow their conversation: they were merry, but no riot came +out of their cups. Ah! I would have liked a night at the "Turk's Head", +even though bad news had arrived from the colonies, and Doctor Johnson was +growling against the rebels; to have sat with him and Goldy; and to have +heard Burke, the finest talker in the world; and to have had Garrick +flashing in with a story from his theatre!--I like, I say, to think of that +society; and not merely how pleasant and how wise, but how _good_ they +were. I think it was on going home one night from the club that Edmund +Burke--his noble soul full of great thoughts, be sure, for they never left +him; his heart full of gentleness--was accosted by a poor wandering woman, +to whom he spoke words of kindness; and moved by the tears of this +Magdalen, perhaps having caused them by the good words he spoke to her, he +took her home to the house of his wife and children, and never left her +until he had found the means of restoring her to honesty and labour. O you +fine gentlemen! you Marches, and Selwyns, and Chesterfields, how small you +look by the side of these great men! Good-natured Carlisle plays at +cricket all day, and dances in the evening "till he can scarcely crawl", +gaily contrasting his superior virtue with George Selwyn's "carried to bed +by two wretches at midnight with three pints of claret in him". Do you +remember the verses--the sacred verses--which Johnson wrote on the death of +his humble friend, Levett? + + + Well tried through many a varying year, + See Levett to the grave descend; + Officious, innocent, sincere, + Of every friendless name the friend. + + In misery's darkest cavern known, + His useful care was ever nigh, + Where hopeless anguish poured the groan, + And lonely want retired to die. + + No summons mocked by chill delay, + No petty gain disdained by pride, + The modest wants of every day + The toil of every day supplied. + + His virtues walked their narrow round, + Nor made a pause, nor left a void: + And sure the Eternal Master found + His single talent well employed. + + +Whose name looks the brightest now, that of Queensberry the wealthy duke, +or Selwyn the wit, or Levett the poor physician? + +I hold old Johnson (and shall we not pardon James Boswell some errors for +embalming him for us?) to be the great supporter of the British Monarchy +and Church during the last age--better than whole benches of bishops, +better than Pitts, Norths, and the great Burke himself. Johnson had the +ear of the nation: his immense authority reconciled it to loyalty, and +shamed it out of irreligion. When George III talked with him, and the +people heard the great author's good opinion of the sovereign, whole +generations rallied to the king. Johnson was revered as a sort of oracle; +and the oracle declared for Church and King. What a humanity the old man +had! He was a kindly partaker of all honest pleasures: a fierce foe to all +sin, but a gentle enemy to all sinners. "What, boys, are you for a +frolic?" he cries, when Topham Beauclerc comes and wakes him up at +midnight: "I'm with you," And away he goes, tumbles on his homely old +clothes, and trundles through Covent Garden with the young fellows. When +he used to frequent Garrick's theatre, and had "the liberty of the +scenes", he says, "all the actresses knew me, and dropped me a curtsy as +they passed to the stage." That would make a pretty picture: it is a +pretty picture in my mind, of youth, folly, gaiety, tenderly surveyed by +wisdom's merciful, pure eyes. + +George III and his queen lived in a very unpretending but elegant-looking +house, on the site of the hideous pile under which his granddaughter at +present reposes. The king's mother inhabited Carlton House, which +contemporary prints represent with a perfect paradise of a garden, with +trim lawns, green arcades, and vistas of classic statues. She admired +these in company with my Lord Bute, who had a fine classic taste, and +sometimes counsel took and sometimes tea in the pleasant green arbours +along with that polite nobleman. Bute was hated with a rage of which there +have been few examples in English history. He was the butt for everybody's +abuse; for Wilkes's devilish mischief; for Churchill's slashing satire; +for the hooting of the mob that roasted the boot, his emblem, in a +thousand bonfires; that hated him because he was a favourite and a +Scotchman, calling him "Mortimer", "Lothario", I know not what names, and +accusing his royal mistress of all sorts of crimes--the grave, lean, +demure, elderly woman, who, I dare say, was quite as good as her +neighbours. Chatham lent the aid of his great malice to influence the +popular sentiment against her. He assailed, in the House of Lords, "the +secret influence, more mighty than the Throne itself, which betrayed and +clogged every administration." The most furious pamphlets echoed the cry. +"Impeach the king's mother," was scribbled over every wall at the Court +end of the town, Walpole tells us. What had she done? What had Frederick, +Prince of Wales, George's father, done, that he was so loathed by George +II and never mentioned by George III? Let us not seek for stones to batter +that forgotten grave, but acquiesce in the contemporary epitaph over him:-- + + + Here lies Fred, + Who was alive, and is dead. + Had it been his father, + I had much rather. + Had it been his brother, + Still better than another. + Had it been his sister, + No one would have missed her. + Had it been the whole generation, + Still better for the nation. + But since 'tis only Fred, + Who was alive, and is dead, + There's no more to be said. + + +The widow with eight children round her, prudently reconciled herself with +the king, and won the old man's confidence and goodwill. A shrewd, hard, +domineering, narrow-minded woman, she educated her children according to +her lights, and spoke of the eldest as a dull, good boy: she kept him very +close: she held the tightest rein over him: she had curious prejudices and +bigotries. His uncle, the burly Cumberland, taking down a sabre once, and +drawing it to amuse the child--the boy started back and turned pale. The +prince felt a generous shock: "What must they have told him about me?" he +asked. + +His mother's bigotry and hatred he inherited with the courageous obstinacy +of his own race; but he was a firm believer where his fathers had been +freethinkers, and a true and fond supporter of the Church, of which he was +the titular defender. Like other dull men, the king was all his life +suspicious of superior people. He did not like Fox; he did not like +Reynolds; he did not like Nelson, Chatham, Burke; he was testy at the idea +of all innovations, and suspicious of all innovators. He loved +mediocrities; Benjamin West was his favourite painter; Beattie was his +poet. The king lamented, not without pathos, in his after-life, that his +education had been neglected. He was a dull lad brought up by +narrow-minded people. The cleverest tutors in the world could have done +little probably to expand that small intellect, though they might have +improved his tastes, and taught his perceptions some generosity. + +But he admired as well as he could. There is little doubt that a letter, +written by the little Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz,--a letter +containing the most feeble commonplaces about the horrors of war, and the +most trivial remarks on the blessings of peace, struck the young monarch +greatly, and decided him upon selecting the young princess as the sharer +of his throne, I pass over the stories of his juvenile loves--of Hannah +Lightfoot, the Quaker, to whom they say he was actually married (though I +don't know who has ever seen the register)--of lovely black-haired Sarah +Lennox, about whose beauty Walpole has written in raptures, and who used +to lie in wait for the young prince, and make hay at him on the lawn of +Holland House. He sighed and he longed, but he rode away from her. Her +picture still hangs in Holland House, a magnificent masterpiece of +Reynolds, a canvas worthy of Titian. She looks from the castle window, +holding a bird in her hand, at black-eyed young Charles Fox, her nephew. +The royal bird flew away from lovely Sarah. She had to figure as +bridesmaid at her little Mecklenburg rival's wedding, and died in our own +time a quiet old lady, who had become the mother of the heroic Napiers. + +They say the little princess who had written the fine letter about the +horrors of war--a beautiful letter without a single blot, for which she was +to be rewarded, like the heroine of the old spelling-book story--was at +play one day with some of her young companions in the gardens of Strelitz, +and that the young ladies' conversation was, strange to say, about +husbands. "Who will take such a poor little princess as me?" Charlotte +said to her friend, Ida von Bulow, and at that very moment the postman's +horn sounded, and Ida said, "Princess! there is the sweetheart." As she +said, so it actually turned out. The postman brought letters from the +splendid young King of all England, who said, "Princess! because you have +written such a beautiful letter, which does credit to your head and heart, +come and be Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and the true wife +of your most obedient servant, George!" So she jumped for joy; and went +upstairs and packed all her little trunks; and set off straightway for her +kingdom in a beautiful yacht, with a harpsichord on board for her to play +upon, and around her a beautiful fleet, all covered with flags and +streamers, and the distinguished Madame Auerbach complimented her with an +ode, a translation of which may be read in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ to +the present day:-- + + + Her gallant navy through the main, + Now cleaves its liquid way. + There to their queen a chosen train + Of nymphs due reverence pay. + + Europa, when conveyed by Jove + To Crete's distinguished shore, + Greater attention scarce could prove, + Or be respected more. + + +They met, and they were married, and for years they led the happiest, +simplest lives sure ever led by married couple. It is said the king winced +when he first saw his homely little bride; but, however that may be, he +was a true and faithful husband to her, as she was a faithful and loving +wife. They had the simplest pleasures--the very mildest and simplest--little +country dances, to which a dozen couple were invited, and where the honest +king would stand up and dance for three hours at a time to one tune; after +which delicious excitement they would go to bed without any supper (the +Court people grumbling sadly at that absence of supper), and get up quite +early the next morning, and perhaps the next night have another dance; or +the queen would play on the spinet--she played pretty well, Haydn said--or +the king would read to her a paper out of the _Spectator_, or perhaps one +of Ogden's sermons. O Arcadia! what a life it must have been! There used +to be Sunday drawing-rooms at Court; but the young king stopped these, as +he stopped all that godless gambling whereof we have made mention. Not +that George was averse to any innocent pleasures, or pleasures which he +thought innocent. He was a patron of the arts, after his fashion; kind and +gracious to the artists whom he favoured, and respectful to their calling. +He wanted once to establish an Order of Minerva for literary and +scientific characters; the knights were to take rank after the knights of +the Bath, and to sport a straw-coloured ribbon and a star of sixteen +points. But there was such a row amongst the _literati_ as to the persons +who should be appointed, that the plan was given up, and Minerva and her +star never came down amongst us. + +He objected to painting St. Paul's, as Popish practice; accordingly, the +most clumsy heathen sculptures decorate that edifice at present. It is +fortunate that the paintings, too, were spared, for painting and drawing +were wofully unsound at the close of the last century; and it is far +better for our eyes to contemplate whitewash (when we turn them away from +the clergyman) than to look at Opie's pitchy canvases, or Fuseli's livid +monsters. + +And yet there is one day in the year--a day when old George loved with all +his heart to attend it--when I think St. Paul's presents the noblest sight +in the whole world: when five thousand charity children, with cheeks like +nosegays, and sweet, fresh voices, sing the hymn which makes every heart +thrill with praise and happiness. I have seen a hundred grand sights in +the world--coronations, Parisian splendours, Crystal Palace openings, +Pope's chapels with their processions of long-tailed cardinals and +quavering choirs of fat soprani--but think in all Christendom there is no +such sight as Charity Children's Day. _Non Angli, sed angeli_. As one +looks at that beautiful multitude of innocents: as the first note strikes: +indeed one may almost fancy that cherubs are singing. + +Of church music the king was always very fond, showing skill in it both as +a critic and a performer. Many stories, mirthful and affecting, are told +of his behaviour at the concerts which he ordered. When he was blind and +ill he chose the music for the Ancient Concerts once, and the music and +words which he selected were from _Samson Agonistes_, and all had +reference to his blindness, his captivity, and his affliction. He would +beat time with his music-roll as they sang the anthem in the Chapel Royal. +If the page below was talkative or inattentive, down would come the +music-roll on young scapegrace's powdered head. The theatre was always his +delight. His bishops and clergy used to attend it, thinking it no shame to +appear where that good man was seen. He is said not to have cared for +Shakespeare or tragedy much; farces and pantomimes were his joy; and +especially when clown swallowed a carrot or a string of sausages, he would +laugh so outrageously that the lovely princess by his side would have to +say, "My gracious monarch, do compose yourself." But he continued to +laugh, and at the very smallest farces, as long as his poor wits were left +him. + +There is something to me exceedingly touching in that simple early life of +the king's. As long as his mother lived--a dozen years after his marriage +with the little spinet-player--he was a great, shy, awkward boy, under the +tutelage of that hard parent. She must have been a clever, domineering, +cruel woman. She kept her household lonely and in gloom, mistrusting +almost all people who came about her children. Seeing the young Duke of +Gloucester silent and unhappy once, she sharply asked him the cause of his +silence. "I am thinking," said the poor child. "Thinking, sir! and of +what?" "I am thinking if ever I have a son I will not make him so unhappy +as you make me." The other sons were all wild, except George. Dutifully +every evening George and Charlotte paid their visit to the king's mother +at Carlton House. She had a throat complaint, of which she died; but to +the last persisted in driving about the streets to show she was alive. The +night before her death the resolute woman talked with her son and +daughter-in-law as usual, went to bed, and was found dead there in the +morning. "George, be a king!" were the words which she was for ever +croaking in the ears of her son: and a king the simple, stubborn, +affectionate, bigoted man tried to be. + +He did his best; he worked according to his lights; what virtue he knew, +he tried to practise; what knowledge he could master, he strove to +acquire. He was for ever drawing maps, for example, and learned geography +with no small care and industry. He knew all about the family histories +and genealogies of his gentry, and pretty histories he must have known. He +knew the whole _Army __ List_; and all the facings, and the exact number +of the buttons, and all the tags and laces, and the cut of all the cocked +hats, pigtails, and gaiters in his army. He knew the _personnel_ of the +Universities; what doctors were inclined to Socinianism, and who were +sound Churchmen; he knew the etiquettes of his own and his grandfather's +Courts to a nicety, and the smallest particulars regarding the routine of +ministers, secretaries, embassies, audiences; the humblest page in the +ante-room, or the meanest helper in the stables or kitchen. These parts of +the royal business he was capable of learning, and he learned. But, as one +thinks of an office, almost divine, performed by any mortal man--of any +single being pretending to control the thoughts, to direct the faith, to +order the implicit obedience of brother millions, to compel them into war +at his offence or quarrel; to command, "In this way you shall trade, in +this way you shall think; these neighbours shall be your allies whom you +shall help, these others your enemies whom you shall slay at my orders; in +this way you shall worship God;"--who can wonder that, when such a man as +George took such an office on himself, punishment and humiliation should +fall upon people and chief? + +Yet there is something grand about his courage. The battle of the king +with his aristocracy remains yet to be told by the historian who shall +view the reign of George more justly than the trumpery panegyrists who +wrote immediately after his decease. It was he, with the people to back +him, who made the war with America; it was he and the people who refused +justice to the Roman Catholics; and on both questions he beat the +patricians. He bribed: he bullied: he darkly dissembled on occasion: he +exercised a slippery perseverance, and a vindictive resolution, which one +almost admires as one thinks his character over. His courage was never to +be beat. It trampled North under foot: it bent the stiff neck of the +younger Pitt: even his illness never conquered that indomitable spirit. As +soon as his brain was clear, it resumed the scheme, only laid aside when +his reason left him: as soon as his hands were out of the +strait-waistcoat, they took up the pen and the plan which had engaged him +up to the moment of his malady. I believe it is by persons believing +themselves in the right that nine-tenths of the tyranny of this world has +been perpetrated. Arguing on that convenient premiss, the Dey of Algiers +would cut off twenty heads of a morning; Father Dominic would burn a score +of Jews in the presence of the most Catholic King, and the Archbishops of +Toledo and Salamanca sing Amen. Protestants were roasted, Jesuits hung and +quartered at Smithfield, and witches burned at Salem, and all by worthy +people, who believed they had the best authority for their actions. + +And so, with respect to old George, even Americans, whom he hated and who +conquered him, may give him credit for having quite honest reasons for +oppressing them. Appended to Lord Brougham's biographical sketch of Lord +North are some autograph notes of the king, which let us most curiously +into the state of his mind. "The times certainly require," says he, "the +concurrence of all who wish to prevent anarchy. I have no wish but the +prosperity of my own dominions, therefore I must look upon all who would +not heartily assist me as bad men, as well as bad subjects." That is the +way he reasoned. "I wish nothing but good, therefore every man who does +not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel." Remember that he believed +himself anointed by a Divine commission; remember that he was a man of +slow parts and imperfect education; that the same awful will of Heaven +which placed a crown upon his head, which made him tender to his family, +pure in his life, courageous and honest, made him dull of comprehension, +obstinate of will, and at many times deprived him of reason. He was the +father of his people; his rebellious children must be flogged into +obedience. He was the defender of the Protestant faith; he would rather +lay that stout head upon the block than that Catholics should have a share +in the government of England. And you do not suppose that there are not +honest bigots enough in all countries to back kings in this kind of +statesmanship? Without doubt the American war was popular in England. In +1775 the address in favour of coercing the colonies was carried by 304 to +105 in the Commons, by 104 to 29 in the House of Lords. Popular?--so was +the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes popular in France: so was the +massacre of St. Bartholomew: so was the Inquisition exceedingly popular in +Spain. + +Wars and revolutions are, however, the politician's province. The great +events of this long reign, the statesmen and orators who illustrated it, I +do not pretend to make the subjects of an hour's light talk.(187) Let us +return to our humbler duty of Court gossip. Yonder sits our little queen, +surrounded by many stout sons and fair daughters whom she bore to her +faithful George. The history of the daughters, as little Miss Burney has +painted them to us, is delightful. They were handsome--she calls them +beautiful; they were most kind, loving, and ladylike; they were gracious +to every person, high and low, who served them. They had many little +accomplishments of their own. This one drew: that one played the piano: +they all worked most prodigiously, and fitted up whole suites of +rooms--pretty, smiling Penelopes,--with their busy little needles. As we +picture to ourselves the society of eighty years ago, we must imagine +hundreds of thousands of groups of women in great high caps, tight bodies, +and full skirts, needling away, whilst one of the number, or perhaps a +favoured gentleman in a pigtail, reads out a novel to the company. Peep +into the cottage at Olney, for example, and see there Mrs. Unwin and Lady +Hesketh, those high-bred ladies, those sweet, pious women, and William +Cowper, that delicate wit, that trembling pietist, that refined gentleman, +absolutely reading out _Jonathan Wild_ to the ladies! What a change in our +manners, in our amusements, since then! + + [Illustration] + + Lord North, Mr. Fox + + + [Illustration] + + Mr. Pitt, Mr. Burke + + +King George's household was a model of an English gentleman's household. +It was early; it was kindly; it was charitable; it was frugal; it was +orderly; it must have been stupid to a degree which I shudder now to +contemplate. No wonder all the princes ran away from the lap of that +dreary domestic virtue. It always rose, rode, dined at stated intervals. +Day after day was the same. At the same hour at night the king kissed his +daughters' jolly cheeks; the princesses kissed their mother's hand; and +Madame Thielke brought the royal nightcap. At the same hour the equerries +and women in waiting had their little dinner, and cackled over their tea. +The king had his backgammon or his evening concert; the equerries yawned +themselves to death in the ante-room; or the king and his family walked on +Windsor slopes, the king holding his darling little princess Amelia by the +hand; and the people crowded round quite good-naturedly; and the Eton boys +thrust their chubby cheeks under the crowd's elbows; and the concert over, +the king never failed to take his enormous cocked-hat off, and salute his +band, and say, "Thank you, gentlemen." + + [Illustration] + + A Little Rebel + + +A quieter household, a more prosaic life than this of Kew or Windsor, +cannot be imagined. Rain or shine, the king rode every day for hours; +poked his red face into hundreds of cottages round about, and showed that +shovel hat and Windsor uniform to farmers, to pig-boys, to old women +making apple dumplings; to all sorts of people, gentle and simple, about +whom countless stories are told. Nothing can be more undignified than +these stories. When Haroun Alraschid visits a subject incog., the latter +is sure to be very much the better for the caliph's magnificence. Old +George showed no such royal splendour. He used to give a guinea sometimes: +sometimes feel in his pockets and find he had no money: often ask a man a +hundred questions: about the number of his family, about his oats and +beans, about the rent he paid for his house, and ride on. On one occasion +he played the part of King Alfred, and turned a piece of meat with a +string at a cottager's house. When the old woman came home, she found a +paper with an enclosure of money, and a note written by the royal pencil: +"Five guineas to buy a jack." It was not splendid, but it was kind and +worthy of Farmer George. One day, when the king and queen were walking +together, they met a little boy--they were always fond of children, the +good folks--and patted the little white head. "Whose little boy are you?" +asks the Windsor uniform. "I am the king's beefeater's little boy," +replied the child. On which the king said, "Then kneel down, and kiss the +queen's hand." But the innocent offspring of the beefeater declined this +treat. "No," said he, "I won't kneel, for if I do, I shall spoil my new +breeches." The thrifty king ought to have hugged him and knighted him on +the spot. George's admirers wrote pages and pages of such stories about +him. One morning, before anybody else was up, the king walked about +Gloucester town; pushed over Molly the housemaid who was scrubbing the +doorsteps with her pail; ran upstairs and woke all the equerries in their +bedrooms; and then trotted down to the bridge, where, by this time, a +dozen of louts were assembled. "What! is this Gloucester New Bridge?" +asked our gracious monarch; and the people answered him, "Yes, your +Majesty." "Why, then, my boys," said he, "let us have a huzzay!" After +giving them which intellectual gratification, he went home to breakfast. +Our fathers read these simple tales with fond pleasure; laughed at these +very small jokes; liked the old man who poked his nose into every cottage; +who lived on plain wholesome roast and boiled; who despised your French +kickshaws; who was a true hearty old English gentleman. You may have seen +Gilray's famous print of him--in the old wig, in the stout old hideous +Windsor uniform--as the King of Brobdingnag, peering at a little Gulliver, +whom he holds up in his hand, whilst in the other he has an opera-glass, +through which he surveys the pygmy? Our fathers chose to set up George as +the type of a great king; and the little Gulliver was the great Napoleon. +We prided ourselves on our prejudices; we blustered and bragged with +absurd vainglory; we dealt to our enemy a monstrous injustice of contempt +and scorn; we fought him with all weapons, mean as well as heroic. There +was no lie we would not believe; no charge of crime which our furious +prejudice would not credit. I thought at one time of making a collection +of the lies which the French had written against us, and we had published +against them during the war: it would be a strange memorial of popular +falsehood. + +Their majesties were very sociable potentates: and the Court Chronicler +tells of numerous visits which they paid to their subjects, gentle and +simple: with whom they dined; at whose great country-houses they stopped; +or at whose poorer lodgings they affably partook of tea and +bread-and-butter. Some of the great folks spent enormous sums in +entertaining their sovereigns. As marks of special favour, the king and +queen sometimes stood as sponsors for the children of the nobility. We +find Lady Salisbury was so honoured in the year 1786; and in the year +1802, Lady Chesterfield. The _Court News_ relates how her ladyship +received their Majesties on a state bed "dressed with white satin and a +profusion of lace: the counterpane of white satin embroidered with gold, +and the bed of crimson satin lined with white". The child was first +brought by the nurse to the Marchioness of Bath, who presided as chief +nurse. Then the marchioness handed baby to the queen. Then the queen +handed the little darling to the Bishop of Norwich, the officiating +clergyman; and, the ceremony over, a cup of caudle was presented by the +earl to his Majesty on one knee, on a large gold waiter, placed on a +crimson velvet cushion. Misfortunes would occur in these interesting +genuflectory ceremonies of royal worship. Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe, a +very fat, puffy man, in a most gorgeous Court suit, had to kneel, +Cumberland says, and was so fat and so tight that he could not get up +again. "Kneel, sir, kneel!" cried my lord in waiting to a country mayor +who had to read an address, but who went on with his compliment standing. +"Kneel, sir, kneel!" cries my lord, in dreadful alarm. "I can't!" says the +mayor, turning round; "don't you see I have got a wooden leg?" In the +capital _Burney Diary and Letters_, the home and Court life of good old +King George and good old Queen Charlotte are presented at portentous +length. The king rose every morning at six: and had two hours to himself. +He thought it effeminate to have a carpet in his bedroom. Shortly before +eight, the queen and the royal family were always ready for him, and they +proceeded to the king's chapel in the castle. There were no fires in the +passages: the chapel was scarcely alight; princesses, governesses, +equerries grumbled and caught cold: but cold or hot, it was their duty to +go: and, wet or dry, light or dark, the stout old George was always in his +place to say Amen to the chaplain. + +The queen's character is represented in _Burney_ at full length. She was a +sensible, most decorous woman; a very grand lady on state occasions, +simple enough in ordinary life; well read as times went, and giving shrewd +opinions about books; stingy, but not unjust; not generally unkind to her +dependants, but invincible in her notions of etiquette, and quite angry if +her people suffered ill-health in her service. She gave Miss Burney a +shabby pittance, and led the poor young woman a life which well-nigh +killed her. She never thought but that she was doing Burney the greatest +favour, in taking her from freedom, fame, and competence, and killing her +off with languor in that dreary Court. It was not dreary to her. Had she +been servant instead of mistress, her spirit would never have broken down: +she never would have put a pin out of place, or been a moment from her +duty. _She_ was not weak, and she could not pardon those who were. She was +perfectly correct in life, and she hated poor sinners with a rancour such +as virtue sometimes has. She must have had awful private trials of her +own: not merely with her children, but with her husband, in those long +days about which nobody will ever know anything now; when he was not quite +insane; when his incessant tongue was babbling folly, rage, persecution; +and she had to smile and be respectful and attentive under this +intolerable ennui. The queen bore all her duties stoutly, as she expected +others to bear them. At a state christening, the lady who held the infant +was tired and looked unwell, and the Princess of Wales asked permission +for her to sit down. "Let her stand," said the queen, flicking the snuff +off her sleeve. _She_ would have stood, the resolute old woman, if she had +had to hold the child till his beard was grown. "I am seventy years of +age," the queen said, facing a mob of ruffians who stopped her sedan: "I +have been fifty years Queen of England, and I never was insulted before." +Fearless, rigid, unforgiving little queen! I don't wonder that her sons +revolted from her. + +Of all the figures in that large family group which surrounds George and +his queen, the prettiest, I think, is the father's darling, the Princess +Amelia, pathetic for her beauty, her sweetness, her early death, and for +the extreme passionate tenderness with which her father loved her. This +was his favourite amongst all the children: of his sons, he loved the Duke +of York best. Burney tells a sad story of the poor old man at Weymouth, +and how eager he was to have this darling son with him. The king's house +was not big enough to hold the prince; and his father had a portable house +erected close to his own, and at huge pains, so that his dear Frederick +should be near him. He clung on his arm all the time of his visit: talked +to no one else; had talked of no one else for some time before. The +prince, so long expected, stayed but a single night. He had business in +London the next day, he said. The dullness of the old king's Court +stupefied York and the other big sons of George III. They scared equerries +and ladies, frightened the modest little circle, with their coarse spirits +and loud talk. Of little comfort, indeed, were the king's sons to the +king. + +But the pretty Amelia was his darling; and the little maiden, prattling +and smiling in the fond arms of that old father, is a sweet image to look +on. There is a family picture in _Burney_, which a man must be very +hard-hearted not to like. She describes an after-dinner walk of the royal +family at Windsor:--"It was really a mighty pretty procession," she says. +"The little princess, just turned of three years old, in a robe-coat +covered with fine muslin, a dressed close cap, white gloves, and fan, +walked on alone and first, highly delighted with the parade, and turning +from side to side to see everybody as she passed; for all the terracers +stand up against the walls, to make a clear passage for the royal family +the moment they come in sight. Then followed the king and queen, no less +delighted with the joy of their little darling. The Princess Royal leaning +on Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave, the Princess Augusta holding by the Duchess +of Ancaster, the Princess Elizabeth led by Lady Charlotte Bertie, +followed. Office here takes place of rank," says Burney,--to explain how it +was that Lady E. Waldegrave, as lady of the bed-chamber, walked before a +duchess;--"General Bude, and the Duke of Montague, and Major Price as +equerry, brought up the rear of the procession." One sees it; the band +playing its old music, the sun shining on the happy, loyal crowd; and +lighting the ancient battlements, the rich elms, and purple landscape, and +bright greensward; the royal standard drooping from the great tower +yonder; as old George passes, followed by his race, preceded by the +charming infant, who caresses the crowd with her innocent smiles. + +"On sight of Mrs. Delany, the king instantly stopped to speak to her; the +queen, of course, and the little princess, and all the rest, stood still. +They talked a good while with the sweet old lady, during which time the +king once or twice addressed himself to me. I caught the queen's eye, and +saw in it a little surprise, but by no means any displeasure, to see me of +the party. The little princess went up to Mrs. Delany, of whom she is very +fond, and behaved like a little angel to her. She then, with a look of +inquiry and recollection, came behind Mrs. Delany to look at me. 'I am +afraid,' said I, in a whisper, and stooping down, 'your Royal Highness +does not remember me?' Her answer was an arch little smile, and a nearer +approach, with her lips pouted out to kiss me." + +The princess wrote verses herself, and there are some pretty plaintive +lines attributed to her, which are more touching than better poetry:-- + + + Unthinking, idle, wild, and young, + I laughed, and danced, and talked, and sung: + And, proud of health, of freedom vain, + Dreamed not of sorrow, care, or pain: + Concluding, in those hours of glee, + That all the world was made for me. + + But when the hour of trial came, + When sickness shook this trembling frame, + When folly's gay pursuits were o'er, + And I could sing and dance no more, + It then occurred, how sad 'twould be + Were this world only made for me. + + +The poor soul quitted it--and ere yet she was dead the agonized father was +in such a state, that the officers round about him were obliged to set +watchers over him, and from November, 1810, George III ceased to reign. +All the world knows the story of his malady: all history presents no +sadder figure than that of the old man, blind and deprived of reason, +wandering through the rooms of his palace, addressing imaginary +Parliaments, reviewing fancied troops, holding ghostly Courts. I have seen +his picture as it was taken at this time, hanging in the apartment of his +daughter, the Landgravine of Hesse-Hombourg--amidst books and Windsor +furniture, and a hundred fond reminiscences of her English home. The poor +old father is represented in a purple gown, his snowy beard falling over +his breast--the star of his famous Order still idly shining on it. He was +not only sightless: he became utterly deaf. All light, all reason, all +sound of human voices, all the pleasures of this world of God, were taken +from him. Some slight lucid moments he had; in one of which, the queen, +desiring to see him, entered the room, and found him singing a hymn, and +accompanying himself at the harpsichord. When he had finished, he knelt +down and prayed aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for the +nation, concluding with a prayer for himself, that it might please God to +avert his heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation to +submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled. + +What preacher need moralize on this story; what words save the simplest +are requisite to tell it? It is too terrible for tears. The thought of +such a misery smites me down in submission before the Ruler of kings and +men, the Monarch Supreme over empires and republics, the inscrutable +Dispenser of life, death, happiness, victory. "O brothers," I said to +those who heard me first in America--"O brothers! speaking the same dear +mother tongue--O comrades! enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand +together as we stand by this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle! Low +he lies to whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lower +than the poorest: dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off his +throne; buffeted by rude hands; with his children in revolt; the darling +of his old age killed before him untimely; our Lear hangs over her +breathless lips and cries, 'Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little!' " + + + Vex not his ghost--oh! let him pass--he hates him + That would upon the rack of this tough world + Stretch him out longer! + + +Hush, Strife and Quarrel, over the solemn grave! Sound, trumpets, a +mournful march! Fall, dark curtain, upon his pageant, his pride, his +grief, his awful tragedy! + + + +George The Fourth + + +In Twiss's amusing _Life of Eldon_, we read how, on the death of the Duke +of York, the old chancellor became possessed of a lock of the defunct +prince's hair; and so careful was he respecting the authenticity of the +relic, that Bessy Eldon his wife sat in the room with the young man from +Hamlet's, who distributed the ringlet into separate lockets, which each of +the Eldon family afterwards wore. You know how, when George IV came to +Edinburgh, a better man than he went on board the royal yacht to welcome +the king to his kingdom of Scotland, seized a goblet from which his +majesty had just drunk, vowed it should remain for ever as an heirloom in +his family, clapped the precious glass in his pocket, and sat down on it +and broke it when he got home. Suppose the good sheriff's prize unbroken +now at Abbotsford, should we not smile with something like pity as we +beheld it? Suppose one of those lockets of the No-Popery prince's hair +offered for sale at Christie's, _quot libras e duce summo invenies?_ how +many pounds would you find for the illustrious duke? Madame Tussaud has +got King George's coronation robes; is there any man now alive who would +kiss the hem of that trumpery? He sleeps since thirty years: do not any of +you, who remember him, wonder that you once respected and huzza'd and +admired him? + +To make a portrait of him at first seemed a matter of small difficulty. +There is his coat, his star, his wig, his countenance simpering under it: +with a slate and a piece of chalk, I could at this very desk perform a +recognizable likeness of him. And yet after reading of him in scores of +volumes, hunting him through old magazines and newspapers, having him here +at a ball, there at a public dinner, there at races and so forth, you find +you have nothing--nothing but a coat and wig and a mask smiling below +it--nothing but a great simulacrum. His sire and grandsires were men. One +knows what they were like: what they would do in given circumstances: that +on occasion they fought and demeaned themselves like tough good soldiers. +They had friends whom they liked according to their natures; enemies whom +they hated fiercely; passions, and actions, and individualities of their +own. The sailor king who came after George was a man: the Duke of York was +a man, big, burly, loud, jolly, cursing, courageous. But this George, what +was he? I look through all his life, and recognize but a bow and a grin. I +try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, padding, stays, a +coat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blue ribbon, a +pocket-handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt's best nutty +brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth and a huge black stock, +under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then nothing. I know of no +sentiment that he ever distinctly uttered. Documents are published under +his name, but people wrote them--private letters, but people spelt them. He +put a great "George P." or "George R." at the bottom of the page and +fancied he had written the paper: some bookseller's clerk, some poor +author, some _man_ did the work; saw to the spelling, cleaned up the +slovenly sentences, and gave the lax maudlin slipslop a sort of +consistency. He must have had an individuality: the dancing-master whom he +emulated, nay, surpassed--the wig-maker who curled his toupee for him--the +tailor who cut his coats, had that. But, about George, one can get at +nothing actual. That outside, I am certain, is pad and tailor's work; +there may be something behind, but what? We cannot get at the character; +no doubt never shall. Will men of the future have nothing better to do +than to unswathe and interpret that royal old mummy? I own I once used to +think it would be good sport to pursue him, fasten on him, and pull him +down. But now I am ashamed to mount and lay good dogs on, to summon a full +field, and then to hunt the poor game. + +On the 12th August, 1762, the forty-seventh anniversary of the accession +of the House of Brunswick to the English throne, all the bells in London +pealed in gratulation, and announced that an heir to George III was born. +Five days afterwards the king was pleased to pass letters patent under the +great seal, creating H.R.H. the Prince of Great Britain, Electoral Prince +of Brunswick-Lueneburg, Duke of Cornwall and Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, +Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland, Prince +of Wales and Earl of Chester. + +All the people at his birth thronged to see this lovely child; and behind +a gilt china-screen railing in St. James's Palace, in a cradle surmounted +by the three princely ostrich feathers, the royal infant was laid to +delight the eyes of the lieges. Among the earliest instances of homage +paid to him, I read that "a curious Indian bow and arrows were sent to the +prince from his father's faithful subjects in New York". He was fond of +playing with these toys: an old statesman, orator, and wit of his +grandfather's and great-grandfather's time, never tired of his business, +still eager in his old age to be well at Court, used to play with the +little prince, and pretend to fall down dead when the prince shot at him +with his toy bow and arrows--and get up and fall down dead over and over +again--to the increased delight of the child. So that he was flattered from +his cradle upwards; and before his little feet could walk, statesmen and +courtiers were busy kissing them. + +There is a pretty picture of the royal infant--a beautiful buxom +child--asleep in his mother's lap; who turns round and holds a finger to +her lip, as if she would bid the courtiers around respect the baby's +slumbers. From that day until his decease, sixty-eight years after, I +suppose there were more pictures taken of that personage than of any other +human being who ever was born and died--in every kind of uniform and every +possible Court dress--in long fair hair, with powder, with and without a +pigtail--in every conceivable cocked-hat--in dragoon uniform--in Windsor +uniform--in a field-marshal's clothes--in a Scotch kilt and tartans, with +dirk and claymore (a stupendous figure)--in a frogged frock-coat with a fur +collar and tight breeches and silk stockings--in wigs of every colour, +fair, brown, and black--in his famous coronation robes finally, with which +performance he was so much in love that he distributed copies of the +picture to all the Courts and British embassies in Europe, and to +numberless clubs, town-halls, and private friends. I remember as a young +man how almost every dining-room had his portrait. + + [Illustration] + +There is plenty of biographical tattle about the prince's boyhood. It is +told with what astonishing rapidity he learned all languages, ancient and +modern; how he rode beautifully, sang charmingly, and played elegantly on +the violoncello. That he was beautiful was patent to all eyes. He had a +high spirit: and once, when he had had a difference with his father, burst +into the royal closet and called out, "Wilkes and liberty for ever!" He +was so clever, that he confounded his very governors in learning; and one +of them, Lord Bruce, having made a false quantity in quoting Greek, the +admirable young prince instantly corrected him. Lord Bruce could not +remain a governor after this humiliation; resigned his office, and, to +soothe his feelings, was actually promoted to be an earl! It is the most +wonderful reason for promoting a man that ever I heard. Lord Bruce was +made an earl for a blunder in prosody; and Nelson was made a baron for the +victory of the Nile. + +Lovers of long sums have added up the millions and millions which in the +course of his brilliant existence this single prince consumed. Besides his +income of 50,000_l._, 70,000_l._, 100,000_l._, 120,000_l._ a year, we read +of three applications to Parliament: debts to the amount of 160,000_l._, +of 650,000_l._; besides mysterious foreign loans, whereof he pocketed the +proceeds. What did he do for all this money? Why was he to have it? If he +had been a manufacturing town, or a populous rural district, or an army of +five thousand men, he would not have cost more. He, one solitary stout +man, who did not toil, nor spin, nor fight,--what had any mortal done that +he should be pampered so? + +In 1784, when he was twenty-one years of age, Carlton Palace was given to +him, and furnished by the nation with as much luxury as could be devised. +His pockets were filled with money: he said it was not enough; he flung it +out of window: he spent 10,000_l._ a year for the coats on his back. The +nation gave him more money, and more, and more. The sum is past counting. +He was a prince, most lovely to look on, and christened Prince Florizel on +his first appearance in the world. That he was the handsomest prince in +the whole world was agreed by men, and alas! by many women. + +I suppose he must have been very graceful. There are so many testimonies +to the charm of his manner, that we must allow him great elegance and +powers of fascination. He, and the King of France's brother, the Count +d'Artois, a charming young prince who danced deliciously on the +tight-rope--a poor old tottering exiled king, who asked hospitality of King +George's successor, and lived awhile in the palace of Mary Stuart--divided +in their youth the title of first gentleman of Europe. We in England of +course gave the prize to _our_ gentleman. Until George's death the +propriety of that award was scarce questioned or the doubters voted rebels +and traitors. Only the other day I was reading in the reprint of the +delightful _Noctes_ of Christopher North. The health of THE KING is drunk +in large capitals by the loyal Scotsman. You would fancy him a hero, a +sage, a statesman, a pattern for kings and men. It was Walter Scott who +had that accident with the broken glass I spoke of anon. He was the king's +Scottish champion, rallied all Scotland to him, made loyalty the fashion, +and laid about him fiercely with his claymore upon all the prince's +enemies. The Brunswicks had no such defenders as those two Jacobite +commoners, old Sam Johnson the Lichfield chapman's son, and Walter Scott, +the Edinburgh lawyer's. + +Nature and circumstance had done their utmost to prepare the prince for +being spoiled: the dreadful dullness of papa's Court, its stupid +amusements, its dreary occupations, the maddening humdrum, the stifling +sobriety of its routine, would have made a scapegrace of a much less +lively prince. All the big princes bolted from that castle of ennui where +old King George sat, posting up his books and droning over his Handel; and +old Queen Charlotte over her snuff and her tambour-frame. Most of the +sturdy, gallant sons settled down after sowing their wild oats, and became +sober subjects of their father and brother--not ill liked by the nation, +which pardons youthful irregularities readily enough, for the sake of +pluck, and unaffectedness, and good humour. + +The boy is father of the man. Our prince signalized his entrance into the +world by a feat worthy of his future life. He invented a new shoebuckle. +It was an inch long and five inches broad. "It covered almost the whole +instep, reaching down to the ground on either side of the foot." A sweet +invention! lovely and useful as the prince on whose foot it sparkled. At +his first appearance at a Court ball, we read that "his coat was pink +silk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat white silk, embroidered with +various-coloured foil, and adorned with a profusion of French paste. And +his hat was ornamented with two rows of steel beads, five thousand in +number, with a button and loop of the same metal, and cocked in a new +military style". What a Florizel! Do these details seem trivial? They are +the grave incidents of his life. His biographers say that when he +commenced housekeeping in that splendid new palace of his, the Prince of +Wales had some windy projects of encouraging literature, science, and the +arts; of having assemblies of literary characters; and societies for the +encouragement of geography, astronomy, and botany. Astronomy, geography, +and botany! Fiddlesticks! French ballet-dancers, French cooks, +horse-jockeys, buffoons, procurers, tailors, boxers, fencing-masters, +china, jewel, and gimcrack merchants--these were his real companions. At +first he made a pretence of having Burke and Pitt and Sheridan for his +friends. But how could such men be serious before such an empty scapegrace +as this lad? Fox might talk dice with him, and Sheridan wine; but what +else had these men of genius in common with their tawdry young host of +Carlton House? That ribble the leader of such men as Fox and Burke! That +man's opinions about the constitution, the India Bill, justice to the +Catholics--about any question graver than the button for a waistcoat or the +sauce for a partridge--worth anything! The friendship between the prince +and the Whig chiefs was impossible. They were hypocrites in pretending to +respect him, and if he broke the hollow compact between them, who shall +blame him? His natural companions were dandies and parasites. He could +talk to a tailor or a cook; but, as the equal of great statesmen, to set +up a creature, lazy, weak, indolent, besotted, of monstrous vanity, and +levity incurable--it is absurd. They thought to use him, and did for +awhile; but they must have known how timid he was; how entirely heartless +and treacherous, and have expected his desertion. His next set of friends +were mere table companions, of whom he grew tired too; then we hear of him +with a very few select toadies, mere boys from school or the Guards, whose +sprightliness tickled the fancy of the worn-out voluptuary. What matters +what friends he had? He dropped all his friends; he never could have real +friends. An heir to the throne has flatterers, adventurers who hang about +him, ambitious men who use him; but friendship is denied him. + +And women, I suppose, are as false and selfish in their dealings with such +a character as men. Shall we take the Leporello part, flourish a catalogue +of the conquests of this royal Don Juan, and tell the names of the +favourites to whom, one after the other, George Prince flung his +pocket-handkerchief? What purpose would it answer to say how Perdita was +pursued, won, deserted, and by whom succeeded? What good in knowing that +he did actually marry Mrs. FitzHerbert according to the rites of the Roman +Catholic Church; that her marriage settlements have been seen in London; +that the names of the witnesses to her marriage are known. This sort of +vice that we are now come to presents no new or fleeting trait of manners. +Debauchees, dissolute, heartless, fickle, cowardly, have been ever since +the world began. This one had more temptations than most, and so much may +be said in extenuation for him. + +It was an unlucky thing for this doomed one, and tending to lead him yet +farther on the road to the deuce, that, besides being lovely, so that +women were fascinated by him; and heir apparent, so that all the world +flattered him; he should have a beautiful voice, which led him directly in +the way of drink: and thus all the pleasant devils were coaxing on poor +Florizel; desire, and idleness, and vanity, and drunkenness, all clashing +their merry cymbals and bidding him come on. + +We first hear of his warbling sentimental ditties under the walls of Kew +Palace by the moonlight banks of Thames, with Lord Viscount Leporello +keeping watch lest the music should be disturbed. + +Singing after dinner and supper was the universal fashion of the day. You +may fancy all England sounding with choruses, some ribald, some harmless, +but all occasioning the consumption of a prodigious deal of fermented +liquor. + + + The jolly Muse her wings to try no frolic flights need take, + But round the bowl would dip and fly, like swallows round a lake, + + +sang Morris in one of his gallant Anacreontics, to which the prince many a +time joined in chorus, and of which the burden is,-- + + + And that I think's a reason fair to drink and fill again. + + +This delightful boon companion of the prince's found "a reason fair" to +forgo filling and drinking, saw the error of his ways, gave up the bowl +and chorus, and died retired and religious. The prince's table no doubt +was a very tempting one. The wits came and did their utmost to amuse him. +It is wonderful how the spirits rise, the wit brightens, the wine has an +aroma, when a great man is at the head of the table. Scott, the loyal +cavalier, the king's true liegeman, the very best _raconteur_ of his time, +poured out with an endless generosity his store of old-world learning, +kindness, and humour. Grattan contributed to it his wondrous eloquence, +fancy, feeling. Tom Moore perched upon it for awhile, and piped his most +exquisite little love-tunes on it, flying away in a twitter of indignation +afterwards, and attacking the prince with bill and claw. In such society, +no wonder the sitting was long, and the butler tired of drawing corks. +Remember what the usages of the time were, and that William Pitt, coming +to the House of Commons after having drunk a bottle of port wine at his +own house, would go into Bellamy's with Dundas, and help finish a couple +more. + +You peruse volumes after volumes about our prince, and find some +half-dozen stock stories--indeed not many more--common to all the histories. +He was good-natured; an indolent, voluptuous prince, not unkindly. One +story, the most favourable to him of all, perhaps, is that as Prince +Regent he was eager to hear all that could be said in behalf of prisoners +condemned to death, and anxious, if possible, to remit the capital +sentence. He was kind to his servants. There is a story common to all the +biographies, of Molly the housemaid, who, when his household was to be +broken up, owing to some reforms which he tried absurdly to practise, was +discovered crying as she dusted the chairs because she was to leave a +master who had a kind word for all his servants. Another tale is that of a +groom of the prince's being discovered in corn and oat peculations, and +dismissed by the personage at the head of the stables; the prince had word +of John's disgrace, remonstrated with him very kindly, generously +reinstated him, and bade him promise to sin no more--a promise which John +kept. Another story is very fondly told of the prince as a young man +hearing of an officer's family in distress, and how he straightway +borrowed six or eight hundred pounds, put his long fair hair under his +hat, and so disguised carried the money to the starving family. He sent +money, too, to Sheridan on his death-bed, and would have sent more had not +death ended the career of that man of genius. Besides these, there are a +few pretty speeches, kind and graceful, to persons with whom he was +brought in contact. But he turned upon twenty friends. He was fond and +familiar with them one day, and he passed them on the next without +recognition. He used them, liked them, loved them perhaps in his way, and +then separated from them. On Monday he kissed and fondled poor Perdita, +and on Tuesday he met her and did not know her. On Wednesday he was very +affectionate with that wretched Brummell, and on Thursday forgot him; +cheated him even out of a snuff-box which he owed the poor dandy; saw him +years afterwards in his downfall and poverty, when the bankrupt Beau sent +him another snuff-box with some of the snuff he used to love, as a piteous +token of remembrance and submission, and the king took the snuff, and +ordered his horses and drove on, and had not the grace to notice his old +companion, favourite, rival, enemy, superior. In _Wraxall_ there is some +gossip about him. When the charming, beautiful, generous Duchess of +Devonshire died--the lovely lady whom he used to call his dearest duchess +once, and pretend to admire as all English society admired her--he said, +"Then we have lost the best-bred woman in England." "Then we have lost the +kindest heart in England," said noble Charles Fox. On another occasion, +when three noblemen were to receive the Garter, says _Wraxall_, "a great +personage observed that never did three men receive the order in so +characteristic a manner. The Duke of A. advanced to the sovereign with a +phlegmatic, cold, awkward air like a clown; Lord B. came forward fawning +and smiling like a courtier; Lord C. presented himself easy, +unembarrassed, like a gentleman!" These are the stories one has to recall +about the prince and king--kindness to a housemaid, generosity to a groom, +criticism on a bow. There _are_ no better stories about him: they are mean +and trivial, and they characterize him. The great war of empires and +giants goes on. Day by day victories are won and lost by the brave. Torn, +smoky flags and battered eagles are wrenched from the heroic enemy and +laid at his feet; and he sits there on his throne and smiles, and gives +the guerdon of valour to the conqueror. He! Elliston the actor, when the +_Coronation_ was performed, in which he took the principal part, used to +fancy himself the king, burst into tears, and hiccup a blessing on the +people. I believe it is certain about George IV, that he had heard so much +of the war, knighted so many people, and worn such a prodigious quantity +of marshal's uniforms, cocked-hats, cock's feathers, scarlet and bullion +in general, that he actually fancied he had been present in some +campaigns, and, under the name of General Brock, led a tremendous charge +of the German legion at Waterloo. + +He is dead but thirty years, and one asks how a great society could have +tolerated him? Would we bear him now? In this quarter of a century, what a +silent revolution has been working! how it has separated us from old times +and manners! How it has changed men themselves! I can see old gentlemen +now among us, of perfect good breeding, of quiet lives, with venerable +grey heads, fondling their grandchildren; and look at them, and wonder at +what they were once. That gentleman of the grand old school, when he was +in the 10th Hussars, and dined at the prince's table, would fall under it +night after night. Night after night, that gentleman sat at Brookes's or +Raggett's over the dice. If, in the petulance of play or drink, that +gentleman spoke a sharp word to his neighbour, he and the other would +infallibly go out and try to shoot each other the next morning. That +gentleman would drive his friend Richmond the black boxer down to Moulsey, +and hold his coat, and shout and swear, and hurrah with delight, whilst +the black man was beating Dutch Sam the Jew. That gentleman would take a +manly pleasure in pulling his own coat off, and thrashing a bargeman in a +street row. That gentleman has been in a watchhouse. That gentleman, so +exquisitely polite with ladies in a drawing-room, so loftily courteous, if +he talked now as he used among men in his youth, would swear so as to make +your hair stand on end. I met lately a very old German gentleman, who had +served in our army at the beginning of the century. Since then he has +lived on his own estate, but rarely meeting with an Englishman, whose +language--the language of fifty years ago that is--he possesses perfectly. +When this highly bred old man began to speak English to me, almost every +other word he uttered was an oath: as they used it (they swore dreadfully +in Flanders) with the Duke of York before Valenciennes, or at Carlton +House over the supper and cards. Read Byron's letters. So accustomed is +the young man to oaths that he employs them even in writing to his +friends, and swears by the post. Read his account of the doings of young +men at Cambridge, of the ribald professors, one of whom "could pour out +Greek like a drunken helot", and whose excesses surpassed even those of +the young men. Read Matthews's description of the boyish lordling's +housekeeping at Newstead, the skull-cup passed round, the monks' dresses +from the masquerade warehouse, in which the young scapegraces used to sit +until daylight, chanting appropriate songs round their wine. "We come to +breakfast at two or three o'clock," Matthews says. "There are gloves and +foils for those who like to amuse themselves, or we fire pistols at a mark +in the hall, or we worry the wolf." A jolly life truly! The noble young +owner of the mansion writes about such affairs himself in letters to his +friend, Mr. John Jackson, pugilist, in London. + +All the prince's time tells a similar strange story of manners and +pleasure. In _Wraxall_ we find the prime minister himself, the redoubted +William Pitt, engaged in high jinks with personages of no less importance +than Lord Thurlow the lord chancellor, and Mr. Dundas the treasurer of the +navy. _Wraxall_ relates how these three statesmen, returning after dinner +from Addiscombe, found a turnpike open and galloped through it without +paying the toll. The turnpike man, fancying they were highwaymen, fired a +blunderbuss after them, but missed them; and the poet sang,-- + + + How as Pitt wandered darkling o'er the plain, + His reason drown'd in Jenkinson's champagne, + A rustic's hand, but righteous fate withstood, + Had shed a premier's for a robber's blood. + + +Here we have the treasurer of the navy, the lord high chancellor, and the +prime minister, all engaged in a most undoubted lark. In Eldon's +_Memoirs_, about the very same time, I read that the Bar loved wine, as +well as the woolsack. Not John Scott himself; he was a good boy always; +and though he loved port wine, loved his business and his duty and his +fees a great deal better. + +He has a Northern Circuit story of those days, about a party at the house +of a certain Lawyer Fawcett, who gave a dinner every year to the counsel. + +"On one occasion," related Lord Eldon, "I heard Lee say, 'I cannot leave +Fawcett's wine. Mind, Davenport, you will go home immediately after +dinner, to read the brief in that cause that we have to conduct +to-morrow.' + +" 'Not I,' said Davenport. 'Leave my dinner and my wine to read a brief! +No, no, Lee; that won't do.' + +" 'Then,' said Lee, 'what is to be done? who else is employed?' + +"_Davenport._--'Oh! young Scott.' + +"Lee.--'Oh! he must go. Mr. Scott, you must go home immediately, and make +yourself acquainted with that cause, before our consultation this +evening.' " + +"This was very hard upon me; but I did go, and there was an attorney from +Cumberland, and one from Northumberland, and I do not know how many other +persons. Pretty late, in came Jack Lee, as drunk as he could be. + +" 'I cannot consult to-night; I must go to bed,' he exclaimed, and away he +went. Then came Sir Thomas Davenport. + +" 'We cannot have a consultation to-night, Mr. Wordsworth' (Wordsworth, I +think, was the name; it was a Cumberland name), shouted Davenport. 'Don't +you see how drunk Mr. Scott is? it is impossible to consult.' Poor me! who +had scarce had any dinner, and lost all my wine--I was so drunk that I +could not consult! Well, a verdict was given against us, and it was all +owing to Lawyer Fawcett's dinner. We moved for a new trial; and I must +say, for the honour of the Bar, that those two gentlemen, Jack Lee and Sir +Thomas Davenport, paid all the expenses between them of the first trial. +It is the only instance I ever knew, but they did. We moved for a new +trial (on the ground, I suppose, of the counsel not being in their +senses), and it was granted. When it came on, the following year, the +judge rose and said,-- + +" 'Gentlemen, did any of you dine with Lawyer Fawcett yesterday? for, if +you did, I will not hear this cause till next year.' + +"There was great laughter. We gained the cause that time." + +On another occasion, at Lancaster, where poor Bozzy must needs be going +the Northern Circuit, "we found him," says Mr. Scott, "lying upon the +pavement inebriated. We subscribed a guinea at supper for him, and a +half-crown for his clerk"--(no doubt there was a large Bar, and that +Scott's joke did not cost him much),--"and sent him, when he waked next +morning, a brief, with instructions to move for what we denominated the +writ of _quare adhaesit pavimento?_ with observations duly calculated to +induce him to think that it required great learning to explain the +necessity of granting it, to the judge before whom he was to move." +Boswell sent all round the town to attorneys for books, that might enable +him to distinguish himself--but in vain. He moved, however, for the writ, +making the best use he could of the observations in the brief. The judge +was perfectly astonished, and the audience amazed. The judge said, "I +never heard of such a writ--what can it be that adheres _pavimento_? Are +any of you gentlemen at the Bar able to explain this?" + +The Bar laughed. At last one of them said,-- + +"My lord, Mr. Boswell last night _adhaesit pavimento_. There was no moving +him for some time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming +about himself and the pavement." + +The canny old gentleman relishes these jokes. When the Bishop of Lincoln +was moving from the deanery of St. Paul's, he says he asked a learned +friend of his, by name Will Hay, how he should move some especially fine +claret, about which he was anxious. + +"Pray, my lord bishop," says Hay, "how much of the wine have you?" + +The bishop said six dozen. + +"If that is all," Hay answered, "you have but to ask me six times to +dinner, and I will carry it all away myself." + +There were giants in those days; but this joke about wine is not so +fearful as one perpetrated by Orator Thelwall, in the heat of the French +Revolution, ten years later, over a frothing pot of porter. He blew the +head off, and said, "This is the way I would serve all kings." + +Now we come to yet higher personages, and find their doings recorded in +the blushing pages of timid little Miss Burney's _Memoirs_. She represents +a prince of the blood in quite a royal condition. The loudness, the +bigness, boisterousness, creaking boots and rattling oaths, of the young +princes, appeared to have frightened the prim household of Windsor, and +set all the tea-cups twittering on the tray. On the night of a ball and +birthday, when one of the pretty, kind princesses was to come out, it was +agreed that her brother, Prince William Henry, should dance the opening +minuet with her, and he came to visit the household at their dinner. + +"At dinner, Mrs. Schwellenberg presided, attired magnificently; Miss +Goldsworthy, Mrs. Stanforth, Messrs. Du Luc and Stanhope, dined with us; +and while we were still eating fruit, the Duke of Clarence entered. + +"He was just risen from the king's table, and waiting for his equipage to +go home and prepare for the ball. To give you an idea of the energy of his +royal highness's language, I ought to set apart an objection to writing, +or rather intimating, certain forcible words, and beg leave to show you in +genuine colours a royal sailor. + +"We all rose, of course, upon his entrance, and the two gentlemen placed +themselves behind their chairs, while the footmen left the room. But he +ordered us all to sit down, and called the men back to hand about some +wine. He was in exceeding high spirits, and in the utmost good humour. He +placed himself at the head of the table, next Mrs. Schwellenberg, and +looked remarkably well, gay, and full of sport and mischief; yet clever +withal, as well as comical. + +" 'Well, this is the first day I have ever dined with the king at St. +James's on his birthday. Pray, have you all drunk his majesty's health?' + +" 'No, your royal highness; your royal highness might make dem do dat,' +said Mrs. Schwellenberg. + +" 'Oh, by ----, I will! Here, you' (to the footman). 'bring champagne; I'll +drink the king's health again, if I die for it. Yes, I have done it pretty +well already; so has the king, I promise you! I believe his majesty was +never taken such good care of before; we have kept his spirits up, I +promise you; we have enabled him to go through his fatigues; and I should +have done more still, but for the ball and Mary;--I have promised to dance +with Mary. I must keep sober for Mary.' " + +Indefatigable Miss Burney continues for a dozen pages reporting H.R.H.'s +conversation, and indicating, with a humour not unworthy of the clever +little author of _Evelina_, the increasing state of excitement of the +young sailor prince, who drank more and more champagne, stopped old Mrs. +Schwellenberg's remonstrances by giving the old lady a kiss, and telling +her to hold her potato-trap, and who did not "keep sober for Mary". Mary +had to find another partner that night, for the royal William Henry could +not keep his legs. + +Will you have a picture of the amusements of another royal prince? It is +the Duke of York, the blundering general, the beloved commander-in-chief +of the army, the brother with whom George IV had had many a midnight +carouse, and who continued his habits of pleasure almost till death seized +his stout body. + +In Pueckler Muskau's _Letters_, that German prince describes a bout with +H.R.H., who in his best time was such a powerful toper that "six bottles +of claret after dinner scarce made a perceptible change in his +countenance". + +"I remember," says Pueckler, "that one evening,--indeed, it was past +midnight,--he took some of his guests, among whom were the Austrian +ambassador, Count Meervelt, Count Beroldingen, and myself, into his +beautiful armoury. We tried to swing several Turkish sabres, but none of +us had a very firm grasp; whence it happened that the duke and Meervelt +both scratched themselves with a sort of straight Indian sword so as to +draw blood. Meervelt then wished to try if the sword cut as well as a +Damascus, and attempted to cut through one of the wax candles that stood +on the table. The experiment answered so ill, that both the candles, +candlesticks and all, fell to the ground and were extinguished. While we +were groping in the dark and trying to find the door, the duke's aide de +camp stammered out in great agitation, 'By G----, sir, I remember the sword +is poisoned.!' + +"You may conceive the agreeable feelings of the wounded at this +intelligence! Happily, on further examination, it appeared that claret, +and not poison, was at the bottom of the colonel's exclamation." + +And now I have one more story of the bacchanalian sort, in which Clarence +and York, and the very highest personage of the realm, the great Prince +Regent, all play parts. The feast took place at the Pavilion at Brighton, +and was described to me by a gentleman who was present at the scene. In +Gilray's caricatures, and amongst Fox's jolly associates, there figures a +great nobleman, the Duke of Norfolk, called Jockey of Norfolk in his time, +and celebrated for his table exploits. He had quarrelled with the prince, +like the rest of the Whigs; but a sort of reconciliation had taken place; +and now, being a very old man, the prince invited him to dine and sleep at +the Pavilion, and the old duke drove over from his castle of Arundel with +his famous equipage of grey horses, still remembered in Sussex. + +The Prince of Wales had concocted with his royal brothers a notable scheme +for making the old man drunk. Every person at table was enjoined to drink +wine with the duke--a challenge which the old toper did not refuse. He soon +began to see that there was a conspiracy against him; he drank glass for +glass; he overthrew many of the brave. At last the First Gentleman of +Europe proposed bumpers of brandy. One of the royal brothers filled a +great glass for the duke. He stood up and tossed off the drink. "Now," +says he, "I will have my carriage, and go home." The prince urged upon him +his previous promise to sleep under the roof where he had been so +generously entertained. "No," he said, he had had enough of such +hospitality. A trap had been set for him; he would leave the place at once +and never enter its doors more. + +The carriage was called, and came; but, in the half-hour's interval, the +liquor had proved too potent for the old man; his host's generous purpose +was answered, and the duke's old grey head lay stupefied on the table. +Nevertheless, when his post-chaise was announced, he staggered to it as +well as he could, and stumbling in, bade the postilions drive to Arundel. +They drove him for half an hour round and round the Pavilion lawn; the +poor old man fancied he was going home. When he awoke that morning he was +in bed at the prince's hideous house at Brighton. You may see the place +now for sixpence: they have fiddlers there every day; and sometimes +buffoons and mountebanks hire the Riding House and do their tricks and +tumbling there. The trees are still there, and the gravel walks round +which the poor old sinner was trotted. I can fancy the flushed faces of +the royal princes as they support themselves at the portico pillars, and +look on at old Norfolk's disgrace; but I can't fancy how the man who +perpetrated it continued to be called a gentleman. + +From drinking, the pleased Muse now turns to gambling, of which in his +youth our prince was a great practitioner. He was a famous pigeon for the +play-men; they lived upon him. Egalite Orleans, it was believed, punished +him severely. A noble lord, whom we shall call the Marquis of Steyne, is +said to have mulcted him in immense sums. He frequented the clubs, where +play was then almost universal; and, as it was known his debts of honour +were sacred, whilst he was gambling Jews waited outside to purchase his +notes of hand. His transactions on the turf were unlucky as well as +discreditable: though I believe he, and his jockey, and his horse Escape, +were all innocent in that affair which created so much scandal. + +Arthur's, Almack's, Bootle's, and White's were the chief clubs of the +young men of fashion. There was play at all, and decayed noblemen and +broken-down senators fleeced the unwary there. In Selwyn's _Letters_ we +find Carlisle, Devonshire, Coventry, Queensberry, all undergoing the +probation. Charles Fox, a dreadful gambler, was cheated in very late +times--lost 200,000_l._ at play. Gibbon tells of his playing for twenty-two +hours at a sitting, and losing 500_l._ an hour. That indomitable punter +said that the greatest pleasure in life, after winning, was losing. What +hours, what nights, what health did he waste over the devil's books! I was +going to say what peace of mind; but he took his losses very +philosophically. After an awful night's play, and the enjoyment of the +greatest pleasure but _one_ in life, he was found on a sofa tranquilly +reading an Eclogue of Virgil. + +Play survived long after the wild prince and Fox had given up the +dice-box. The dandies continued it. Byron, Brummell--how many names could I +mention of men of the world who have suffered by it! In 1837 occurred a +famous trial which pretty nigh put an end to gambling in England. A peer +of the realm was found cheating at whist, and repeatedly seen to practise +the trick called _sauter la coupe_. His friends at the clubs saw him +cheat, and went on playing with him. One greenhorn, who had discovered his +foul play, asked an old hand what he should do. "Do!" said the Mammon of +Unrighteousness, "_back him, you fool_." The best efforts were made to +screen him. People wrote him anonymous letters and warned him; but he +would cheat, and they were obliged to find him out. Since that day, when +my lord's shame was made public, the gaming-table has lost all its +splendour. Shabby Jews and blacklegs prowl about racecourses and tavern +parlours, and now and then inveigle silly yokels with greasy packs of +cards in railroad ears; but Play is a deposed goddess, her worshippers +bankrupt, and her table in rags. + +So is another famous British institution gone to decay--the Ring: the noble +practice of British boxing, which in my youth was still almost +flourishing. + +The prince, in his early days, was a great patron of this national sport, +as his grand-uncle Culloden Cumberland had been before him; but, being +present at a fight at Brighton, where one of the combatants was killed, +the prince pensioned the boxer's widow, and declared he never would attend +another battle. "But, nevertheless,"--I read in the noble language of +Pierce Egan (whose smaller work on Pugilism I have the honour to +possess),--"he thought it a manly and decided English feature, which ought +not to be destroyed. His majesty had a drawing of the sporting characters +in the Fives Court placed in his boudoir, to remind him of his former +attachment and support of true courage; and when any fight of note +occurred after he was king, accounts of it were read to him by his +desire." That gives one a fine image of a king taking his recreation;--at +ease in a royal dressing-gown;--too majestic to read himself, ordering the +prime minister to read him accounts of battles: how Cribb punched +Molyneux's eye, or Jack Randall thrashed the Game Chicken. + +Where my prince _did_ actually distinguish himself was in driving. He +drove once in four hours and a half from Brighton to Carlton +House--fifty-six miles. All the young men of that day were fond of that +sport. But the fashion of rapid driving deserted England; and, I believe, +trotted over to America. Where are the amusements of our youth? I hear of +no gambling now but amongst obscure ruffians; of no boxing but amongst the +lowest rabble. One solitary four-in-hand still drove round the parks in +London last year; but that charioteer must soon disappear. He was very +old; he was attired after the fashion of the year 1825. He must drive to +the banks of Styx ere long,--where the ferry-boat waits to carry him over +to the defunct revellers, who boxed and gambled and drank and drove with +King George. + +The bravery of the Brunswicks, that all the family must have it, that +George possessed it, are points which all English writers have agreed to +admit; and yet I cannot see how George IV should have been endowed with +this quality. Swaddled in feather-beds all his life, lazy, obese, +perpetually eating and drinking, his education was quite unlike that of +his tough old progenitors. His grandsires had confronted hardship and war, +and ridden up and fired their pistols undaunted into the face of death. +His father had conquered luxury, and overcome indolence. Here was one who +never resisted any temptation; never had a desire but he coddled and +pampered it; if ever he had any nerve, frittered it away among cooks, and +tailors, and barbers, and furniture-mongers, and opera dancers. What +muscle would not grow flaccid in such a life--a life that was never strung +up to any action--an endless Capua without any campaign--all fiddling, and +flowers, and feasting, and flattery, and folly? When George III was +pressed by the Catholic question and the India Bill, he said he would +retire to Hanover rather than yield upon either point; and he would have +done what he said. But, before yielding, he was determined to fight his +ministers and Parliament; and he did, and he beat them. The time came when +George IV was pressed too upon the Catholic claims: the cautious Peel had +slipped over to that side; the grim old Wellington had joined it; and Peel +tells us, in his _Memoirs_, what was the conduct of the king. He at first +refused to submit; whereupon Peel and the duke offered their resignations, +which their gracious master accepted. He did these two gentlemen the +honour, Peel says, to kiss them both when they went away. (Fancy old +Arthur's grim countenance and eagle beak as the monarch kisses it!) When +they were gone he sent after them, surrendered, and wrote to them a letter +begging them to remain in office, and allowing them to have their way. +Then his Majesty had a meeting with Eldon, which is related at curious +length in the latter's _Memoirs_. He told Eldon what was not true about +his interview with the new Catholic converts; utterly misled the old +ex-chancellor; cried, whimpered, fell on his neck, and kissed him too. We +know old Eldon's own tears were pumped very freely. Did these two +fountains gush together? I can't fancy a behaviour more unmanly, imbecile, +pitiable. This a Defender of the Faith! This a chief in the crisis of a +great nation! This an inheritor of the courage of the Georges! Many of my +hearers no doubt have journeyed to the pretty old town of Brunswick, in +company with that most worthy, prudent, and polite gentleman, the Earl of +Malmesbury, and fetched away Princess Caroline for her longing husband, +the Prince of Wales, Old Queen Charlotte would have had her eldest son +marry a niece of her own, that famous Louisa of Strelitz, afterwards Queen +of Prussia, and who shares with Marie Antoinette in the last age the sad +pre-eminence of beauty and misfortune. But George III had a niece at +Brunswick: she was a richer princess than her Serene Highness of +Strelitz:--in fine, the Princess Caroline was selected to marry the heir to +the English throne. We follow my Lord Malmesbury in quest of her; we are +introduced to her illustrious father and royal mother; we witness the +balls and fetes of the old Court; we are presented to the princess +herself, with her fair hair, her blue eyes, and her impertinent +shoulders--a lively, bouncing, romping princess, who takes the advice of +her courtly English mentor most generously and kindly. We can be present +at her very toilette, if we like, regarding which, and for very good +reasons, the British courtier implores her to be particular. What a +strange Court! What a queer privacy of morals and manners do we look into! +Shall we regard it as preachers and moralists, and cry, Woe, against the +open vice and selfishness and corruption; or look at it as we do at the +king in the pantomime, with his pantomime wife, and pantomime courtiers, +whose big heads he knocks together, whom he pokes with his pantomime +sceptre, whom he orders to prison under the guard of his pantomime +beefeaters, as he sits down to dine on his pantomime pudding? It is grave, +it is sad, it is theme most curious for moral and political speculation; +it is monstrous, grotesque, laughable, with its prodigious littlenesses, +etiquettes, ceremonials, sham moralities; it is as serious as a sermon, +and as absurd and outrageous as Punch's puppet-show. + +Malmesbury tells us of the private life of the duke, Princess Caroline's +father, who was to die, like his warlike son, in arms against the French; +presents us to his courtiers, his favourite; his duchess, George III's +sister, a grim old princess, who took the British envoy aside, and told +him wicked old stories of wicked old dead people and times; who came to +England afterwards when her nephew was regent, and lived in a shabby +furnished lodging, old, and dingy, and deserted, and grotesque, but +somehow royal. And we go with him to the duke to demand the princess's +hand in form, and we hear the Brunswick guns fire their adieux of salute, +as H.R.H. the Princess of Wales departs in the frost and snow; and we +visit the domains of the Prince Bishop of Osnaburg--the Duke of York of our +early time; and we dodge about from the French revolutionists, whose +ragged legions are pouring over Holland and Germany, and gaily trampling +down the old world to the tune of _Ca ira_; and we take shipping at Slade, +and we land at Greenwich, where the princess's ladies and the prince's +ladies are in waiting to receive her royal highness. + + [Illustration] + +What a history follows! Arrived in London, the bridegroom hastened eagerly +to receive his bride. When she was first presented to him, Lord Malmesbury +says she very properly attempted to kneel. He raised her gracefully +enough, embraced her, and turning round to me, said,-- + +"Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy." + +I said, "Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?" + +Upon which, much out of humour, he said, with an oath, "No; I will go to +the queen." + +What could be expected from a wedding which had such a beginning--from such +a bridegroom and such a bride? I am not going to carry you through the +scandal of that story, or follow the poor princess through all her +vagaries; her balls and her dances, her travels to Jerusalem and Naples, +her jigs, and her junketings, and her tears. As I read her trial in +history, I vote she is not guilty. I don't say it is an impartial verdict; +but as one reads her story the heart bleeds for the kindly, generous, +outraged creature. If wrong there be, let it lie at his door who wickedly +thrust her from it. Spite of her follies, the great, hearty people of +England loved, and protected, and pitied her. "God bless you! we will +bring your husband back to you," said a mechanic one day, as she told Lady +Charlotte Bury with tears streaming down her cheeks. They could not bring +that husband back; they could not cleanse that selfish heart. Was hers the +only one he had wounded? Steeped in selfishness, impotent for faithful +attachment and manly enduring love,--had it not survived remorse, was it +not accustomed to desertion? + +Malmesbury gives us the beginning of the marriage story;--how the prince +reeled into chapel to be married; how he hiccupped out his vows of +fidelity--you know how he kept them; how he pursued the woman whom he had +married; to what a state he brought her; with what blows he struck her; +with what malignity he pursued her; what his treatment of his daughter +was; and what his own life. _He_ the first gentleman of Europe! There is +no stronger satire on the proud English society of that day, than that +they admired George. + +No, thank God, we can tell of better gentlemen; and whilst our eyes turn +away, shocked, from this monstrous image of pride, vanity, weakness, they +may see in that England over which the last George pretended to reign, +some who merit indeed the title of gentlemen, some who make our hearts +beat when we hear their names, and whose memory we fondly salute when that +of yonder imperial manikin is tumbled into oblivion. I will take men of my +own profession of letters. I will take Walter Scott, who loved the king, +and who was his sword and buckler, and championed him like that brave +Highlander in his own story, who fights round his craven chief. What a +good gentleman! What a friendly soul, what a generous hand, what an +amiable life was that of the noble Sir Walter! I will take another man of +letters, whose life I admire even more,--an English worthy, doing his duty +for fifty noble years of labour, day by day storing up learning, day by +day working for scant wages, most charitable out of his small means, +bravely faithful to the calling which he had chosen, refusing to turn from +his path for popular praise or princes' favour;--I mean _Robert Southey_. +We have left his old political landmarks miles and miles behind; we +protest against his dogmatism; nay, we begin to forget it and his +politics: but I hope his life will not be forgotten, for it is sublime in +its simplicity, its energy, its honour, its affection. In the combat +between Time and Thalaba, I suspect the former destroyer has conquered. +Kehama's curse frightens very few readers now; but Southey's private +letters are worth piles of epics, and are sure to last among us, as long +as kind hearts like to sympathize with goodness and purity, and love and +upright life. "If your feelings are like mine," he writes to his wife, "I +will not go to Lisbon without you, or I will stay at home, and not part +from you. For though not unhappy when away, still without you I am not +happy. For your sake, as well as my own and little Edith's, I will not +consent to any separation; the growth of a year's love between her and me, +if it please God she should live, is a thing too delightful in itself, and +too valuable in its consequences, to be given up for any light +inconvenience on your part or mine.... On these things we will talk at +leisure; only, dear, dear Edith, _we must not part!_" + +This was a poor literary gentleman. The First Gentleman in Europe had a +wife and daughter too. Did he love them so? Was he faithful to them? Did +he sacrifice ease for them, or show them the sacred examples of religion +and honour? Heaven gave the Great English Prodigal no such good fortune. +Peel proposed to make a baronet of Southey; and to this advancement the +king agreed. The poet nobly rejected the offered promotion. + +"I have," he wrote, "a pension of 200_l._ a year, conferred upon me by the +good offices of my old friend C. Wynn, and I have the laureateship. The +salary of the latter was immediately appropriated, as far as it went, to a +life insurance for 3,000_l._, which, with an earlier insurance, is the +sole provision I have made for my family. All beyond must be derived from +my own industry. Writing for a livelihood, a livelihood is all that I have +gained; for, having also something better in view, and never, therefore, +having courted popularity, nor written for the mere sake of gain, it has +not been possible for me to lay by anything. Last year, for the first time +in my life, I was provided with a year's expenditure beforehand. This +exposition may show how unbecoming and unwise it would be to accept the +rank which, so greatly to my honour, you have solicited for me." + +How noble his poverty is, compared to the wealth of his master! His +acceptance even of a pension was made the object of his opponents' satire: +but think of the merit and modesty of this state pensioner; and that other +enormous drawer of public money, who receives 100,000_l._ a year, and +comes to Parliament with a request for 650,000_l._ more! + +Another true knight of those days was Cuthbert Collingwood; and I think, +since Heaven made gentlemen, there is no record of a better one than that. +Of brighter deeds, I grant you, we may read performed by others; but where +of a nobler, kinder, more beautiful life of duty, of a gentler, truer +heart? Beyond dazzle of success and blaze of genius, I fancy shining a +hundred and a hundred times higher, the sublime purity of Collingwood's +gentle glory. His heroism stirs British hearts when we recall it. His +love, and goodness, and piety make one thrill with happy emotion. As one +reads of him and his great comrade going into the victory with which their +names are immortally connected, how the old English word comes up, and +that old English feeling of what I should like to call Christian honour! +What gentlemen they were, what great hearts they had! "We can, my dear +Coll," writes Nelson to him, "have no little jealousies; we have only one +great object in view,--that of meeting the enemy, and getting a glorious +peace for our country." At Trafalgar, when the _Royal Sovereign_ was +pressing alone into the midst of the combined fleets, Lord Nelson said to +Captain Blackwood: "See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship +into action! How I envy him!" The very same throb and impulse of heroic +generosity was beating in Collingwood's honest bosom. As he led into the +fight, he said: "What would Nelson give to be here!" + +After the action of the 1st of June, he writes:--"We cruised for a few +days, like disappointed people looking for what they could not find, +_until the morning of little Sarah's birthday_, between eight and nine +o'clock, when the French fleet, of twenty-five sail of the line, was +discovered to windward. We chased them, and they bore down within about +five miles of us. The night was spent in watching and preparation for the +succeeding day; and many a blessing did I send forth to my Sarah, lest I +should never bless her more. At dawn, we made our approach on the enemy, +then drew up, dressed our ranks, and it was about eight when the admiral +made the signal for each ship to engage her opponent, and bring her to +close action; and then down we went under a crowd of sail, and in a manner +that would have animated the coldest heart, and struck terror into the +most intrepid enemy. The ship we were to engage was two ahead of the +French admiral, so we had to go through his fire and that of two ships +next to him, and received all their broadsides two or three times, before +we fired a gun. It was then near ten o'clock. I observed to the admiral, +that about that time our wives were going to church, but that I thought +the peal we should ring about the Frenchman's ears would outdo their +parish bells." + +There are no words to tell what the heart feels in reading the simple +phrases of such a hero. Here is victory and courage, but love sublimer and +superior. Here is a Christian soldier spending the night before battle in +watching and preparing for the succeeding day, thinking of his dearest +home, and sending many blessings forth to his Sarah, "lest he should never +bless her more." Who would not say Amen to his supplication? It was a +benediction to his country--the prayer of that intrepid loving heart. + +We have spoken of a good soldier and good men of letters as specimens of +English gentlemen of the age just past: may we not also--many of my elder +hearers, I am sure, have read, and fondly remember his delightful +story--speak of a good divine, and mention Reginald Heber as one of the +best of English gentlemen? The charming poet, the happy possessor of all +sorts of gifts and accomplishments, birth, wit, fame, high character, +competence--he was the beloved parish priest in his own home of Hoderel, +"counselling his people in their troubles, advising them in their +difficulties, comforting them in distress, kneeling often at their +sick-beds at the hazard of his own life; exhorting, encouraging where +there was need; where there was strife the peacemaker; where there was +want the free giver." + +When the Indian bishopric was offered to him he refused at first; but +after communing with himself (and committing his case to the quarter +whither such pious men are wont to carry their doubts), he withdrew his +refusal, and prepared himself for his mission and to leave his beloved +parish. "Little children, love one another, and forgive one another," were +the last sacred words he said to his weeping people. He parted with them, +knowing, perhaps, he should see them no more. Like those other good men of +whom we have just spoken, love and duty were his life's aim. Happy he, +happy they who were so gloriously faithful to both! He writes to his wife +those charming lines on his journey:-- + + + If thou, my love, wert by my side, my babies at my knee, + How gladly would our pinnace glide o'er Gunga's mimic sea! + + I miss thee at the dawning grey, when, on our deck reclined, + In careless ease my limbs I lay and woo the cooler wind. + + I miss thee when by Gunga's stream my twilight steps I guide; + But most beneath the lamp's pale beam I miss thee by my side. + + I spread my books, my pencil try, the lingering noon to cheer; + But miss thy kind approving eye, thy meek attentive ear. + + But when of morn and eve the star beholds me on my knee, + I feel, though thou art distant far, thy prayers ascend for me. + + Then on! then on! where duty leads my course be onward still,-- + O'er broad Hindostan's sultry meads, o'er bleak Almorah's hill. + + That course nor Delhi's kingly gates, nor wild Malwah detain, + For sweet the bliss us both awaits by yonder western main. + + Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say, across the dark blue + sea: + But ne'er were hearts so blithe and gay as there shall meet in + thee! + + +Is it not Collingwood and Sarah, and Southey and Edith? His affection is +part of his life. What were life without it? Without love, I can fancy no +gentleman. + +How touching is a remark Heber makes in his _Travels through India_, that +on inquiring of the natives at a town, which of the governors of India +stood highest in the opinion of the people, he found that, though Lord +Wellesley and Warren Hastings were honoured as the two greatest men who +had ever ruled this part of the world, the people spoke with chief +affection of Judge Cleaveland, who had died, aged twenty-nine, in 1784. +The people have built a monument over him, and still hold a religious +feast in his memory. So does his own country still tend with a heart's +regard the memory of the gentle Heber. + +And Cleaveland died in 1784, and is still loved by the heathen, is he? +Why, that year 1784 was remarkable in the life of our friend the First +Gentleman of Europe. Do you not know that he was twenty-one in that year, +and opened Carlton House with a grand ball to the nobility and gentry, and +doubtless wore that lovely pink coat which we have described. I was eager +to read about the ball, and looked to the old magazines for information. +The entertainment took place on the 10th February. In the _European +Magazine_ of March, 1784, I came straightway upon it:-- + +"The alterations at Carlton House being finished, we lay before our +readers a description of the state apartments as they appeared on the 10th +instant, when H.R.H. gave a grand ball to the principal nobility and +gentry.... The entrance to the state room fills the mind with an +inexpressible idea of greatness and splendour. + +"The state chair is of a gold frame, covered with crimson damask; on each +corner of the feet is a lion's head, expressive of fortitude and strength; +the feet of the chair have serpents twining round them, to denote wisdom. +Facing the throne, appears the helmet of Minerva; and over the windows, +glory is represented by St. George with a superb gloria. + +"But the saloon may be styled the _chef-d'oeuvre_, and in every ornament +discovers great invention. It is hung with a figured lemon satin. The +window-curtains, sofas, and chairs are of the same colour. The ceiling is +ornamented with emblematical paintings, representing the Graces and Muses, +together with Jupiter, Mercury, Apollo, and Paris. Two ormolu chandeliers +are placed here. It is impossible by expression to do justice to the +extraordinary workmanship, as well as design, of the ornaments. They each +consist of a palm, branching out in five directions for the reception of +lights. A beautiful figure of a rural nymph is represented entwining the +stems of the tree with wreaths of flowers. In the centre of the room is a +rich chandelier. To see this apartment _dans son plus beau jour_, it +should be viewed in the glass over the chimney-piece. The range of +apartments from the saloon to the ballroom, when the doors are open, +formed one of the grandest spectacles that ever was beheld." + +In the _Gentleman's Magazine_, for the very same month and year--March, +1784--is an account of another festival, in which another great gentleman +of English extraction is represented as taking a principal share:-- + +"According to order, H.E. the Commander-in-Chief was admitted to a public +audience of Congress; and, being seated, the president, after a pause, +informed him that the United States assembled were ready to receive his +communications. Whereupon he arose, and spoke as follows:-- + +" 'Mr. President,--The great events on which my resignation depended having +at length taken place, I present myself before Congress to surrender into +their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of +retiring from the service of my country. + +" 'Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, I resign +the appointment I accepted with diffidence; which, however, was superseded +by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme +power of the nation, and the patronage of Heaven. I close this last act of +my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest country to +the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of +them to His holy keeping. Having finished the work assigned me, I retire +from the great theatre of action; and, bidding an affectionate farewell to +this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my +commission and take my leave of the employments of my public life.' To +which the President replied:-- + +" 'Sir, having defended the standard of liberty in the New World, having +taught a lesson useful to those who inflict and those who feel oppression, +you retire with the blessings of your fellow citizens; though the glory of +your virtues will not terminate with your military command, but will +descend to remotest ages.' " + +Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed:--the opening feast of +Prince George in London, or the resignation of Washington? Which is the +noble character for after-ages to admire;--yon fribble dancing in lace and +spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless +honour, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable, and a consummate +victory? Which of these is the true gentleman? What is it to be a +gentleman? Is it to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life, to keep your +honour virgin; to have the esteem of your fellow citizens, and the love of +your fireside; to bear good fortune meekly; to suffer evil with constancy; +and through evil or good to maintain truth always? Show me the happy man +whose life exhibits these qualities, and him we will salute as gentleman, +whatever his rank may be; show me the prince who possesses them, and he +may be sure of our love and loyalty. The heart of Britain still beats +kindly for George III,--not because he was wise and just, but because he +was pure in life, honest in intent, and because according to his lights he +worshipped Heaven. I think we acknowledge in the inheritrix of his +sceptre, a wiser rule, and a life as honourable and pure; and I am sure +the future painter of our manners will pay a willing allegiance to that +good life, and be loyal to the memory of that unsullied virtue. + + + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + + 1 The influence of Scott on Thackeray is undoubted and freely + confessed. But I cannot fall in with "certain persons of + distinction" in making _Esmond_ very specially indebted to + _Woodstock_. _Woodstock_ is a very great book in itself and amazing + when one knows its circumstances: but it is, even for Scott, very + specially and exclusively _objective_. _Esmond_ is subjective also + in the highest degree. + + 2 This form, which he used elsewhere than in the _Biographia + Literaria_, is better than _esemplastic_ which he employed there. + + 3 The justice or accuracy of his individual presentments and even of + his general view of the time is quite another matter. We may touch + on part of it presently. But the real point is that the whole is of + a piece at least _in potentia_: that it gives a world that might + have existed. + + 4 The lectures on the _Humourists_ were, of course, delivered before + _Esmond_ was published; but, in another sense, they are only + aftercrops or by-products. The notes, sometimes very interesting, + are James Hannay's. + + 5 As might perhaps have been expected from its original appearance, + not piecemeal but in the regular three-volume form, _Esmond_ was not + very much altered by its author in later issues. There was, indeed, + a "revised" edition in 1858, in which a considerable number of minor + changes, nearly all for the better, were made. These have been + carefully considered, but in practically every case there was really + nothing to do but to follow them silently. For it would be absurd, + in the present edition, to chronicle solemnly the rectification of + mere misprints like "H_o_xton" for "H_e_xton", or the change from + "was never" to "never was". In some points of orthography + "Chelse_a_" and "Chelse_y_", for instance, Thackeray never reached + full consistency, and he has sometimes been caught in the + intricacies of the Castlewood relations and nomenclature, &c. So, + too, Walcote, which is near _Wells_ at first, moves to the + neighbourhood of _Winchester_ later; and there are other + characteristic oversights. But, on the whole, there is little need + of comment, and none of variants, save in a very few instances, + where the "revised" edition seems to have been altered for the + worse. + + On the other hand, in recent editions of Thackeray, published by his + representatives, considerable alterations to _The English + Humourists_, &c., in text and notes have been introduced, dates + being changed in accordance with later researches, quotations (in + which Thackeray was pretty lax) adjusted to their originals, and so + forth. As the chief authorities consulted in making these + alterations were the late Sir Leslie Stephen, Mr. Austin Dobson, and + Mr. Sidney Lee, there need not be much question as to their + accuracy: and it perhaps shows undue hardihood in the present editor + not to adopt them. But it seems to him that Thackeray's books are + not so much text-books of history, literary and other, where + accuracy is the first point, as literature, where it is not. Such + corrections could be most properly introduced in the notes of a + fuller commentated edition: less so, it may seem, in an almost + unannotated text. In particular, Thackeray's _mis_quotations (they + are not seldom distinct improvements) sometimes directly form the + basis of his own remarks, which become less apposite if the + citations are corrected. + + As the text of this volume has few original illustrations some + miscellaneous sketches are added to it. + + 6 Lionel Tipton, created Baron Bergamot, ann. 1686, Gentleman Usher of + the Back Stairs, and afterwards appointed Warden of the Butteries + and Groom of the King's Posset (on the decease of George, second + Viscount Castlewood), accompanied his Majesty to St. Germains, where + he died without issue. No Groom of the Posset was appointed by the + Prince of Orange, nor hath there been such an officer in any + succeeding reign. + + 7 To have this rank of marquis restored in the family had always been + my lady viscountess's ambition; and her old maiden aunt, Barbara + Topham, the goldsmith's daughter, dying about this time, and leaving + all her property to Lady Castlewood, I have heard that her ladyship + sent almost the whole of the money to King James, a proceeding which + so irritated my Lord Castlewood that he actually went to the parish + church, and was only appeased by the marquis's title which his + exiled majesty sent to him in return for the 15,000_l._ his faithful + subject lent him. + + 8 {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA AND PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} + {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}; {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH YPOGEGRAMMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK KORONIS~} + {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}. + + 9 My mistress before I went this campaign sent me John Lockwood out of + Walcote, who hath ever since remained with me.--H. E. + + 10 This passage in the memoirs of Esmond is written on a leaf inserted + into the MS. book, and dated 1744, probably after he had heard of + the duchess's death. + + 11 Our grandfather's hatred of the Duke of Marlborough appears all + through his account of these campaigns. He always persisted that the + duke was the greatest traitor and soldier history ever told of: and + declared that he took bribes on all hands during the war. My lord + marquis (for so we may call him here, though he never went by any + other name than Colonel Esmond) was in the habit of telling many + stories which he did not set down in his memoirs, and which he had + from his friend the Jesuit, who was not always correctly informed, + and who persisted that Marlborough was looking for a bribe of two + millions of crowns before the campaign of Ramillies. + + And our grandmother used to tell us children, that on his first + presentation to my lord duke, the duke turned his back upon my + grandfather; and said to the duchess, who told my lady dowager at + Chelsea, who afterwards told Colonel Esmond--"Tom Esmond's bastard + has been to my levee: he has the hang-dog look of his rogue of a + father"--an expression which my grandfather never forgave. He was as + constant in his dislikes as in his attachments; and exceedingly + partial to Webb, whose side he took against the more celebrated + general. We have General Webb's portrait now at Castlewood, Va. + + 12 'Tis not thus _woman loves_: Col. E. hath owned to this folly for a + _score of women_ besides.--R. + + 13 And, indeed, so was his to them, a thousand, thousand times more + charming, for where was his equal?--R. + + 14 See Appendix, p. 464. + + 15 What indeed? Ps. xci. 2. 3, 7.--R. E. + + 16 The managers were the bishop, who cannot be hurt by having his name + mentioned, a very active and loyal Nonconformist divine, a lady in + the highest favour at Court, with whom Beatrix Esmond had + communication, and two noblemen of the greatest rank, and a Member + of the House of Commons, who was implicated in more transactions + than one in behalf of the Stuart family. + + 17 There can be very little doubt that the doctor, mentioned by my dear + father, was the famous Dr. Arbuthnot.--R. E. W. + + 18 My dear father saith quite truly, that his manner towards our sex + was uniformly courteous. From my infancy upwards, he treated me with + an extreme gentleness, as though I was a little lady. I can scarce + remember (though I tried him often) ever hearing a rough word from + him, nor was he less grave and kind in his manner to the humblest + negresses on his estate. He was familiar with no one except my + mother, and it was delightful to witness up to the very last days + the confidence between them. He was obeyed eagerly by all under him; + and my mother and all her household lived in a constant emulation to + please him, and quite a terror lest in any way they should offend + him. He was the humblest man, with all this; the least exacting, the + most easily contented; and Mr. Benson, our minister at Castlewood, + who attended him at the last, ever said--"I know not what Colonel + Esmond's doctrine was, but his life and death were those of a devout + Christian."--R. E. W. + + 19 This remark shows how unjustly and contemptuously even the best of + men will sometimes judge of our sex. Lady Esmond had no intention of + triumphing over her daughter; but from a sense of duty alone pointed + out her deplorable wrong.--R. E. + + 20 In London we addressed the prince as royal highness invariably; + though the women persisted in giving him the title of king. + + 21 The anecdote is frequently told of our performer, Rich. + + 22 He was from a younger branch of the Swifts of Yorkshire. His + grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Swift, Vicar of Goodrich, in + Herefordshire, suffered for his loyalty in Charles I's time. That + gentleman married Elizabeth Dryden, a member of the family of the + poet. Sir Walter Scott gives, with his characteristic minuteness in + such points, the exact relationship between these famous men. Swift + was "the son of Dryden's second cousin". Swift, too, was the enemy + of Dryden's reputation. Witness the _Battle of the Books_:--"The + difference was greatest among the horse" says he of the moderns, + "where every private trooper pretended to the command, from Tasso + and Milton to Dryden and Withers." And in _Poetry, a Rhapsody_, he + advises the poetaster to-- + + Read all the Prefaces of Dryden, + For these our critics much confide in, + Though merely writ, at first, for filling, + To raise the volume's price a shilling. + + "Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet," was the phrase of Dryden + to his kinsman, which remained alive in a memory tenacious of such + matters. + + 23 "Miss Hetty" she was called in the family--where her face, and her + dress, and Sir William's treatment of her, all made the real fact + about her birth plain enough. Sir William left her a thousand + pounds. + + 24 Sometimes, during his mental affliction, he continued walking about + the house for many consecutive hours; sometimes he remained in a + kind of torpor. At times, he would seem to struggle to bring into + distinct consciousness, and shape into expression, the intellect + that lay smothering under gloomy obstruction in him. A pier-glass + falling by accident, nearly fell on him. He said, he wished it had! + He once repeated, slowly, several times, "I am what I am." The last + thing he wrote was an epigram on the building of a magazine for arms + and stores, which was pointed out to him as he went abroad during + his mental disease:-- + + Behold a proof of Irish sense: + Here Irish wit is seen; + When nothing's left that's worth defence, + They build a magazine! + + 25 Besides these famous books of Scott's and Johnson's, there is a + copious _Life_ by Thomas Sheridan (Dr. Johnson's "Sherry"), father + of Richard Brinsley, and son of that good-natured, clever, Irish + Doctor, Thomas Sheridan, Swift's intimate, who lost his chaplaincy + by so unluckily choosing for a text on the king's birthday, + "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!" Not to mention less + important works, there is also the _Remarks on the Life and Writings + of Dr. Jonathan Swift_, by that polite and dignified writer, the + Earl of Orrery. His lordship is said to have striven for literary + renown, chiefly that he might make up for the slight passed on him + by his father, who left his library away from him. It is to be + feared that the ink he used to wash out that stain only made it look + bigger. He had, however, known Swift, and corresponded with people + who knew him. His work (which appeared in 1751) provoked a good deal + of controversy, calling out, among other brochures, the interesting + _Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks_, &c., of Dr. Delany. + + 26 Dr. Wilde's book was written on the occasion of the remains of Swift + and Stella being brought to the light of day--a thing which happened + in 1835, when certain works going on in St. Patrick's Cathedral, + Dublin, afforded an opportunity of their being examined. One hears + with surprise of these skulls "going the rounds" of houses, and + being made the objects of _dilettante_ curiosity. The larynx of + Swift was actually carried off! Phrenologists had a low opinion of + his intellect, from the observations they took. + + Dr. Wilde traces the symptoms of ill-health in Swift, as detailed in + his writings from time to time. He observes, likewise, that the + skull gave evidence of "diseased action" of the brain during + life--such as would be produced by an increasing tendency to + "cerebral congestion". + + 27 "He [Dr. Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice + against Swift; for I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had + personally offended him, and he told me he had not."--BOSWELL'S _Tour + to the Hebrides_. + + 28 Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their success + was encouraging. One gentleman made a point of asking the Dean, + whether his uncle Godwin had not given him his education. Swift, who + hated _that_ subject cordially, and, indeed, cared little for his + kindred, said, sternly, "Yes; he gave me the education of a dog." + "Then, sir," cried the other, striking his fist on the table, "you + have not the gratitude of a dog!" + + Other occasions there were when a bold face gave the Dean pause, + even after his Irish almost-royal position was established. But he + brought himself into greater danger on a certain occasion, and the + amusing circumstances may be once more repeated here. He had + unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, Mr. Serjeant + Bettesworth-- + + So, at the bar, the booby Bettesworth, + Though half a crown out-pays his sweat's worth, + Who knows in law nor text nor margent, + Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant! + + The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented + himself at the deanery. The Dean asked his name. "Sir, I am Serjeant + Bett-es-worth." + + "_In what regiment, pray?_" asked Swift. + + A guard of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at this + time. + + 29 "But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my sentiments + from you. I am much inclined to believe that the temper of my friend + Swift might occasion his English friends to wish him happily and + properly promoted at a distance. His spirit, for I would give it the + proper name, was ever untractable. The motions of his genius were + often irregular. He assumed more the air of a patron than of a + friend. He affected rather to dictate than advise."--ORRERY. + + 30 "An anecdote which, though only told by Mrs. Pilkington, is well + attested, bears, that the last time he was in London he went to dine + with the Earl of Burlington, who was but newly married. The earl, it + is supposed, being willing to have a little diversion, did not + introduce him to his lady nor mention his name. After dinner said + the Dean, 'Lady Burlington, I hear you can sing; sing me a song.' + The lady looked on this unceremonious manner of asking a favour with + distaste, and positively refused. He said, 'She should sing, or he + would make her. Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your + poor English hedge-parsons; sing when I bid you.' As the earl did + nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed that she + burst into tears and retired. His first compliment to her when he + saw her again was, 'Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured + now as when I saw you last?' To which she answered with great good + humour, 'No, Mr. Dean; I'll sing for you if you please.' From which + time he conceived a great esteem for her."--SCOTT'S _Life_. "He had + not the least tincture of vanity in his conversation. He was, + perhaps, as he said himself, too proud to be vain. When he was + polite, it was in a manner entirely his own. In his friendships he + was constant and undisguised. He was the same in his + enmities."--ORRERY. + + 31 "I make no figure but at Court, where I affect to turn from a lord + to the meanest of my acquaintances."--_Journal to Stella._ + + "I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me their + books and poems, the vilest I ever saw; but I have given their names + to my man, never to let them see me."--_Journal to Stella._ + + The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier:-- + + "Did I ever tell you that the lord treasurer hears ill with the left + ear just as I do?... I dare not tell him that I am so, sir; _for + fear he should think that I counterfeited to make my + court!_"--_Journal to Stella._ + + 32 The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and the + other; and the Whig attacks made the ministry Swift served very + sore. Bolingbroke laid hold of several of the Opposition + pamphleteers, and bewails their "factitiousness" in the following + letter:-- + + "BOLINGBROKE TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. + + "Whitehall, July 23rd, 1712. + + "It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country are + too weak to punish effectually those factitious scribblers, who + presume to blacken the brightest characters, and to give even + scurrilous language to those who are in the first degrees of honour. + This, my lord, among others, is a symptom of the decayed condition + of our Government, and serves to show how fatally we mistake + licentiousness for liberty. All I could do was to take up Hart, the + printer, to send him to Newgate, and to bind him over upon bail to + be prosecuted; this I have done; and if I can arrive at legal proof + against the author Ridpath, he shall have the same treatment." + + Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous + indignation. In the history of the four last years of the queen, the + Dean speaks in the most edifying manner of the licentiousness of the + press and the abusive language of the other party: + + "It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers have + been such as to deserve the severest animadversion from the + public.... The adverse party, full of rage and leisure since their + fall, and unanimous in their cause, employ a set of writers by + subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation, + and have a style and genius levelled to the generality of their + readers.... However, the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant + to be cured by such a remedy as a tax upon small papers, and a bill + for a much more effectual regulation of it was brought into the + House of Commons, but so late in the session that there was no time + to pass it, for there always appeared an unwillingness to cramp + overmuch the liberty of the press." + + But to a clause in the proposed bill, that the names of authors + should be set to every printed book, pamphlet, or paper, his + reverence objects altogether, for, says he, "beside the objection to + this clause from the practice of pious men, who, in publishing + excellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, _out of + an humble Christian spirit, to conceal their names_, it is certain + that all persons of true genius or knowledge have an invincible + modesty and suspicion of themselves upon first sending their + thoughts into the world." + + This "invincible modesty" was no doubt the sole reason which induced + the Dean to keep the secret of the _Drapier's Letters_ and a hundred + humble Christian works of which he was the author. As for the + Opposition, the Doctor was for dealing severely with them: he writes + to Stella:-- + + Journal. Letter XIX + + "London, March 25th, 1710-11. + + "... We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him + pickled in a trough this fortnight for twopence a piece; and the + fellow that showed would point to his body and say, 'See, gentlemen, + this is the wound that was given him by his grace the Duke of + Ormond;' and, 'This is the wound,' &c.; and then the show was over, + and another set of rabble came in. 'Tis hard that our laws would not + suffer us to hang his body in chains, because he was not tried; and + in the eye of the law every man is innocent till then." + + Journal. Letter XXVII + + "London, July 25th, 1711. + + "I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped + to hinder a man of his pardon, who is condemned for a rape. The + under-secretary was willing to save him; but I told the secretary he + could not pardon him without a favourable report from the judge; + besides he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and deserved + hanging for something else, and so he shall swing." + + 33 It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day of + mourning. + + 34 "These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the _Flying Post_ + and _Medley_ in one paper, will not be quiet. They are always + mauling Lord Treasurer, Lord Bolingbroke, and me. We have the dog + under prosecution, but Bolingbroke is not active enough; but I hope + to swinge him. He is a Scotch rogue, one Ridpath. They get out upon + bail, and write on. We take them again, and get fresh bail; so it + goes round."--_Journal to Stella._ + + 35 Swift was by no means inclined to forget such considerations; and + his English birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, every now and + then in his writings. Thus in a letter to Pope (SCOTT'S _Swift_, + vol. xix, p. 97), he says:-- + + "We have had your volume of letters.... Some of those who highly + value you, and a few who knew you personally, are grieved to find + you make no distinction between the English gentry of this kingdom, + and the savage old Irish (who are only the vulgar, and some + gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the kingdom); but the + English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much more + civilized than many counties in England, and speak better English, + and are much better bred." + + And again, in the fourth Drapier's Letter, we have the following:-- + + "A short paper, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr. + Wood to say 'that he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the + Irish, in refusing his coin.' When, by the way, it is the true + English people of Ireland who refuse it, although we take it for + granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are + asked."--SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. iv, p. 143. + + He goes further, in a good-humoured satirical paper, _On Barbarous + Denominations in Ireland_, where (after abusing, as he was wont, the + Scotch cadence, as well as expression), he advances to the "_Irish + brogue_", and speaking of the "censure" which it brings down, says:-- + + "And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad + consequence of this opinion affects those among us who are not the + least liable to such reproaches farther than the misfortune of being + born in Ireland, although of English parents, and whose education + has been chiefly in that kingdom."--Ibid. vol. vii, p. 149. + + But, indeed, if we are to make _anything_ of Race at all, we must + call that man an Englishman whose father comes from an old Yorkshire + family, and his mother from an old Leicestershire one! + + 36 "The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with that of + his writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day at a + sheriff's feast, who amongst other toasts called out to him, 'Mr. + Dean. The trade of Ireland!' he answered quick: 'Sir, I drink no + memories!' + + "Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who prided + himself on saying pert things ... and who cried out, 'You must know, + Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit?' 'Do you so?' says the Dean. + 'Take my advice, and sit down again!' + + "At another time, being in company, where a lady whisking her long + train [long trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine fiddle + and broke it; Swift cried out-- + + Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae!" + + --DR. DELANY, _Observations upon Lord Orrery's __"__Remarks, &c. of + Swift__"_. London, 1754. + + 37 "Don't you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir William Temple + would look cold and out of humour for three or four days, and I used + to suspect a hundred reasons? I have plucked up my spirits since + then, faith; he spoiled a fine gentleman."--_Journal to Stella._ + + 38 "The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and + fortunate in their expression, when they placed a man's happiness in + the tranquillity of his mind and indolence of body; for while we are + composed of both, I doubt both must have a share in the good or ill + we feel. As men of several languages say the same things in very + different words, so in several ages, countries, constitutions of + laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very + different expressions; what is called by the Stoics apathy, or + dispassion; by the sceptics, indisturbance; by the Molinists, + quietism; by common men, peace of conscience,--seems all to mean but + great tranquillity of mind.... For this reason Epicurus passed his + life wholly in his garden: there he studied, there he exercised, + there he taught his philosophy; and, indeed, no other sort of abode + seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind and + indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of + the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the + cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking, + but, above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem + equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the + enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease + both of the body and mind.... Where Paradise was has been much + debated, and little agreed; but what sort of place is meant by it + may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian + word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors mention it as what was + much in use and delight among the kings of those eastern countries. + Strabo describing Jericho: 'Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtae sunt + etiam ahae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio + stadiorum centum, totus irriguus: ibi est Regis Balsami + paradisus.' "--_Essay on Gardens._ + + In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a friend, whose conduct + and prudence he characteristically admires. + + "I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in + Staffordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no + higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of + plums; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has very + well succeeded, which he could never have done in attempts upon + peaches and grapes; and _a good plum is certainly better than an ill + peach_." + + 39 SWIFT'S THOUGHTS ON HANGING. + + (_Directions to Servants._) + + "To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all + indignities; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes + of place at Court, a command in the army, a succession to the + stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two last you cannot + obtain without reading and writing), or running away with your + master's niece or daughter, I directly advise you to go upon the + road, which is the only post of honour left you: there you will meet + many of your old comrades, and live a short life and a merry one, + and making a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some + instructions. + + "The last advice I give you relates to your behaviour when you are + going to be hanged; which, either for robbing your master, for + housebreaking, or going upon the highway, or in a drunken quarrel by + killing the first man you meet, may very probably be your lot, and + is owing to one of these three qualities: either a love of good + fellowship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of spirits. + Your good behaviour on this article will concern your whole + community; deny the fact with all solemnity of imprecations: a + hundred of your brethren, if they can be admitted, will attend about + the bar, and be ready upon demand to give you a character before the + Court; let nothing prevail on you to confess, but the promise of a + pardon for discovering your comrades: but I suppose all this to be + in vain; for if you escape now, your fate will be the same another + day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate: some + of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt and white + cap, crowned with a crimson or black ribbon: take leave cheerfully + of all your friends in Newgate: mount the cart with courage; fall on + your knees; lift up your eyes; hold a book in your hands, although + you cannot read a word; deny the fact at the gallows; kiss and + forgive the hangman; and so farewell; you shall be buried in pomp at + the charge of the fraternity: the surgeon shall not touch a limb of + you; and your fame shall continue until a successor of equal renown + succeeds in your place...." + + 40 "He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of that + great man."--_Anecdotes of the Family of Swift_, by the DEAN. + + "It has since pleased God to take this great and good person to + himself."--Preface to _Temple's Works_. + + On all _public_ occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same + tone. But the reader will better understand how acutely he + remembered the indignities he suffered in his household, from the + subjoined extracts from the _Journal to Stella_:-- + + "I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d---- ailed + him on Sunday: I made him a very proper speech; told him I observed + he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he would tell me + the cause, but would be glad to see he was in better; and one thing + I warned him of--never to appear cold to me, for I would not be + treated like a schoolboy; that I had felt too much of that in my + life already" [_meaning Sir William Temple_] &c. &c.--_Journal to + Stella._ + + "I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William + Temple because he might have been Secretary of State at fifty; and + here is a young fellow hardly thirty in that employment."--_Ibid._ + + "The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often + thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being + Secretary of State."--_Ibid._ + + "Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now + quite well. I was playing at _one-and-thirty_ with him and his + family the other night. He gave us all twelvepence a piece to begin + with; it put me in mind of Sir William Temple."--_Ibid._ + + "I thought I saw Jack Temple [_nephew to Sir William_] and his wife + pass by me to-day in their coach; but I took no notice of them. I am + glad I have wholly shaken off that family."--_S. to S. Sept., 1710._ + + 41 "Swift must be allowed," says Dr. Johnson, "for a time, to have + dictated the political opinions of the English nation." + + A conversation on the Dean's pamphlets excited one of the Doctor's + liveliest sallies. "One, in particular, praised his _Conduct of the + Allies_.--Johnson: 'Sir, his _Conduct of the Allies_ is a performance + of very little ability.... Why, sir, Tom Davies might have written + the _Conduct of the Allies_!' "--BOSWELL'S _Life of Johnson_. + + 42 "Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first time, + it was his custom to try their tempers and disposition by some + abrupt question that bore the appearance of rudeness. If this were + well taken, and answered with good humour, he afterwards made amends + by his civilities. But if he saw any marks of resentment, from + alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all further + intercourse with the party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote + of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. After supper, the Dean + having decanted a bottle of wine, poured what remained into a glass, + and seeing it was muddy, presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it. + 'For,' said he, 'I always keep some poor parson to drink the foul + wine for me.' Mr. Pilkington, entering into his humour, thanked him, + and told him 'he did not know the difference, but was glad to get a + glass at any rate.' 'Why then,' said the Dean, 'you shan't, for I'll + drink it myself. Why, ---- take you, you are wiser than a paltry + curate whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago; for upon my + making the same speech to him, he said, he did not understand such + usage, and so walked off without his dinner. By the same token, I + told the gentleman who recommended him to me, that the fellow was a + blockhead, and I had done with him.' "--SHERIDAN'S _Life of Swift_. + + 43 FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHELL. + + "Cashell, May 31st, 1735 + + "DEAR SIR,-- + + "I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that I am + resolved to have no more, especially where I am likely to be + overmatched; and as I have some reason to hope what is past will be + forgotten, I confess I did endeavour in my last to put the best + colour I could think of upon a very bad cause. My friends judge + right of my idleness; but, in reality, it has hitherto proceeded + from a hurry and confusion, arising from a thousand unlucky + unforeseen accidents rather than mere sloth. I have but one + troublesome affair now upon my hands, which, by the help of the + prime serjeant, I hope soon to get rid of; and then you shall see me + a true Irish bishop. Sir James Ware has made a very useful + collection of the memorable actions of my predecessors. He tells me, + they were born in such a town of England or Ireland; were + consecrated such a year; and, if not translated, were buried in the + Cathedral church, either on the north or south side. Whence I + conclude, that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat, + drink, grow fat, rich, and die; which laudable example I propose for + the remainder of my life to follow; for to tell you the truth, I + have for these four or five years past met with so much treachery, + baseness, and ingratitude among mankind, that I can hardly think it + incumbent on any man to endeavour to do good to so perverse a + generation. + + "I am truly concerned at the account you give me of your health. + Without doubt a southern ramble will prove the best remedy you can + take to recover your flesh; and I do not know, except in one stage, + where you can choose a road so suited to your circumstances, as from + Dublin hither. You have to Kilkenny a turnpike and good inns, at + every ten or twelve miles' end. From Kilkenny hither is twenty long + miles, bad road, and no inns at all: but I have an expedient for + you. At the foot of a very high hill, just midway, there lives in a + neat thatched cabin, a parson, who is not poor; his wife is allowed + to be the best little woman in the world. Her chickens are the + fattest, and her ale the best in all the country. Besides, the + parson has a little cellar of his own, of which he keeps the key, + where he always has a hogshead of the best wine that can be got, in + bottles well corked, upon their side; and he cleans, and pulls out + the cork better, I think, than Robin. Here I design to meet you with + a coach; if you be tired, you shall stay all night; if not, after + dinner we will set out about four, and be at Cashell by nine; and by + going through fields and by-ways, which the parson will show us, we + shall escape all the rocky and stony roads that lie between this + place and that, which are certainly very bad. I hope you will be so + kind as to let me know a post or two before you set out, the very + day you will be at Kilkenny, that I may have all things prepared for + you. It may be, if you ask him, Cope will come: he will do nothing + for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive promise, I shall add + no more arguments to persuade you, and am, with the greatest truth, + your most faithful and obedient servant, + + "THEO. CASHELL." + + 44 "Mr. Swift lived with him [Sir William Temple] some time, but + resolving to settle himself in some way of living, was inclined to + take orders. However, although his fortune was very small, he had a + scruple of entering into the Church merely for support."--_Anecdotes + of the Family of Swift_, by the DEAN. + + 45 "Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles + could never soften, or his utmost gaiety render placid and serene; + but when that sternness of visage was increased by rage, it is + scarce possible to imagine looks or features that carried in them + more terror and austerity."--ORRERY. + + 46 "London, April 10th, 1713. + + "Lady Masham's eldest boy is very ill: I doubt he will not live; and + she stays at Kensington to nurse him, which vexes us all. She is so + excessively fond, it makes me mad. She should never leave the queen, + but leave everything, to stick to what is so much the interest of + the public, as well as her own...."--_Journal._ + + 47 "My health is somewhat mended, but at best I have an ill head and an + aching heart."--_In May, 1719._ + + 48 Perhaps the most melancholy satire in the whole of the dreadful + book, is the description of the very old people in the Voyage to + Laputa. At Lugnag, Gulliver hears of some persons who never die, + called the Struldbrugs, and expressing a wish to become acquainted + with men who must have so much learning and experience, his + colloquist describes the Struldbrugs to him. + + "He said, They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty years + old, after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, + increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from + their own confession: for otherwise there not being above two or + three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a + general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is + reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only + all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more, + which arose from the prospect of never dying. They were not only + opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but + incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which + never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires + are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their + envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort + and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find + themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever + they see a funeral, they lament, and repent that others are gone to + a harbour of rest, to which they themselves never can hope to + arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned + and observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very + imperfect. And for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer + to depend on common tradition than upon their best recollections. + The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to + dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity + and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in + others. + + "If a Struldbrug happened to marry one of his own kind, the marriage + is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, as soon as + the younger of the two comes to be fourscore. For the law thinks it + to be a reasonable indulgence that those who are condemned, without + any fault of their own, to a perpetual continuance in the world, + should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife. + + "As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are + looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their + estates, only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and + the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that + period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or + profit, they cannot purchase lands or take leases, neither are they + allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not + even for the decision of meers and bounds. + + "At ninety they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no + distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get + without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still + continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget + the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of + those who are their nearest friends and relatives. For the same + reason, they can never amuse themselves with reading, because their + memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence + to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only + entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable. + + "The language of this country being always on the flux, the + Struldbrugs of one age do not understand those of another; neither + are they able, after two hundred years, to hold any conversation + (further than by a few general words) with their neighbours, the + mortals; and thus they lie under the disadvantage of living like + foreigners in their own country. + + "This was the account given me of the Struldbrugs, as near as I can + remember. I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, the + youngest not above two hundred years old, who were brought to me + several times by some of my friends; but although they were told + 'that I was a great traveller, and had seen all the world', they had + not the least curiosity to ask me a single question; only desired I + would give them slumskudask, or a token of remembrance; which is a + modest way of begging, to avoid the law that strictly forbids it, + because they are provided for by the public, although indeed with a + very scanty allowance. + + "They are despised and hated by all sorts of people; when one of + them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded + very particularly; so that you may know their age by consulting the + register, which, however, has not been kept above a thousand years + past, or at least has been destroyed by time or public disturbances. + But the usual way of computing how old they are, is, by asking them + what kings or great persons they can remember, and then consulting + history; for infallibly the last prince in their mind did not begin + his reign after they were fourscore years old. + + "They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and the women + more horrible than the men; besides the usual deformities in extreme + old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to + their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half + a dozen, I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there + was not above a century or two between them."--_Gulliver's Travels._ + + 49 The name of Varina has been thrown into the shade by those of the + famous Stella and Vanessa; but she had a story of her own to tell + about the blue eyes of young Jonathan. One may say that the book of + Swift's life opens at places kept by these blighted flowers! Varina + must have a paragraph. + + She was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. In + 1696, when Swift was nineteen years old, we find him writing a + love-letter to her, beginning, "Impatience is the most inseparable + quality of a lover." But absence made a great difference in his + feelings; so, four years afterwards, the tone is changed. He writes + again, a very curious letter, offering to marry her, and putting the + offer in such a way that nobody could possibly accept it. + + After dwelling on his poverty, &c., he says, conditionally, "I shall + be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding whether your + person be beautiful, or your fortune large. Cleanliness in the + first, and competency in the second, is all I ask for!" + + The editors do not tell us what became of Varina in life. One would + be glad to know that she met with some worthy partner, and lived + long enough to see her little boys laughing over Lilliput, without + any _arriere pensee_ of a sad character about the great Dean! + + 50 A sentimental Champollion might find a good deal of matter for his + art, in expounding the symbols of the "Little Language". Usually, + Stella is "M.D.," but sometimes her companion, Mrs. Dingley, is + included in it. Swift is "Presto"; also P.D.F.R. We have "Goodnight, + M.D.; Night, M.D.; Little M.D.; Stellakins; Pretty Stella; Dear, + roguish, impudent, pretty M.D.!" Every now and then he breaks into + rhyme, as-- + + I wish you both a merry new year, + Roast beef, minced-pies, and good strong beer, And me a share of + your good cheer. + That I was there, as you were here, + And you are a little saucy dear. + + 51 The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on the + evening of the day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727-8: + + "She was sickly from her childhood, until about the age of fifteen; + but then she grew into perfect health, and was looked upon as one of + the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in + London--only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and + every feature of her face in perfection. + + "... Properly speaking"--he goes on with a calmness which, under the + circumstances, is terrible--"she has been dying six months!..." + + "Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, or who + more improved them by reading and conversation.... All of us who had + the happiness of her friendship agreed unanimously, that in an + afternoon's or evening's conversation she never failed before we + parted of delivering the best thing that was said in the company. + Some of us have written down several of her sayings, or what the + French call _bons mots_, wherein she excelled beyond belief." + + The specimens on record, however, in the Dean's paper called _Bons + Mots de Stella_, scarcely bear out this last part of the panegyric. + But the following prove her wit: + + "A gentleman, who had been very silly and pert in her company, at + last began to grieve at remembering the loss of a child lately dead. + A bishop sitting by comforted him--that he should be easy, because + 'the child was gone to heaven'. 'No, my lord,' said she; 'that is it + which most grieves him, because he is sure never to see his child + there.' + + "When she was extremely ill, her physician said, 'Madam, you are + near the bottom of the hill, but we will endeavour to get you up + again.' She answered, 'Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath + before I get up to the top.' + + "A very dirty clergyman of her acquaintance, who affected smartness + and repartees, was asked by some of the company how his nails came + to be so dirty. He was at a loss; but she solved the difficulty, by + saying, 'the doctor's nails grew dirty by scratching himself.' + + "A quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked; it had a broad brim, + and a label of paper about its neck. 'What is that?'--said she--'my + apothecary's son!' The ridiculous resemblance, and the suddenness of + the question, set us all a-laughing."--_Swift's Works_, SCOTT'S ed., + vol. ix, 295-6. + + 52 "I am so hot and lazy after my morning's walk, that I loitered at + Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, where my best gown and periwig was, and _out of + mere listlessness dine there, very often_; so I did + to-day."--_Journal to Stella._ Mrs. Vanhomrigh, Vanessa's mother, was + the widow of a Dutch merchant who held lucrative appointments in + King William's time. The family settled in London in 1709, and had a + house in Bury Street, St. James's--a street made notable by such + residents us Swift and Steele; and, in our own time, Moore and + Crabbe. + + 53 "Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her by Cadenus + is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress; + impatient to be admired; very romantic in her turn of mind; + superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex; full of pertness, + gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but + far from being either beautiful or genteel;... happy in the thoughts + of being reported Swift's concubine, but still aiming and intending + to be his wife."--LORD ORRERY. + + 54 "You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could. You + had better have said, as often as you can get the better of your + inclinations so much; or as often as you remember there was such a + one in the world. If you continue to treat me as you do, you will + not be made uneasy by me long. It is impossible to describe what I + have suffered since I saw you last: I am sure I could have borne the + rack much better than those killing, killing words of yours. + Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you more;, but those + resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long; for there is + something in human nature that prompts one so to find relief in this + world I must give way to it, and beg you would see me, and speak + kindly to me; for I am sure you'd not condemn any one to suffer what + I have done, could you but know it. The reason I write to you is, + because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you; for when I begin + to complain, then you are angry, and there is something in your + looks so awful that it strikes me dumb. Oh! that you may have but so + much regard for me left that this complaint may touch your soul with + pity. I say as little as ever I can; did you but know what I + thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me; and believe I + cannot help telling you this and live."--VANESSA. (M. 1714.) + + 55 "If we consider Swift's behaviour, so far only as it relates to + women, we shall find that he looked upon them rather as busts than + as whole figures."--ORRERY. + + "You must have smiled to have found his house a constant seraglio of + very virtuous women, who attended him from morning to + night."--ORRERY. + + A correspondent of Sir Walter Scott's furnished him with the + materials on which to found the following interesting passage about + Vanessa--after she had retired to cherish her passion in retreat:-- + + "Marley Abbey, near Celbridge, where Miss Vanhomrigh resided, is + built much in the form of a real cloister, especially in its + external appearance. An aged man (upwards of ninety, by his own + account), showed the grounds to my correspondent. He was the son of + Mrs. Vanhomrigh's gardener, and used to work with his father in the + garden while a boy. He remembered the unfortunate Vanessa well; and + his account of her corresponded with the usual description of her + person, especially as to her _embonpoint_. He said she went seldom + abroad, and saw little company; her constant amusement was reading, + or walking in the garden.... She avoided company, and was always + melancholy, save when Dean Swift was there, and then she seemed + happy. The garden was to an uncommon degree crowded with laurels. + The old man said that when Miss Vanhomrigh expected the Dean she + always planted with her own hand a laurel or two against his + arrival. He showed her favourite seat, still called 'Vanessa's + bower'. Three or four trees and some laurels indicate the spot.... + There were two seats and a rude table within the bower, the opening + of which commanded a view of the Liffey.... In this sequestered + spot, according to the old gardener's account, the Dean and Vanessa + used often to sit, with books and writing materials on the table + before them."--SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. i, pp. 246-7. "... But Miss + Vanhomrigh, irritated at the situation in which she found herself, + determined on bringing to a crisis those expectations of a union + with the object of her affections--to the hope of which she had clung + amid every vicissitude of his conduct towards her. The most probable + bar was his undefined connexion with Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must + have been perfectly known to her, had, doubtless, long elicited her + secret jealousy, although only a single hint to that purpose is to + be found in their correspondence, and that so early as 1713, when + she writes to him--then in Ireland--'If you are very happy, it is + ill-natured of you not to tell me so, _except 'tis what is + inconsistent with mine_.' Her silence and patience under this state + of uncertainty for no less than eight years, must have been partly + owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, to the weak state + of her rival's health, which, from year to year, seemed to announce + speedy dissolution. At length, however, Vanessa's impatience + prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs. + Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature of that connexion. + Stella, in reply, informed her of her marriage with the Dean; and + full of the highest resentment against Swift for having given + another female such a right in him as Miss Vanhomrigh's inquiries + implied, she sent to him her rival's letter of interrogatories, and, + without seeing him, or awaiting his reply, retired to the house of + Mr. Ford, near Dublin. Every reader knows the consequence. Swift, in + one of those paroxysms of fury to which he was liable, both from + temper and disease, rode instantly to Marley Abbey. As he entered + the apartment, the sternness of his countenance, which was + peculiarly formed to express the fiercer passions, struck the + unfortunate Vanessa with such terror that she could scarce ask + whether he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on + the table, and, instantly leaving the house, remounted his horse, + and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only + found her own letter to Stella. It was her death warrant. She sunk + at once under the disappointment of the delayed, yet cherished, + hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the + unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How + long she survived the last interview is uncertain, but the time does + not seem to have exceeded a few weeks."--SCOTT. + + 56 "M. Swift est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne + compagnie. Il n'a pas, a la verite, la gaite du premier, mais il a + toute la finesse, la raison, le choix, le bon gout qui manquent a + notre cure de Meudon. Ses vers sont d'un gout singulier, et presque + inimitable; la bonne plaisanterie est son partage en vers et en + prose; mais pour le bien entendre il faut faire un petit voyage dans + son pays."--VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les Anglais_, Let. 22. + + 57 The following is a _conspectus_ of them:-- + + ADDISON.--Commissioner of Appeals; Under Secretary of State; + Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Keeper of the Records + in Ireland; Lord of Trade; and one of the Principal Secretaries of + State, successively. + + STEELE.--Commissioner of the Stamp Office; Surveyor of the Royal + Stables at Hampton Court; and Governor of the Royal Company of + Comedians; Commissioner of "Forfeited Estates in Scotland". + + PRIOR.--Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague; Gentleman of the + Bedchamber to King William; Secretary to the Embassy in France; + Under Secretary of State; Ambassador to France. + + TICKELL.--Under Secretary of State; Secretary to the Lords Justices + of Ireland. + + CONGREVE.--Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches; Commissioner + for Wine Licences; place in the Pipe-office; post in the + Custom-house; Secretary of Jamaica. + + GAY.--Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to + Hanover.) + + JOHN DENNIS.--A place in the Custom-house. "En Angleterre ... les + lettres sont plus en honneur qu'ici."-- + + VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les Anglais_, Let. 20. + + 58 He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of Richard + Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in Staffordshire--a very + ancient family. + + 59 "PIPE.--_Pipe_, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the + _great roll_. + + "PIPE-_Office_ is an office in which a person called the _Clerk of + the Pipe_ makes out leases of crown lands, by warrant, from the + Lord-Treasurer, or Commissioners of the Treasury, or Chancellor of + the Exchequer. + + "Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c."--REES, + _Cyclopaed._ Art. PIPE. + + "PIPE-_Office_.--Spelman thinks so called because the papers were + kept in a large _pipe_ or cask. + + "These be at last brought into that office of Her Majesty's + Exchequer, which we, by a metaphor, do call the _pipe_ ... because + the whole receipt is finally conveyed into it by means of divers + small _pipes_ or quills."--BACON, _The Office of Alienations_. + + [We are indebted to Richardson's _Dictionary_ for this fragment of + erudition. But a modern man of letters can know little on these + points--by experience.] + + 60 "It has been observed that no change of Ministers affected him in + the least, nor was he ever removed from any post that was given to + him, except to a better. His place in the Custom-house, and his + office of Secretary in Jamaica, are said to have brought him in + upwards of twelve hundred a year."--_Biog. Brit._, Art. CONGREVE. + + 61 Dryden addressed his "twelfth epistle" to "My dear friend Mr. + Congreve," on his comedy called _The Double Dealer_, in which he + says-- + + Great Jonson did by strength of judgement please; + Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his case. + In differing talents both adorn'd their age: + One for the study, t'other for the stage. + But both to Congreve justly shall submit, + One match'd in judgement, both o'ermatched in wit. + In him all beauties of this age we see, &c. &c. + + The _Double Dealer_, however, was not so palpable a hit as the _Old + Bachelor_, but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having + fallen foul of it, our "swell" applied the scourge to that + presumptuous body, in the _Epistle Dedicatory_ to the "Right + Honourable Charles Montague." + + "I was conscious," said he, "where a true critic might have put me + upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack, ... but I have not + heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer." He goes on-- + + "But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the + false criticisms that are made upon me; and that is, some of the + ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it; for I declare, I + would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one of the + fair sex. They are concerned that I have represented some women + vicious and affected. How can I help it? It is the business of a + comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.... I should + be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliments to those + ladies who are offended. But they can no more expect it in a comedy, + than _to be tickled by a surgeon when he is letting their blood_." + + 62 "Instead of endeavouring to raise a vain monument to myself, let me + leave behind me a memorial of my friendship, with one of the most + valuable men as well as finest writers of my age and country--one who + has tried, and knows by his own experience, how hard an undertaking + it is to do justice to Homer--and one who, I am sure, seriously + rejoices with me at the period of my labours. To him, therefore, + having brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate + it, and to have the honour and satisfaction of placing together in + this manner the names of Mr. Congreve and of--A. POPE."--_Postscript + to Translation of the Iliad of Homer._ Mar. 25, 1720. + + 63 "When asked why he listened to the praises of Dennis, he said, he + had much rather be flattered than abused. Swift had a particular + friendship for our author, and generally took him under his + protection in his high authoritative manner."--THOS. DAVIES, + _Dramatic Miscellanies_. + + 64 "Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and + lived in the same street, his house very near hers, until his + acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted + that house. The Duchess showed us a diamond necklace (which Lady Di. + used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, and was + purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it + have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle."--DR. YOUNG + (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 65 "A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was supposed to + bow to her Grace and to nod in approbation of what she spoke to + it."--THOS. DAVIES, _Dramatic Miscellanies_. + + 66 The sum Congreve left her was 200_l._, as is said in the _Dramatic + Miscellanies_ of Tom Davies; where are some particulars about this + charming actress and beautiful woman. + + She had a "lively aspect", says Tom, on the authority of Cibber, and + "such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as + inspired everybody with desire". "Scarce an audience saw her that + were not half of them her lovers." + + Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. "In + _Tamerlane_, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla....; + Congreve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her Angelica, + in his _Love for Love_; in his Osmyn to her Almena, in the _Mourning + Bride_; and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the _Way of + the World_. Mirabel, the fine gentleman of the play, is, I believe, + not very distant from the real character of Congreve."--_Dramatic + Miscellanies_, vol. iii, 1784. + + She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the public + favourite. She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. + + 67 Johnson calls his legacy the "accumulation of attentive parsimony, + which," he continues, "though to her (the Duchess) superfluous and + useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family + from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his + relation, reduced to difficulties and distress."--_Lives of the + Poets._ + + 68 He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called "Amendments of Mr. + Collier's False and Imperfect Citations," &c. A specimen or two are + subjoined:-- + + "The greater part of these examples which he has produced, are only + demonstrations of his own impurity: they only savour of his + utterance, and were sweet enough till tainted by his breath. + + "Where the expression is unblameable in its own pure and genuine + signification, he enters into it, himself, like the evil spirit; he + possesses the innocent phrase, and makes it bellow forth his own + blasphemies. + + "If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is + because I am not very well versed in his nomenclatures.... I will + only call him Mr. Collier, and that I will call him as often as I + think he shall deserve it. + + "The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour + critic." + + "Congreve," says Dr. Johnson, "a very young man, elated with + success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and + security.... The dispute was protracted through two years; but at + last Comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the reward of + his labours in the reformation of the theatre."--_Life of Congreve._ + + 69 The scene of Valentine's pretended madness in _Love for Love_ is a + splendid specimen of Congreve's daring manner:-- + + _Scandal._--And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon + him? + + _Jeremy._--Yes, Sir; he says he'll favour it, and mistake her for + _Angelica_. + + _Scandal._--It may make us sport. + + _Foresight._--Mercy on us! + + _Valentine._--Husht--interrupt me not--I'll whisper predictions to + thee, and thou shalt prophesie;--I am truth, and can teach thy tongue + a new trick,--I have told thee what's passed--now I'll tell what's to + come:--Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow? Answer me not--for I + will tell thee. To-morrow knaves will thrive thro' craft, and fools + thro' fortune; and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer + suit. Ask me questions concerning tomorrow. + + _Scandal._--Ask him, _Mr. Foresight_. + + _Foresight._--Pray what will be done at Court? + + _Valentine._--_Scandal_ will tell you;--I am truth, I never come + there. + + _Foresight._--In the city? + + _Valentine._--Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the usual + hours. Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters, as if + religion were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go + methodically in the city, the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and + the horn'd herd buzz in the Exchange at two. Husbands and wives will + drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the + family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the + cropt prentice that sweeps his master's shop in the morning, may, + ten to one, dirty his sheets before night. But there are two things, + that you will see very strange; which are, wanton wives with their + legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their necks. + But hold, I must examine you before I go further; you look + suspiciously. Are you a husband? + + _Foresight._--I am married. + + _Valentine._--Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent Garden _Parish_? + + _Foresight._--No; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. + + _Valentine._--Alas, poor man! his eyes are sunk, and his hands + shrivelled; his legs dwindled, and his back bow'd. Pray, pray, for a + metamorphosis--change thy shape, and shake off age; get the _Medea's_ + kettle and be boiled anew; come forth with lab'ring callous hands, + and chine of steel, and _Atlas'_ shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the + calves of twenty chairmen, and make the pedestals to stand erect + upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha! That a man should + have a stomach to a wedding supper, when the pidgeons ought rather + to be laid to his feet! ha, ha, ha! + + _Foresight._--His frenzy is very high now, _Mr. Scandal_. + + _Scandal._--I believe it is a spring-tide. + + _Foresight._--Very likely--truly; you understand these matters. _Mr. + Scandal_, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things + he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical. + + _Valentine._--Oh! why would _Angelica_ be absent from my eyes so + long? + + _Jeremy._--She's here, Sir. + + _Mrs. Foresight._--Now, Sister! + + _Mrs. Frail._--O Lord! what must I say? + + _Scandal._--Humour him, Madam, by all means. + + _Valentine._--Where is she? Oh! I see her; she comes, like Riches, + Health, and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and + abandoned wretch. Oh--welcome, welcome! + + _Mrs. Frail._--How d'ye, Sir? Can I serve you? + + _Valentine._--Hark'ee--I have a secret to tell you. _Endymion_ and the + moon shall meet us on _Mount Latmos_, and we'll be married in the + dead of night. But say not a word. _Hymen_ shall put his torch into + a dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give her + peacock poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail; and Argus's + hundred eyes be shut--ha! Nobody shall know, but _Jeremy._ + + _Mrs. Frail._--No, no; we'll keep it secret; it shall be done + presently. + + _Valentine._--The sooner the better. _Jeremy_, come + hither--closer--that none may overhear us. _Jeremy_, I can tell you + news; _Angelica_ is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet + we'll marry one another in spite of the Pope. Get me a cowl and + beads, that I may play my part; for she'll meet me two hours hence + in black and white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we + won't see one another's faces 'till we have done something to be + ashamed of, and then we'll blush once for all.... + + _Enter_ TATTLE. + + _Tattle._--Do you know me, _Valentine_? + + _Valentine._--You!--who are you? No, I hope not. + + _Tattle._--I am _Jack Tattle_, your friend. + + _Valentine._--My friend! What to do? I am no married man, and thou + canst not lye with my wife; I am very poor, and thou canst not + borrow money of me. Then, what employment have I for a friend? + + _Tattle._--Hah! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a + secret. + + _Angelica._--Do you know me, _Valentine_? + + _Valentine._--Oh, very well. + + _Angelica._--Who am I? + + _Valentine._--You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it + grafted roses on a brier. You are the reflection of Heaven in a + pond; and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white--a sheet of + spotless paper--when you first are born; but you are to be scrawled + and blotted by every goose's quill. I know you; for I loved a woman, + and loved her so long that I found out a strange thing: I found out + what a woman was good for. + + _Tattle._--Ay! pr'ythee, what's that? + + _Valentine._--Why, to keep a secret. + + _Tattle._--O Lord! + + _Valentine._--Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for, though she + should tell, yet she is not to be believed. + + _Tattle._--Hah! Good again, faith. + + _Valentine._--I would have musick. Sing me the song that I + like.--CONGREVE, _Love for Love_. + + There is a _Mrs. Nickleby_, of the year 1700, in Congreve's comedy + of _The Double Dealer_, in whose character the author introduces + some wonderful traits of roguish satire. She is practised on by the + gallants of the play, and no more knows how to resist them than any + of the ladies above quoted could resist Congreve. + + _Lady Plyant._--Oh, reflect upon the honour of your conduct! Offering + to pervert me [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing the lady + for her daughter's hand, not for her own]--perverting me from the + road of virtue, in which I have trod thus long, and never made one + trip--not one _faux pas_. Oh, consider it; what would you have to + answer for, if you should provoke me to frailty! Alas! humanity is + feeble, Heaven knows! Very feeble, and unable to support itself. + + _Mellefont._--Where am I? Is it day? and am I awake? Madam-- + + _Lady Plyant._--O Lord, ask me the question! I'll swear I'll deny + it--therefore don't ask me; nay, you shan't ask me, I swear I'll deny + it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my face; I warrant + I am as red as a turkey-cock; O fie, cousin Mellefont! + + _Mellefont._--Nay, madam, hear me; I mean---- + + _Lady Plyant._--Hear you? No, no; I'll deny you first, and hear you + afterwards. For one does not know how one's mind may change upon + hearing--hearing is one of the senses, and all the senses are + fallible. I won't trust my honour, I assure you; my honour is + infallible and uncomatable. + + _Mellefont._--For heaven's sake, madam---- + + _Lady Plyant._--Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of + Heaven, and have so much wickedness in your heart? May be, you don't + think it a sin. They say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin; + but still, my honour, if it were no sin ----. But, then, to marry my + daughter for the convenience of frequent opportunities--I'll never + consent to that: as sure as can be, I'll break the match. + + _Mellefont._--Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees---- + + _Lady Plyant._--Nay, nay, rise up; come, you shall see my good + nature. I know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. + 'Tis not your fault; nor I swear, it is not mine. How can I help it, + if I have charms? And how can you help it, if you are made a + captive? I swear it is pity it should be a fault; but, my honour. + Well, but your honour, too--but the sin! Well, but the necessity. O + Lord, here's somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you must + consider of your crime; and strive as much as can be against + it--strive, be sure; but don't be melancholick--don't despair; but + never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no: but be sure + you lay all thoughts aside of the marriage, for though I know you + don't love Cynthia, only as a blind for your passion to me; yet it + will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! No, I can't + be jealous; for I must not love you; therefore don't hope; but don't + despair neither. They're coming; I _must_ fly.--_The Double Dealer_, + act II, scene v, page 156. + + 70 "There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to + have done everything by chance. _The Old Bachelor_ was written for + amusement in the languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently + composed with great elaborateness of dialogue, and incessant + ambition of wit."--JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_. + + 71 "Among those by whom it ('Will's') was frequented, Southerne and + Congreve were principally distinguished by Dryden's friendship.... + But Congreve seems to have gained yet farther than Southerne upon + Dryden's friendship. He was introduced to him by his first play, the + celebrated _Old Bachelor_ being put into the poet's hands to be + revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations to fit it for the + stage, returned it to the author with the high and just + commendation, that it was the best first play he had ever + seen."--SCOTT'S _Dryden_, vol. i, p. 370. + + 72 It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that + Voltaire visited him, in the decline of his life. + + The anecdote in the text, relating to his saying that he wished "to + be visited on no other footing than as a gentleman who led a life of + plainness and simplicity", is common to all writers on the subject + of Congreve, and appears in the English version of Voltaire's + _Letters concerning the English Nation_, published in London, 1733, + as also in Goldsmith's _Memoir of Voltaire_. But it is worthy of + remark, that it does not appear in the text of the same Letters in + the edition of Voltaire's _OEuvres Completes_ in the _Pantheon + Litteraire_, Vol. v. of his works. (Paris, 1837.) + + "Celui de tous les Anglais qui a porte le plus loin la gloire du + theatre comique est feu M. Congreve. Il n'a fait que peu de pieces, + mais toutes sont excellentes dans leur genre.... Vous y voyez + partout le langage des honnetes gens avec des actions de fripon; ce + qui prouve qu'il connaissait bien son monde, et qu'il vivait dans ce + qu'on appelle la bonne compagnie."--VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les + Anglais_, Let. 19. + + 73 On the death of Queen Mary, he published a Pastoral--"The Mourning + Muse of Alexis." Alexis and Menalcas sing alternately in the + orthodox way. The Queen is called PASTORA. + + "I mourn PASTORA dead, let Albion mourn, + And sable clouds her chalky cliffs adorn," + + says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that-- + + With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound, + And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground,-- + + (a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that + period.... It continues--) + + Lord of these woods and wide extended plains, + Stretch'd on the ground and close to earth his face, + Scalding with tears the already faded grass. + + To dust must all that Heavenly beauty come? + And must Pastora moulder in the tomb? + Ah Death! more fierce and unrelenting far, + Than wildest wolves and savage tigers are; + With lambs and sheep their hunger is appeased, + But ravenous Death the shepherdess has seized. + + This statement that a wolf eats but a sheep, whilst Death eats a + shepherdess; that figure of the "Great Shepherd", lying speechless + on his stomach, in a state of despair which neither winds nor floods + nor air can exhibit, are to be remembered in poetry surely, and this + style was admired in its time by the admirers of the great Congreve! + + In the "Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas" (the young Lord Blandford, + the great Duke of Marlborough's only son), Amaryllis represents + Sarah Duchess! + + The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, come + into work here again. At the sight of her grief-- + + Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forgo, + And dumb distress and new compassion show, + Nature herself attentive silence kept, + _And motion seemed suspended while she wept_! + + And Pope dedicated the _Iliad_ to the author of these lines--and + Dryden wrote to him in his great hand: + + Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, + But Genius must be born and never can be taught. + This is your portion, this your native store; + Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, + To SHAKESPEARE gave as much, she could not give him more. + Maintain your Post: that's all the fame you need, + For 'tis impossible you should proceed; + Already I am worn with cares and age, + And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage: + Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expence, + I live a Rent-charge upon Providence: + But you whom every Muse and Grace adorn, + Whom I foresee to better fortune born, + Be kind to my remains, and oh defend + Against your Judgement your departed Friend! + Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue; + But shade those Lawrels which descend to You: + And take for Tribute what these Lines express; + You merit more, nor could my Love do less. + + This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day. + In Shadwell, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their time, + when gentlemen meet they fall into each other's arms, with "Jack, + Jack, I must buss thee"; or, "'Fore George, Harry, I must kiss thee, + lad". And in a similar manner the poets saluted their brethren. + Literary gentlemen do not kiss now; I wonder if they love each other + better. + + Steele calls Congreve "Great Sir" and "Great Author"; says + "Well-dressed barbarians knew his awful name", and addresses him as + if he were a prince; and speaks of _Pastora_ as one of the most + famous tragic compositions. + + 74 "To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like + affection as any sentiment can be which is inspired by one who has + been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in Westminster Abbey.... + After full inquiry and impartial reflection we have long been + convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can justly be + claimed by any of our infirm and erring race."--MACAULAY. + + "Many who praise virtue do no more than praise it. Yet it is + reasonable to believe that Addison's profession and practice were at + no great variance; since, amidst that storm of faction in which most + of his life was passed, though his station made him conspicuous, and + his activity made him formidable, the character given him by his + friends was never contradicted by his enemies. Of those with whom + interest or opinion united him, he had not only the esteem but the + kindness; and of others, whom the violence of opposition drove + against him, though he might lose the love, he retained the + reverence."--JOHNSON. + + 75 "Addison was perfect good company with intimates, and had something + more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man; + but with any mixture of strangers, and sometimes only with one, he + seemed to preserve his dignity much, with a stiff sort of + silence."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 76 "Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excellence + lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the + modern, who rival him in every other part of poetry; but in the + greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, both + modern and ancient, Homer alone excepted. It is impossible for the + imagination of man to disturb itself with greater ideas than those + which he has laid together in his first, second, and sixth + books."--_Spectator_, No. 279. + + "If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these arts + of working on the imagination, I think Milton may pass for + one."--Ibid., No. 417. + + These famous papers appeared in each Saturday's _Spectator_, from + January 19 to May 3, 1712. Besides his services to Milton, we may + place those he did to Sacred Music. + + 77 "Addison was very kind to me at first, but my bitter enemy + afterwards."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + " 'Leave him as soon as you can,' said Addison to me, speaking of + Pope; 'he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has + an appetite to satire.' "--LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU (_Spence's + Anecdotes_). + + 78 Lancelot Addison, his father, was the son of another Lancelot + Addison, a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of Lichfield + and Archdeacon of Coventry. + + 79 "The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his + company, declared that he was 'a parson in a tye-wig', can detract + little from his character. He was always reserved to strangers, and + was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character like that of + Mandeville."--JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_. + + "Old Jacob Tonson did not like Mr. Addison: he had a quarrel with + him, and, after his quitting the secretaryship, used frequently to + say of him--'One day or other you'll see that man a bishop--I'm sure + he looks that way; and indeed I ever thought him a priest in his + heart.' "--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + "Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as + between two and three in the height of summer, and lie abed till + between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative + whilst here, and often thoughtful: sometimes so lost in thought, + that I have come into his room and stayed five minutes there before + he has known anything of it. He had his masters generally at supper + with him; kept very little company beside; and had no amour that I + know of; and I think I should have known it, if he had had + any."--ABBE PHILIPPEAUX of Blois (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 80 "His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down + to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and + profound."--MACAULAY. + + 81 "Our country owes it to him, that the famous Monsieur Boileau first + conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perusing + the present he made him of the _Musae Anglicanae_."--TICKELL (Preface + to _Addison's Works_). + + 82 "It was my fate to be much with the wits; my father was acquainted + with all of them. _Addison was the best company in the world._ I + never knew anybody that had so much wit as Congreve."--LADY WORTLEY + MONTAGU (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 83 Mr. Addison To Mr. Wyche. + + "DEAR SIR, + + "My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, so + the properest use I can put it to is to thank ye honest gentleman + that set it a shaking. I have had this morning a desperate design in + my head to attack you in verse, which I should certainly have done + could I have found out a rhyme to rummer. But though you have + escaped for ye present, you are not yet out of danger, if I can a + little recover my talent at Crambo. I am sure, in whatever way I + write to you, it will be impossible for me to express ye deep sense + I have of ye many favours you have lately shown me. I shall only + tell you that Hambourg has been the pleasantest stage I have met + with in my travails. If any of my friends wonder at me for living so + long in that place, I dare say it will be thought a very good excuse + when I tell him Mr. Wyche was there. As your company made our stay + at Hambourg agreeable, your wine has given us all ye satisfaction + that we have found in our journey through Westphalia. If drinking + your health will do you any good, you may expect to be as long lived + as Methusaleh, or, to use a more familiar instance, as ye oldest hoc + in ye cellar. I hope ye two pair of legs that was left a swelling + behind us are by this time come to their shapes again. I can't + forbear troubling you with my hearty respects to ye owners of them, + and desiring you to believe me always, + + "Dear Sir, + + "To Mr. Wyche, His Majesty's Resident at Hambourg, + "May, 1703." + + --From the _Life of Addison_, by Miss Aikin, vol. i, p. 146. + + 84 It is pleasing to remember that the relation between Swift and + Addison was, on the whole, satisfactory, from first to last. The + value of Swift's testimony, when nothing personal inflamed his + vision or warped his judgement, can be doubted by nobody. + + "Sept. 10, 1710.--I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and + Steele. + + "11.--Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I sat + with him part of this evening. + + "18.--To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison's retirement + near Chelsea.... I will get what good offices I can from Mr. + Addison. + + "27.--To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland's, with Steele + and Addison, too. + + "29.--I dined with Mr. Addison," &c.--_Journal to Stella._ + + Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his _Travels_ "To Dr. + Jonathan Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and + the greatest genius of his age."--SCOTT. From the information of Mr. + Theophilus Swift. + + "Mr. Addison, who goes over first secretary, is a most excellent + person; and being my most intimate friend, I shall use all my credit + to set him right in his notions of persons and things."--_Letters._ + + "I examine my heart, and can find no other reason why I write to you + now, besides that great love and esteem I have always had for you. I + have nothing to ask you either for my friend or for myself."--Swift + to Addison (1717), SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. xix, p. 274. + + Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly + communications. Time renewed them; and Tickell enjoyed Swift's + friendship as a legacy from the man with whose memory his is so + honourably connected. + + 85 "Addison usually studied all the morning; then met his party at + Button's; dined there, and stayed five or six hours, and sometimes + far into the night. I was of the company for about a year, but found + it too much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted it."--POPE + (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 86 "When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of + appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had + been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was, + therefore, for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation of his + mind."--JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_. + + 87 "Mr. Addison wrote very fluently; but he was sometimes very slow and + scrupulous in correcting. He would show his verses to several + friends; and would alter almost everything that any of them hinted + at as wrong. He seemed to be too diffident of himself; and too much + concerned about his character as a poet; or (as he worded it) too + solicitous for that kind of praise, which, God knows, is but a very + little matter after all!"--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 88 "As to poetical affairs," says Pope, in 1713, "I am content at + present to be a bare looker-on.... Cato was not so much the wonder + of Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the + foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought a party + play, yet what the author once said of another may the most properly + in the world be applied to him on this occasion:-- + + "Envy itself is dumb--in wonder lost; + And factions strive who shall applaud him most. + + "The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of + the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other; while the + author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause + proceeding more from the hands than the head.... I believe you have + heard that, after all the applauses of the opposite faction, my Lord + Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, into the box, and + presented him with fifty guineas in acknowledgement (as he expressed + it) for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual + dictator"--POPE'S "Letter to SIR W. TRUMBULL". + + _Cato_ ran for thirty-five nights without interruption. Pope wrote + the Prologue, and Garth the Epilogue. + + It is worth noticing how many things in _Cato_ keep their ground as + habitual quotations, e.g.:-- + + " ... big with the fate + Of Cato and of Rome." + "'Tis not in mortals to command success, + But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." + "Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury." + "I think the Romans call it Stoicism." + "My voice is still for war." + "When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, + The post of honour is a private station." + + Not to mention:-- + + "The woman who deliberates is lost," + + And the eternal:-- + + "Plato, thou reasonest well," + + which avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play! + + 89 "The lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like those on + which a Turkish princess is espoused--to whom the Sultan is reported + to pronounce, 'Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.' The + marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition + to his happiness; it neither found them, nor made them, equal.... + Rowe's ballad of _The Despairing Shepherd_ is said to have been + written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable + pair."--DR. JOHNSON. + + "I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of + State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost + offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and I really + believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a + post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in + prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the + day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both."--LADY WORTLEY + MONTAGU to POPE. _Works_, Lord Wharncliffe's ed., vol. ii, p. 111. + + The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, who + inherited, on her mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, + which her father had purchased, and died, unmarried, at an advanced + age. She was of weak intellect. + + Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his courtship, + for his Collection contains "Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on Mr. + Addison's going to Ireland", in which her ladyship is called + "Chloe", and Joseph Addison, "Lycidas"; besides the ballad mentioned + by the doctor, and which is entitled "Colin's Complaint". But not + even the interest attached to the name of Addison could induce the + reader to peruse this composition, though one stanza may serve as a + specimen:-- + + What though I have skill to complain-- + Though the Muses my temples have crowned; + What though, when they hear my sweet strain, + The Muses sit weeping around. + + Ah, Colin! thy hopes are in vain; + Thy pipe and thy laurel resign; + Thy false one inclines to a swain + Whose music is sweeter than thine. + + 90 One of the most humourous of these is the paper on Hoops, which, the + _Spectator_ tells us, particularly pleased his friend SIR ROGER: + + "MR. SPECTATOR-- + + "You have diverted the town almost a whole month at the expense of + the country; it is now high time that you should give the country + their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex + are run into great extravagances. Their petticoats, which began to + heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most + enormous concave, and rise every day more and more; in short, sir, + since our women knew themselves to be out of the eye of the + SPECTATOR, they will be kept within no compass. You praised them a + little too soon, for the modesty of their headdresses; for as the + humour of a sick person is often driven out of one limb into + another, their superfluity of ornaments, instead of being entirely + banished, seems only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts. + What they have lost in height they make up in breadth, and, contrary + to all rules of architecture, widen the foundations at the same time + that they shorten the superstructure. + + "The women give out, in defence of these wide bottoms, that they are + very airy and very proper for the season; but this I look upon to be + only a pretence and a piece of art, for it is well known we have not + had a more moderate summer these many years, so that it is certain + the heat they complain of cannot be in the weather; besides, I would + fain ask these tender-constitutioned ladies, why they should require + more cooling than their mothers before them? + + "I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has + of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made + use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a woman's + honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle + within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks and lines of + circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in whalebone is + sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, + who might as well think of Sir George Etheridge's way of making love + in a tub as in the midst of so many hoops. + + "Among these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious + tempers who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some + will have it that it portends the downfall of the _French_ king, and + observe, that the farthingale appeared in _England_ a little before + the ruin of the _Spanish_ monarchy. Others are of opinion that it + foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same + prognostication as the toil of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt + to think that it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world + rather than going out of it," &c. &c.--_Spectator_, No. 127. + + 91 "Mr. Addison has not had one epithalamium that I can hear of, and + must even be reduced, like a poorer and a better poet, Spenser, to + make his own."--POPE'S _Letters_. + + 92 "I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure + till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of + a mild or a choleric disposition, married or a bachelor; with other + particulars of a like nature, that conduce very much to the right + understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so + natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory + discourses to my following writings; and shall give some account in + them of the persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief + trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to my + share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own + history.... There runs a story in the family, that when my mother + was gone with child of me about three months, she dreamt that she + was brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might proceed from a + lawsuit which was then depending in the family, or my father's being + a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as + to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my + future life, though that was the interpretation which the + neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my very + first appearance in the world, and all the time that I sucked, + seemed to favour my mother's dream; for, as she has often told me, I + threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make + use of my coral till they had taken away the bells from it. + + "As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it + remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find that during my + nonage I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always + the favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that _my parts + were solid and would wear well_. I had not been long at the + university before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; + for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public + exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of an + hundred words; and, indeed, I do not remember that I ever spoke + three sentences together in my whole life.... + + "I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently + seen in most public places, though there are not more than half a + dozen of my select friends that know me.... There is no place of + general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes + I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, + and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made + in these little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at + Child's, and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the _Postman_, + overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on + Tuesday night at St. James's Coffee-house; and sometimes join the + little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes to + hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the + Grecian, the 'Cocoa-Tree', and in the theatres both of Drury Lane + and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the + Exchange for above these two years; and sometimes pass for a Jew in + the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I + see a cluster of people, I mix with them, though I never open my + lips but in my own club. + + "Thus I live in the world rather as a '_Spectator_' of mankind than + as one of the species; by which means I have made myself a + speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artizan, without ever + meddling in any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the + theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the + economy, business, and diversions of others, better than those who + are engaged in them--as standers-by discover blots which are apt to + escape those who are in the game.... In short, I have acted, in all + the parts of my life, as a looker-on, which is the character I + intend to preserve in this paper."--_Spectator_, No. 1. + + 93 "So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had + recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the + open violation of decency has always been considered, amongst us, + the sure mark of a fool."--MACAULAY. + + 94 "The Court was sat before Sir Roger came; but, notwithstanding all + the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room + for the old knight at the head of them; who for his reputation in + the country took occasion to whisper in the judge's ear that _he was + glad his lordship had met with so much good weather in his circuit_. + I was listening to the proceedings of the Court with much attention, + and infinitely pleased with that great appearance and solemnity + which so properly accompanies such a public administration of our + laws; when, after about an hour's sitting, I observed to my great + surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was + getting up to speak. I was in some pain for him, till I found he had + acquitted himself of two or three sentences, with a look of much + business and great intrepidity. + + "Upon his first rising; the Court was hushed, and a general whisper + ran among the country people that Sir Roger _was up_. The speech he + made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my + readers with an account of it, and I believe was not so much + designed by the knight himself to inform the Court, as to give him a + figure in my eyes, and to keep up his credit in the + country."--_Spectator_, No. 122. + + 95 "Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) on his + death-bed, to ask him whether the Christian religion was true."--DR. + YOUNG (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + "I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I + consider as an act, the former as an habit of the mind. Mirth is + short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are + often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are subject + to the greatest depression of melancholy: on the contrary, + cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite + gladness, prevents it from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth + is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, + and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight + in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual + serenity."--ADDISON, _Spectator_, p. 381. + + 96 The husband of the Lady Warwick who married Addison, and the father + of the young earl, who was brought to his stepfather's bed to see + "how a Christian could die". He was amongst the wildest of the + nobility of that day; and in the curious collection of Chap-Books at + the British Museum, I have seen more than one anecdote of the freaks + of the gay lord. He was popular in London, as such daring spirits + have been in our time. The anecdotists speak very kindly of his + practical jokes. Mohun was scarcely out of prison for his second + homicide, when he went on Lord Macclesfield's embassy to the Elector + of Hanover, when Queen Anne sent the garter to H. E. Highness. The + chronicler of the expedition speaks of his lordship as an amiable + young man, who had been in bad company, but was quite repentant and + reformed. He and Macartney afterwards murdered the Duke of Hamilton + between them, in which act Lord Mohun died. This amiable baron's + name was Charles, and not Henry, as a recent novelist has christened + him. + + 97 "Steele had the greatest veneration for Addison, and used to show + it, in all companies, in a particular manner. Addison, now and then, + used to play a little upon them; but he always took it well."--POPE + (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + "Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the world: even + in his worst state of health, he seemed to desire nothing but to + please and be pleased."--DR. YOUNG (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 98 The gaiety of his dramatic tone may be seen in this little scene + between two brilliant sisters, from his comedy, _The Funeral, or + Grief a la Mode_. Dick wrote this, he said, from "a necessity of + enlivening his character", which, it seemed, the _Christian Hero_ + had a tendency to make too decorous, grave, and respectable in the + eyes of readers of that pious piece. + + [_Scene draws, and discovers_ LADY CHARLOTTE, _reading at a + table,_--LADY HARRIET, _playing at a glass, to and fro, and viewing + herself._] + + _L. Ha._--Nay, good sister, you may as well talk to me [_looking at + herself as she speaks_] as you sit staring at a book which I know + you can't attend.--Good Dr. Lucas may have writ there what he + pleases, but there's no putting Francis, Lord Hardy, now Earl of + Brumpton, out of your head, or making him absent from your eyes. Do + but look on me, now, and deny it if you can. + + _L. Ch._--You are the maddest girl [_smiling_]. + + _L. Ha._--Look ye, I knew you could not say it and forbear laughing + [_looking over Charlotte_].--Oh! I see his name as plain as you + do--F--r--a--n Fran,--c--i--s, cis, Francis, 'tis in every line of the + book. + + _L. Ch._ [_rising_]--It's in vain, I see, to mind anything in such + impertinent company--but granting 'twere as you say, as to my Lord + Hardy--'tis more excusable to admire another than oneself. + + _L. Ha._--No, I think not,--yes, I grant you, than really to be vain + of one's person, but I don't admire myself--Pish! I don't believe my + eyes to have that softness. [_Looking in the glass._] They an't so + piercing: no, 'tis only stuff, the men will be talking.--Some people + are such admirers of teeth--Lord, what signifies teeth! [_Showing her + teeth._] A very black-a-moor has as white a set of teeth as I.--No, + sister, I don't admire myself, but I've a spirit of contradiction in + me: I don't know I'm in love with myself, only to rival the men. + + _L. Ch._--Aye, but Mr. Campley will gain ground ev'n of that rival of + his, your dear self. + + _L. Ha._--Oh, what have I done to you, that you should name that + insolent intruder? A confident, opinionative fop. No, indeed, if I + am, as a poetical lover of mine sighed and sung of both sexes, + + The public envy and the public care, + + I shan't be so easily catched--I thank him--I want but to be sure, I + should heartily torment him by banishing him, and then consider + whether he should depart this life or not. + + _L. Ch._--Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in your + humour does not at all become you. + + _L. Ha_.--Vanity! All the matter is, we gay people are more sincere + than you wise folks; all your life's an art.--Speak you real.--Look + you there.--[_Hauling her to the glass._] Are you not struck with a + secret pleasure when you view that bloom in your look, that harmony + in your shape, that promptitude in your mien? + + _L. Ch._--Well, simpleton, if I am at first so simple as to be a + little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains to + correct it. + + _L. Ha._--Pshaw! Pshaw! Talk this musty tale to old Mrs. Fardingale, + 'tis tiresome for me to think at that rate. + + _L. Ch._--They that think it too soon to understand themselves will + very soon find it too late.--But tell me honestly, don't you like + Campley? + + _L. Ha._--The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing did + not think of getting me so easily.--Oh, I hate a heart I can't break + when I please.--What makes the value of dear china, but that 'tis so + brittle?--were it not for that, you might as well have stone mugs in + your closet.'--_The Funeral_, Oct. 2nd. + + "We knew the obligations the stage had to his writings [Steele's]; + there being scarcely a comedian of merit in our whole company whom + his _Tatlers_ had not made better by his recommendation of + them."--CIBBER. + + 99 "There is not now in his sight that excellent man, whom Heaven made + his friend and superior, to be at a certain place in pain for what + he should say or do. I will go on in his further encouragement. The + best woman that ever man had cannot now lament and pine at his + neglect of himself."--STEELE [of himself]. _The Theatre_, No. 12, + Feb., 1719-20. + +_ 100 The Funeral_ supplies an admirable stroke of humour,--one which + Sydney Smith has used as an illustration of the faculty in his + Lectures. + + The undertaker is talking to his employes about their duty. + + _Sable._--Ha, you!--A little more upon the dismal [_forming their + countenances_]; this fellow has a good mortal look,--place him near + the corpse: that wainscot-face must be o' top of the stairs; that + fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some + strange misery) at the end of the hall. So--But I'll fix you all + myself. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation. Look + yonder,--that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did + not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you + the pleasure of receiving wages? _Did not I give you ten, then + fifteen, and twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful?--and the more I + give you I think the gladder you are!_ + + 101 "From my own Apartment, Nov. 16. + + "There are several persons who have many pleasures and + entertainments in their possession, which they do not enjoy; it is, + therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own + happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of their good + fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state + often want such a monitor; and pine away their days by looking upon + the same condition in anguish and murmuring, which carries with it, + in the opinion of others, a complication of all the pleasures of + life, and a retreat from its inquietudes. + + "I am led into this thought by a visit I made to an old friend who + was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week, with his + family, for the winter; and yesterday morning sent me word his wife + expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at home at that house, and + every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot, indeed, + express the pleasure it is to be met by the children with so much + joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall + come first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door; + and that child which loses the race to me runs back again to tell + the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty + girl that we all thought must have forgot me; for the family has + been out of town these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty + subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance; + after which, they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories + they heard in the country, about my marriage to one of my + neighbours' daughters; upon which, the gentleman, my friend, said, + 'Nay; if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old + companions, I hope mine shall have the preference: there is Mrs. + Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best + of them. But I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the very + memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will not so + much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, + how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and + dress when Teraminta reigned in your heart. As we came up in the + coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her.' With such + reflections on little passages which happened long ago, we passed + our time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner his lady + left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, + he took me by the hand: 'Well, my good friend,' says he, 'I am + heartily glad to see thee; I was afraid you would never have seen + all the company that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think + the good woman of the house a little altered since you followed her + from the playhouse to find out who she was for me?' I perceived a + tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. + But, to turn the discourse, I said, 'She is not, indeed, that + creature she was when she returned me the letter I carried from you, + and told me, "She hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed + no more to trouble her, who had never offended me; but would be so + much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which + he could never succeed in." You may remember I thought her in + earnest, and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made + his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to + be for ever fifteen.' 'Fifteen!' replied my good friend. 'Ah! you + little understand--you, that have lived a bachelor--how great, how + exquisite a pleasure there is in being really beloved! It is + impossible that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me + such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That + fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me + in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like + to have carried me off last winter. I tell you, sincerely, I have so + many obligations to her that I cannot, with any sort of moderation, + think of her present state of health. But, as to what you say of + fifteen, she gives me every day pleasure beyond what I ever knew in + the possession of her beauty when I was in the vigour of youth. + Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her + complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my + fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw + it; there is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the + very instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my + welfare and interests. Thus, at the same time, methinks, the love I + conceived towards her for what she was, is heightened by my + gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the + idle passion commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of + buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh, she is + an inestimable jewel! In her examination of her household affairs, + she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her + servants obey her like children; and the meanest we have has an + ingenuous shame for an offence not always to be seen in children in + other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend; ever since her + sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a + certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the + poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do + should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I + used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, and asking my + girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and the gossipping of + it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy.' + + "He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady + entered, and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, + told us 'she had been searching her closet for something very good, + to treat such an old friend as I was'. Her husband's eyes sparkled + with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance; and I saw all + his fears vanish in an instant. The lady observing something in our + looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and + seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced + cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of; + and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, 'Mr. Bickerstaff, do + not believe a word of what he tells you: I shall still live to have + you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes + more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You + must know he tells me, that he finds London is a much more healthy + place than the country; for he sees several of his old acquaintances + and schoolfellows are here--_young fellows with fair, full-bottomed + periwigs_. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out + _open-breasted_.' My friend, who is always extremely delighted with + her agreeable humour, made her sit down with us. She did it with + that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up + the good humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery + upon me. 'Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night + from the playhouse; suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow + night, and lead me in the front box.' This put us into a long field + of discourse about the beauties who were the mothers to the present, + and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, 'I was glad + she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not question + but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toast.' + + "We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the + young lady, when, on a sudden, we were alarmed with the noise of a + drum, and immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of + war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put him + out of the room; but I would not part with him so. I found, upon + conversation with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, + that the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all + the learning on the other side of eight years old. I perceived him a + very great historian in _Aesop's Fables_; but he frankly declared to + me his mind, 'that he did not delight in that learning, because he + did not believe they were true;' for which reason I found he had + very much turned his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the + lives of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the _Seven + Champions_, and other historians of that age. I could not but + observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness of his + son, and that these diversions might turn to some profit. I found + the boy had made remarks which might be of service to him during the + course of his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagement of + John Hickerthrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of + Southampton, and loved St. George for being the champion of England; + and by this means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the + notions of discretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his + accomplishments, when his mother told me, 'that the little girl who + led me in this morning was, in her way, a better scholar than he. + Betty,' said she, 'deals chiefly in fairies and sprites; and + sometimes in a winter night will terrify the maids with her + accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed.' + + "I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, + sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which + gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every + one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the different + conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must + confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect, that + whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive + mood I return to my family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, my + cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to + me."--_The Tatler._ + + 102 "As to the pursuits after affection and esteem, the fair sex are + happy in this particular, that with them the one is much more nearly + related to the other than in men. The love of a woman is inseparable + from some esteem of her; and as she is naturally the object of + affection, the woman who has your esteem has also some degree of + your love. A man that dotes on a woman for her beauty, will whisper + his friend, 'that creature has a great deal of wit when you are well + acquainted with her.' And if you examine the bottom of your esteem + for a woman, you will find you have a greater opinion of her beauty + than anybody else. As to us men, I design to pass most of my time + with the facetious Harry Bickerstaff; but William Bickerstaff, the + most prudent man of our family, shall be my executor."--_Tatler_, No. + 206. + + 103 The Correspondence of Steele passed after his death into the + possession of his daughter Elizabeth, by his second wife, Miss + Scurlock, of Carmarthenshire. She married the Hon. John, afterwards + third Lord Trevor. At her death, part of the letters passed to Mr. + Thomas, a grandson of a natural daughter of Steele's; and part to + Lady Trevor's next of kin, Mr. Scurlock. They were published by the + learned Nichols--from whose later edition of them, in 1809, our + specimens are quoted. + + Here we have him, in his courtship--which was not a very long one. + + TO MRS. SCURLOCK + + "Aug. 30, 1707. + + "MADAM,-- + + "I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced to write + from a coffee-house, where I am attending about business. There is a + dirty crowd of busy faces all around me, talking of money; while all + my ambition, all my wealth, is love! Love which animates my heart, + sweetens my humour, enlarges my soul; and affects every action of my + life. It is to my lovely charmer I owe, that many noble ideas are + continually affixed to my words and actions; it is the natural + effect of that generous passion to create in the admirer some + similitude of the object admired. Thus, my dear, am I every day to + improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, to that + Heaven which made thee such; and join with me to implore its + influence on our tender innocent hours, and beseech the Author of + love to bless the rites He has ordained--and mingle with our + happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a resignation + to His will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavour + to please Him and each other. + + "I am for ever your faithful servant, + + "RICH. STEELE." + + Some few hours afterwards, apparently, Mistress Scurlock received + the next one--obviously written later in the day! + + "Saturday night (Aug. 30, 1707). + + "DEAR, LOVELY MRS. SCURLOCK,-- + + "I have been in very good company, where your health, under the + character of _the woman I loved best_, has been often drunk; so that + I may say that I am dead drunk for your sake, which is more than _I + die for you_. + + "RICH. STEELE." + + TO MRS. SCURLOCK. + + "Sept. 1, 1707. + + "MADAM,-- + + "It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend + business. As for me, all who speak to me find me out, and I must + lock myself up, or other people will do it for me. + + "A gentleman asked me this morning, 'What news from Lisbon?' and I + answered, 'She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know + 'when I had last been at Hampton Court?' I replied, 'It will be on + Tuesday come se'nnight.' Pr'ythee allow me at least to kiss your + hand before that day, that my mind may be in some composure. O Love! + + "A thousand torments dwell about thee, + Yet who could live, to live without thee? + + "Methinks I could write a volume to you; but all the language on + earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested + passion, + + "I am ever yours, + "RICH. STEELE." + + Two days after this, he is found expounding his circumstances and + prospects to the young lady's mamma. He dates from "Lord + Sunderland's office, Whitehall"; and states his clear income at + 1,025_l._ per annum. "I promise myself," says he, "the pleasure of + an industrious and virtuous life, in studying to do things agreeable + to you." + + They were married according to the most probable conjectures about + the 7th inst. There are traces of a tiff about the middle of the + next month; she being prudish and fidgety, as he was impassioned and + reckless. General progress, however, may be seen from the following + notes. The "house in Bury Street, St. James's", was now taken. + + TO MRS. STEELE. + + "Oct. 16, 1707. + + "DEAREST BEING ON EARTH,-- + + "Pardon me if you do not see me till eleven o'clock, having met a + schoolfellow from India, by whom I am to be informed on things this + night which expressly concern your obedient husband, + + "RICH. STEELE." + + TO MRS. STEELE. + + "Eight o'clock, Fountain Tavern, + + "Oct. 22, 1707. + + "MY DEAR,-- + + "I beg of you not to be uneasy; for I have done a great deal of + business to-day very successfully, and wait an hour or two about my + _Gazette_." + + "Dec. 22, 1707. + + "MY DEAR, DEAR WIFE,-- + + "I write to let you know I do not come home to dinner, being obliged + to attend some business abroad, of which I shall give you an account + (when I see you in the evening), as becomes your dutiful and + obedient husband." + + "Devil Tavern, Temple Bar. + + "Jan. 3, 1707-8. + + "DEAR PRUE,-- + + "I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, and inclose two + guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot come home to dinner. + I languish for your welfare, and will never be a moment careless + more. + + "Your faithful husband," &c. + + "Jan. 14, 1707-8. + + "DEAR WIFE,-- + + "Mr. Edgecombe, Ned Ask, and Mr. Lumley, have desired me to sit an + hour with them at the George, in Pall Mall, for which I desire your + patience till twelve o'clock, and that you will go to bed," &c. + + "Gray's Inn, Feb. 3, 1708. + + "DEAR PRUE,-- + + "If the man who has my shoemaker's bill calls, let him be answered + that I shall call on him as I come home. I stay here in order to get + Jonson to discount a bill for me, and shall dine with him for that + end. He is expected at home every minute. + + "Your most humble, obedient servant," &c. + + "Tennis Court Coffee-house, + "May 5, 1708. + + "DEAR WIFE,-- + + "I hope I have done this day what will be pleasing to you; in the + meantime shall lie this night at a baker's, one Leg, over against + the 'Devil' Tavern, at Charing Cross. I shall be able to confront + the fools who wish me uneasy, and shall have the satisfaction to see + thee cheerful and at ease. + + "If the printer's boy be at home, send him hither; and let Mrs. Todd + send by the boy my night-gown, slippers, and clean linen. You shall + hear from me early in the morning," &c. + + Dozens of similar letters follow, with occasional guineas, little + parcels of tea, or walnuts, &c. In 1709 the _Tatler_ made its + appearance. The following curious note dates April 7, 1710:-- + + "I inclose to you ['Dear Prue'] a receipt for the saucepan and + spoon, and a note of 23_l_. of Lewis's, which will make up the + 50_l._ I promised for your ensuing occasion. + + "I know no happiness in this life in any degree comparable to the + pleasure I have in your person and society. I only beg of you to add + to your other charms a fearfulness to see a man that loves you in + pain and uneasiness, to make me as happy as it is possible to be in + this life. Rising a little in a morning, and being disposed to a + cheerfulness ... would not be amiss." + + In another, he is found excusing his coming home, being "invited to + supper to Mr. Boyle's". "Dear Prue," he says on this occasion, "do + not send after me, for I shall be ridiculous." + + 104 Of this famous Bishop, Steele wrote,-- + + Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits, + All faults he pardons, though he none commits. + + 105 Here we have some of his later letters:-- + + TO LADY STEELE. + "Hampton Court, March 16, 1716-17. + + "DEAR PRUE, + + "If you have written anything to me which I should have received + last night, I beg your pardon that I cannot answer till the next + post.... Your son at the present writing is mighty well employed in + tumbling on the floor of the room and sweeping the sand with a + feather. He grows a most delightful child, and very full of play and + spirit. He is also a very great scholar: he can read his primer; and + I have brought down my Virgil. He makes most shrewd remarks about + the pictures. We are very intimate friends and playfellows. He + begins to be very ragged; and I hope I shall be pardoned if I equip + him with new clothes and frocks, or what Mrs. Evans and I shall + think for his service." + + TO LADY STEELE. + [Undated.] + + "You tell me you want a little flattery from me. I assure you I know + no one who deserves so much commendation as yourself, and to whom + saying the best things would be so little like flattery. The thing + speaks for itself, considering you as a very handsome woman that + loves retirement--one who does not want wit, and yet is extremely + sincere; and so I could go through all the vices which attend the + good qualities of other people, of which you are exempt. But, + indeed, though you have every perfection, you have an extravagant + fault, which almost frustrates the good in you to me; and that is, + that you do not love to dress, to appear, to shine out, even at my + request, and to make me proud of you, or rather to indulge the pride + I have that you are mine.... + + "Your most affectionate, obsequious husband, + "RICH. STEELE. + + "A quarter of Molly's schooling is paid. The children are perfectly + well." + + TO LADY STEELE. + "March 26, 1717. + + "MY DEAREST PRUE, + + "I have received yours, wherein you give me the sensible affliction + of telling me enow of the continual pain in your head.... When I lay + in your place, and on your pillow, I assure you I fell into tears + last night, to think that my charming little insolent might be then + awake and in pain; and took it to be a sin to go to sleep. + + "For this tender passion towards you, I must be contented that your + _Prueship_ will condescend to call yourself my well-wisher." + + At the time when the above later letters were written, Lady Steele + was in Wales, looking after her estate there. Steele, about this + time, was much occupied with a project for conveying fish alive, by + which, as he constantly assures his wife, he firmly believed he + should make his fortune. It did not succeed, however. + + Lady Steele died in December of the succeeding year. She lies buried + in Westminster Abbey. + + 106 Lord Chesterfield sends these verses to Voltaire in a characteristic + letter. + + 107 Steele replied to Dennis in an _Answer to a Whimsical Pamphlet, + called __"__The Character of Sir John Edgar__"_. What Steele had to + say against the cross-grained old Critic discovers a great deal of + humour: + + "Thou never didst let the sun into thy garret, for fear he should + bring a bailiff along with him.... + + "Your years are about sixty-five, an ugly, vinegar face, that if you + had any command you would be obeyed out of fear, from your + ill-nature pictured there; not from any other motive. Your height is + about some five feet five inches. You see I can give your exact + measure as well as if I had taken your dimension with a good cudgel, + which I promise you to do as soon as ever I have the good fortune to + meet you.... + + "Your doughty paunch stands before you like a firkin of butter, and + your duck-legs seem to be cast for carrying burdens. + + "Thy works are libels upon others, and satires upon thyself; and + while they bark at men of sense, call him knave and fool that wrote + them. Thou hast a great antipathy to thy own species; and hatest the + sight of a fool but in thy glass." + + Steele had been kind to Dennis, and once got arrested on account of + a pecuniary service which he did him. When John heard of the + fact--"'Sdeath!" cries John; "why did not he keep out of the way as I + did?" + + The _Answer_ concludes by mentioning that Cibber had offered Ten + Pounds for the discovery of the authorship of Dennis's pamphlet; on + which, says Steele,-- + + "I am only sorry he has offered so much, because the _twentieth + part_ would have over-valued his whole carcass. But I know the + fellow that he keeps to give answers to his creditors will betray + him; for he gave me his word to bring officers on the top of the + house that should make a hole through the ceiling of his garret, and + so bring him to the punishment he deserves. Some people think this + expedient out of the way, and that he would make his escape upon + hearing the least noise. I say so too; but it takes him up half an + hour every night to fortify himself with his old hair trunk, two or + three joint-stools, and some other lumber, which he ties together + with cords so fast that it takes him up the same time in the morning + to release himself." + + 108 Gay calls him--"Dear Prior ... beloved by every muse".--_Mr. Pope's + Welcome from Greece._ + + Swift and Prior were very intimate, and he is frequently mentioned + in the _Journal to Stella_. "Mr. Prior," says Swift, "walks to make + himself fat, and I to keep myself down.... We often walk round the + park together." + + In Swift's works there is a curious tract called _Remarks on the + Characters of the Court of Queen Anne_ [Scott's edition, vol. xii]. + The _Remarks_ are not by the Dean: but at the end of each is an + addition in italics from his hand, and these are always + characteristic. Thus, to the Duke of Marlborough, he adds, + "_Detestably Covetous_," &c. Prior is thus noticed-- + + "MATTHEW PRIOR, ESQ., Commissioner of Trade. + + "On the Queen's accession to the throne, he was continued in his + office; is very well at Court with the ministry, and is an entire + creature of my Lord Jersey's, whom he supports by his advice; is one + of the best poets in England, but very facetious in conversation. A + thin, hollow-looked man, turned of 40 years old. _This is near the + truth._" + + Yet counting as far as to fifty his years, + His virtues and vices were as other men's are, + High hopes he conceived and he smothered great fears, + In a life party-coloured--half pleasure, half care. + + Not to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave, + He strove to make interest and freedom agree, + In public employments industrious and grave, + And alone with his friends, Lord, how merry was he! + + Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot, + Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust; + And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about, + He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust. + + PRIOR'S _Poems_. ["For my own monument."] + + 109 "They joined to produce a parody, entitled _The Town and Country + Mouse_, part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify his old + friends Smart and Johnson, by repeating to them. The piece is + therefore founded upon the twice-told jest of the _Rehearsal_.... + There is nothing new or original in the idea.... In this piece, + Prior, though the younger man, seems to have had by far the largest + share."--SCOTT'S _Dryden_, vol. i, p. 330. + + 110 "He was to have been in the same commission with the Duke of + Shrewsbury, but that that nobleman," says Johnson, "refused to be + associated with one so meanly born. Prior therefore continued to act + without a title till the duke's return next year to England, and + then he assumed the style and dignity of ambassador." + + He had been thinking of slights of this sort when he wrote his + Epitaph:-- + + Nobles and heralds by your leave, + Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, + The son of Adam and of Eve; + Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher? + + But, in this case, the old prejudice got the better of the old joke. + + 111 His epigrams have the genuine sparkle: + + THE REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE. + + I sent for Radcliff; was so ill, + That other doctors gave me over: + He felt my pulse, prescribed a pill, + And I was likely to recover. + + But when the wit began to wheeze, + And wine had warmed the politician, + Cured yesterday of my disease, + I died last night of my physician. + + ---- + + Yes, every poet is a fool; + By demonstration Ned can show it; + Happy could Ned's inverted rule + Prove every fool to be a poet. + + ---- + + On his death-bed poor Lubin lies, + His spouse is in despair; + With frequent sobs and mutual sighs, + They both express their care. + + A different cause, says Parson Sly, + The same effect may give; + Poor Lubin fears that he shall die, + His wife that he may live. + + 112 PRIOR TO SIR THOMAS HANMER. + + "Aug. 4, 1709. + + "DEAR SIR, + + "Friendship may live, I grant you, without being fed and cherished + by correspondence; but with that additional benefit I am of opinion + it will look more cheerful and thrive better: for in this case, as + in love, though a man is sure of his own constancy, yet his + happiness depends a good deal upon the sentiments of another, and + while you and Chloe are alive, 'tis not enough that I love you both, + except I am sure you both love me again; and as one of her scrawls + fortifies my mind more against affliction than all Epictetus, with + Simplicius's comments into the bargain, so your single letter gave + me more real pleasure than all the works of Plato.... I must return + my answer to your very kind question concerning my health. The Bath + waters have done a good deal towards the recovery of it, and the + great specific, _Cape Caballum_, will, I think, confirm it. Upon + this head I must tell you that my mare Betty grows blind, and may + one day, by breaking my neck, perfect my cure: if at Rixham fair any + pretty nagg that is between thirteen and fourteen hands presented + himself, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of + your servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him + there. This, sir, is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, + of a Welch widow, with a good jointure, that has her _goings_ and is + not very skittish, pray, be pleased to cast your eye on her for me, + too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and + honour, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand...."--_The + Hanmer Correspondence_, p. 120. + + FROM MR. PRIOR. + + "Paris, 1st-12th May, 1714. + + "MY DEAR LORD AND FRIEND, + + "Matthew never had so great occasion to write a word to Henry as + now: it is noised here that I am soon to return. The question that I + wish I could answer to the many that ask, and to our friend Colbert + de Torcy (to whom I made your compliments in the manner you + commanded) is, What is done for me: and to what I am recalled? It + may look like a bagatelle, what is to become of a philosopher like + me? but it is not such: what is to become of a person who had the + honour to be chosen, and sent hither as intrusted, in the midst of a + war, with what the Queen designed should make the peace; returning + with the Lord Bolingbroke, one of the greatest men in England, and + one of the finest heads in Europe (as they say here, if true or not, + _n'importe_); having been left by him in the greatest character + (that of Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary), exercising that power + conjointly with the Duke of Shrewsbury, and solely after his + departure; having here received more distinguished honour than any + minister, except an Ambassador, ever did, and some which were never + given to any, but who had that character; having had all the success + that could be expected, having (God be thanked!) spared no pains, at + a time when at home the peace is voted safe and honourable--at a time + when the Earl of Oxford is Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke First + Secretary of State? This unfortunate person, I say, neglected, + forgot, unnamed to anything that may speak the Queen satisfied with + his services, or his friends concerned as to his fortune. + + "Mr. de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the other day, by a + pity that wounded me deeper than ever did the cruelty of the late + Lord Godolphin. He said he would write to Robin and Harry about me. + God forbid, my lord, that I should need any foreign intercession, or + owe the least to any Frenchman living, besides the decency of + behaviour and the returns of common civility: some say I am to go to + Baden, others that I am to be added to the Commissioners for + settling the commerce. In all cases I am ready, but in the meantime, + _dic aliquid de tribus capellis_. Neither of these two are, I + presume, honours or rewards, neither of them (let me say to my dear + Lord Bolingbroke, and let him not be angry with me), are what Drift + may aspire to, and what Mr. Whitworth, who was his fellow clerk, has + or may possess. I am far from desiring to lessen the great merit of + the gentleman I named, for I heartily esteem and love him; but in + this trade of ours, my lord, in which you are the general, as in + that of the soldiery, there is a certain right acquired by time and + long service. You would do anything for your Queen's service, but + you would not be contented to descend, and be degraded to a charge, + no way proportioned to that of Secretary of State, any more than Mr. + Ross, though he would charge a party with a halbard in his hand, + would be content all his life after to be Serjeant. Was my Lord + Dartmouth, from Secretary, returned again to be Commissioner of + Trade, or from Secretary of War, would Frank Gwyn think himself + kindly used to be returned again to be Commissioner? In short, my + lord, you have put me above myself, and if I am to return to myself, + I shall return to something very discontented and uneasy. I am sure, + my lord, you will make the best use you can of this hint for my + good. If I am to have anything, it will certainly be for her + Majesty's service, and the credit of my friends in the Ministry, + that it be done before I am recalled from home, lest the world may + think either that I have merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare + not stand by me. If nothing is to be done, _fiat voluntas Dei_. I + have writ to Lord Treasurer upon this subject, and having implored + your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last remonstrance of + this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my lord; all honour, health, + and pleasure to you. + + "Yours ever, + + "MATT." + + "PS.--Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your healths + together in usquebaugh after our tea: we are the greatest friends + alive. Once more adieu. There is no such thing as the _Book of + Travels_ you mentioned; if there be, let friend Tilson send us more + particular account of them, for neither I nor Jacob Tonson can find + them. Pray send Barton back to me, I hope with some comfortable + tidings."--_Bolingbroke's Letters._ + + 113 "I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire; Johnson + said they were. I mentioned Lord Hales's censure of Prior in his + preface to a collection of sacred poems, by various hands, published + by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions 'these + impure tales, which will be the eternal opprobium of their ingenious + author'. JOHNSON: 'Sir, Lord Hales has forgot. There is nothing in + Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hales thinks there is, + he must be more combustible than other people.' I instanced the tale + of _Paulo Purganti and his Wife_. JOHNSON: 'Sir, there is nothing + there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out + of pocket. No, sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to + have it standing in her library.' "--BOSWELL'S _Life of Johnson_. + + 114 Gay was of an old Devonshire family, but his pecuniary prospects not + being great, was placed in his youth in the house of a silk-mercer + in London. He was born in 1688--Pope's year, and in 1712 the Duchess + of Monmouth made him her secretary. Next year he published his + _Rural Sports_, which he dedicated to Pope, and so made an + acquaintance, which became a memorable friendship. + + "Gay," says Pope, "was quite a natural man,--wholly without art or + design, and spoke just what he thought and as he thought it. He + dangled for twenty years about a Court, and at last was offered to + be made usher to the young princess. Secretary Craggs made Gay a + present of stock in the South-Sea year; and he was once worth + 20,000_l._, but lost it all again. He got about 500_l._ by the first + _Beggar's Opera_, and 1,100_l._ or 1,200_l._ by the second. He was + negligent and a bad manager. Latterly, the Duke of Queensberry took + his money into his keeping, and let him only have what was necessary + out of it, and, as he lived with them, he could not have occasion + for much. He died worth upwards of 3,000_l._"--POPE (_Spence's + Anecdotes_). + + 115 "Mr. Gay is, in all regards, as honest and sincere a man as ever I + knew."--SWIFT, _to Lady Betty Germaine_, Jan. 1733. + + 116 Of manners gentle, of affections mild; + In wit a man; simplicity, a child; + With native humour temp'ring virtuous rage, + Form'd to delight at once and lash the age; + Above temptation in a low estate, + And uncorrupted e'en among the great: + A safe companion, and an easy friend, + Unblamed through life, lamented in the end. + These are thy honours; not that here thy bust + Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust; + But that the worthy and the good shall say, + Striking their pensive bosoms, "_Here_ lies Gay." + + POPE'S _Epitaph on Gay_. + + A hare who, in a civil way, + Complied with everything, like Gay. + + _Fables_, "The Hare and Many Friends." + + 117 "I can give you no account of Gay," says Pope, curiously, "since he + was raffled for, and won back by his Duchess."--_Works_, Roscoe's + ed., vol. ix, p. 392. + + Here is the letter Pope wrote to him when the death of Queen Anne + brought back Lord Clarendon from Hanover, and lost him the + secretaryship of that nobleman, of which he had had but a short + tenure. + + Gay's Court prospects were never happy from this time.--His + dedication of the _Shepherd's Week_ to Bolingbroke, Swift used to + call the "original sin", which had hurt him with the house of + Hanover. + + "Sept. 23, 1714. + + "DEAR MR. GAY, + + "Welcome to your native soil! welcome to your friends! thrice + welcome to me! whether returned in glory, blest with Court interest, + the love and familiarity of the great, and filled with agreeable + hopes; or melancholy with dejection, contemplative of the changes of + fortune, and doubtful for the future; whether returned a triumphant + Whig or a depending Tory, equally all hail! equally beloved and + welcome to me! If happy, I am to partake of your elevation; if + unhappy, you have still a warm corner in my heart, and a retreat at + Benfield in the worst of times at your service. If you are a Tory, + or thought so by any man, I know it can proceed from nothing but + your gratitude to a few people who endeavoured to serve you, and + whose politics were never your concern. If you are a Whig, as I + rather hope, and as I think your principles and mine (as brother + poets) had ever a bias to the side of liberty, I know you will be an + honest man and an inoffensive one. Upon the whole, I know you are + incapable of being so much of either party as to be good for + nothing. Therefore, once more, whatever you are or in whatever state + you are, all hail! + + "One or two of your own friends complained they had nothing from you + since the Queen's death; I told them no man living loved Mr. Gay + better than I, yet I had not once written to him in all his voyage. + This I thought a convincing proof, but truly one may be a friend to + another without telling him so every month. But they had reasons, + too, themselves to allege in your excuse, as men who really value + one another will never want such as make their friends and + themselves easy. The late universal concern in public affairs threw + us all into a hurry of spirits: even I, who am more a philosopher + than to expect anything from any reign, was borne away with the + current, and full of the expectation of the successor. During your + journeys, I knew not whither to aim a letter after you; that was a + sort of shooting flying: add to this the demand Homer had upon me, + to write fifty verses a day, besides learned notes, all of which are + at a conclusion for this year. Rejoice with me, O my friend! that my + labour is over; come and make merry with me in much feasting. We + will feed among the lilies (by the lilies I mean the ladies). Are + not the Rosalindas of Britain as charming as the Blousalindas of the + Hague? or have the two great Pastoral poets of our own nation + renounced love at the same time? for Philips, unnatural Philips, + hath deserted it, yea, and in a rustic manner kicked his Rosalind. + Dr. Parnell and I have been inseparable ever since you went. We are + now at the Bath, where (if you are not, as I heartily hope, better + engaged) your company would be the greatest pleasure to us in the + world. Talk not of expenses: Homer shall support his children. I beg + a line from you, directed to the Post-house in Bath. Poor Parnell is + in an ill state of health. + + "Pardon me if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write + something on the King, or Prince, or Princess. On whatsoever foot + you may be with the court, this can do no harm. I shall never know + where to end, and am confounded in the many things I have to say to + you, though they all amount but to this, that I am, entirely, as + ever, + + "Your," &c. + + Gay took the advice "in the poetical way", and published _An Epistle + to a Lady, occasioned by the arrival of her Royal Highness the + Princess of Wales_. But, though this brought him access to Court, + and the attendance of the Prince and Princess at his farce of the + _What d'ye, call it?_ it did not bring him a place. On the accession + of George II, he was offered the situation of Gentleman Usher to the + Princess Louisa (her Highness being then two years old); but "by + this offer", says Johnson, "he thought himself insulted." + + 118 Gay was a great eater.--As the French philosopher used to prove his + existence by _cogito, ergo sum_, the greatest proof of Gay's + existence is, _edit, ergo est_--CONGREVE, _in a Letter to Pope_ + (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 119 Swift indorsed the letter--"On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death; + received Dec. 15, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse + foreboding some misfortune." + + "It was by Swift's interest that Gay was made known to Lord + Bolingbroke, and obtained his patronage."--SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. i, + p. 156. + + Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's death, to Swift, thus:-- + + "[Dec. 5, 1732.] + + "One of the dearest and longest ties I have ever had is broken all + on a sudden by the unfortunate death of poor Mr. Gay. An + inflammatory fever carried him out of this life in three days.... He + asked of you a few hours before when in acute torment by the + inflammation in his bowels and breast.... His sisters, we suppose, + will be his heirs, who are two widows.... Good God! how often are we + to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a + part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we have left! + few are worth praying for, and one's self the least of all." + + 120 "Gay, like Goldsmith, had a musical talent. 'He could play on the + flute,' says Malone, 'and was, therefore, enabled to adapt so + happily some of the airs in the _Beggar's Opera_.' "--_Notes to_ + SPENCE. + + 121 'Twas when the seas were roaring + With hollow blasts of wind, + A damsel lay deploring + All on a rock reclined. + Wide o'er the foaming billows + She cast a wistful look; + Her head was crown'd with willows + That trembled o'er the brook. + + Twelve months are gone and over, + And nine long tedious days; + Why didst thou, venturous lover-- + Why didst thou trust the seas? + Cease, cease, thou cruel Ocean, + And let my lover rest; + Ah! what's thy troubled motion + To that within my breast? + + The merchant robb'd of pleasure, + Sees tempests in despair; + But what's the loss of treasure + To losing of my dear? + Should you some coast be laid on, + Where gold and diamonds grow, + You'd find a richer maiden, + But none that loves you so. + + How can they say that Nature + Has nothing made in vain; + Why, then, beneath the water + Should hideous rocks remain? + No eyes the rocks discover + That lurk beneath the deep, + To wreck the wandering lover, + And leave the maid to weep? + + All melancholy lying, + Thus wail'd she for her dear; + Repay'd each blast with sighing, + Each billow with a tear; + When o'er the white wave stooping, + His floating corpse she spy'd; + Then, like a lily drooping, + She bow'd her head, and died. + + _A Ballad_, from the "_What d'ye call it?_" + + "What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or, rather, Swift's, + Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the _What d'ye call it?_ ''Twas + when the seas were roaring'? I have been well informed, that they + all contributed."--Cowper to Unwin, 1783. + + 122 "Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty + sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was inclined to try + at such a thing for some time, but afterwards thought it would be + better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what gave rise + to the _Beggar's Opera_. He began on it, and when he first mentioned + it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the project. As he carried + it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us; and we now and then + gave a correction, or a word or two of advice; but it was wholly of + his own writing. When it was done, neither of us thought it would + succeed. We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, + 'It would either take greatly, or be damned confoundedly.' We were + all at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event, + till we were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle, + who sat in the next box to us, say, 'It will do--it must do!--I see it + in the eyes of them!' This was a good while before the first Act was + over, and so gave us ease soon; for the Duke [besides his own good + taste] has a more particular research than any one now living in + discovering the taste of the public. He was quite right in this as + usual; the good nature of the audience appeared stronger and + stronger every act, and ended in a clamour of applause."--POPE + (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 123 "Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great favourites, in + the order they are named, in his first reading, till he was about + twelve years old."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + "Mr. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant, and dealt in + Hollands, wholesale) was no poet, but he used to set him to make + English verses when very young. He was pretty difficult in being + pleased; and used often to send him back to new turn them. 'These + are not good rhimes;' for that was my husband's word for + verses."--POPE'S MOTHER (_Spence_). + + "I wrote things, I'm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an Epic Poem + when about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes, and some of the + neighbouring islands; and the poem opened under water with a + description of the Court of Neptune."--POPE (ibid.). + + "His perpetual application (after he set to study of himself) + reduced him in four years' time to so bad a state of health, that, + after trying physicians for a good while in vain, he resolved to + give way to his distemper; and sat down calmly in a full expectation + of death in a short time. Under this thought, he wrote letters to + take a last farewell of some of his more particular friends, and, + among the rest, one to the Abbe Southcote. The Abbe was extremely + concerned, both for his very ill state of health and the resolution + he said he had taken. He thought there might yet be hope, and went + immediately to Dr. Radcliffe, with whom he was well acquainted, told + him Mr. Pope's case, got full directions from him, and carried them + down to Pope in Windsor Forest. The chief thing the Doctor ordered + him was to apply less, and to ride every day. The following his + advice soon restored him to his health."--POPE (ibid.). + + 124 MR. POPE TO THE REV. MR. BROOME, PULHAM, NORFOLK. + + "Aug. 29, 1730. + + "DEAR SIR,-- + + "I intended to write to you on this melancholy subject, the death of + Mr. Fenton, before yours came, but stayed to have informed myself + and you of the circumstances of it. All I hear is, that he felt a + gradual decay, though so early in life, and was declining for five + or six months. It was not, as I apprehended, the gout in his + stomach, but, I believe, rather a complication first of gross + humours, as he was naturally corpulent, not discharging themselves, + as he used no sort of exercise. No man better bore the approaches of + his dissolution (as I am told), or with less ostentation yielded up + his being. The great modesty which you know was natural to him, and + the great contempt he had for all sorts of vanity and parade, never + appeared more than in his last moments: he had a conscious + satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, in feeling himself honest, + true, and unpretending to more than his own. So he died as he lived, + with that secret, yet sufficient contentment. + + "As to any papers left behind him, I dare say they can be but few; + for this reason, he never wrote out of vanity, or thought much of + the applause of men. I know an instance when he did his utmost to + conceal his own merit that way; and if we join to this his natural + love of ease, I fancy we must expect little of this sort: at least, + I have heard of none, except some few further remarks on Waller + (which his cautious integrity made him leave an order to be given to + Mr. Tonson), and perhaps, though it is many years since I saw it, a + translation of the first book of _Oppian_. He had begun a tragedy of + _Dion_, but made small progress in it. + + "As to his other affairs, he died poor but honest, leaving no debts + or legacies, except of a few pounds to Mr. Trumbull and my lady, in + token of respect, gratefulness, and mutual esteem. + + "I shall, with pleasure, take upon me to draw this amiable, quiet, + deserving, unpretending, Christian, unphilosophical character in his + epitaph. There truth may be spoken in a few words; as for flourish, + and oratory, and poetry, I leave them to younger and more lively + writers, such as love writing for writing sake, and would rather + show their own fine parts than report the valuable ones of any other + man. So the elegy I renounce. + + "I condole with you from my heart on the loss of so worthy a man, + and a friend to us both.... + + "Adieu; let us love his memory, and profit by his example. Am very + sincerely, dear sir, + + "Your affectionate and real servant." + + TO THE EARL OF BURLINGTON. + + "August, 1714. + + "MY LORD, + + "If your mare could speak she would give you an account of what + extraordinary company she had on the road, which, since she cannot + do, I will." + + "It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of Mr. + Tonson, who, mounted on a stonehorse, overtook me in Windsor Forest. + He said he heard I designed for Oxford, the seat of the Muses, and + would, as my bookseller, by all means accompany me thither. + + "I asked him where he got his horse? He answered he got it of his + publisher; 'for that rogue, my printer,' said he, 'disappointed me. + I hoped to put him in good humour by a treat at the tavern of a + brown fricassee of rabbits, which cost ten shillings, with two + quarts of wine, besides my conversation. I thought myself cocksure + of his horse, which he readily promised me, but said that Mr. Tonson + had just such another design of going to Cambridge, expecting there + the copy of a new kind of Horace from Dr. ----; and if Mr. Tonson + went, he was pre-engaged to attend him, being to have the printing + of the said copy. So, in short, I borrowed this stonehorse of my + publisher, which he had of Mr. Oldmixon for a debt. He lent me, too, + the pretty boy you see after me. He was a smutty dog yesterday, and + cost me more than two hours to wash the ink off his face; but the + devil is a fair-conditioned devil, and very forward in his + catechism. If you have any more bags he shall carry them.' + + "I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to be neglected, so gave the + boy a small bag containing three shirts and an Elzevir Virgil, and, + mounting in an instant, proceeded on the road, with my man before, + my courteous stationer beside, and the aforesaid devil behind. + + "Mr. Lintot began in this manner: 'Now, damn them! What if they + should put it into the newspaper how you and I went together to + Oxford? What would I care? If I should go down into Sussex they + would say I was gone to the Speaker; but what of that? If my son + were but big enough to go on with the business, by G-d, I would keep + as good company as old Jacob.' + + "Hereupon, I inquired of his son. 'The lad,' says he, 'has fine + parts, but is somewhat sickly, much as you are. I spare for nothing + in his education at Westminster. Pray, don't you think Westminster + to be the best school in England? Most of the late Ministry came out + of it; so did many of this Ministry. I hope the boy will make his + fortune.' + + " 'Don't you design to let him pass a year at Oxford?' 'To what + purpose?' said he. 'The Universities do but make pedants, and I + intend to breed him a man of business.' + + "As Mr. Lintot was talking I observed he sat uneasy on his saddle, + for which I expressed some solicitude. 'Nothing,' says he. 'I can + bear it well enough; but, since we have the day before us, methinks + it would be very pleasant for you to rest awhile under the woods.' + When we were alighted, 'See, here, what a mighty pretty Horace I + have in my pocket! What, if you amused yourself in turning an ode + till we mount again? Lord! if you pleased. What a clever miscellany + might you make at leisure hours!' 'Perhaps I may,' said I, 'if we + ride on; the motion is an aid to my fancy; a round trot very much + awakens my spirits; then jog on apace, and I'll think as hard as I + can.' + + "Silence ensued for a full hour; after which Mr. Lintot lugged the + reins, stopped short, and broke out, 'Well, sir, how far have you + gone?' I answered, seven miles. 'Z--ds, sir,' said Lintot, 'I thought + you had done seven stanzas. Oldisworth, in a ramble round Wimbledon + Hill, would translate a whole ode in half this time. I'll say that + for Oldisworth [though I lost by his Timothy's] he translates an ode + of Horace the quickest of any man in England. I remember Dr. King + would write verses in a tavern, three hours after he could not + speak: and there is Sir Richard, in that rumbling old chariot of + his, between Fleet Ditch and St. Giles's pound shall make you half a + Job.' + + " 'Pray, Mr. Lintot,' said I, 'now you talk of translators, what is + your method of managing them?' 'Sir,' replied he, 'these are the + saddest pack of rogues in the world: in a hungry fit, they'll swear + they understand all the languages in the universe. I have known one + of them take down a Greek book upon my counter, and cry, "Ah, this + is Hebrew," and must read it from the latter end. By G-d, I can + never be sure in these fellows, for I neither understand Greek, + Latin, French, nor Italian myself. But this is my way; I agree with + them for ten shillings per sheet, with a proviso that I will have + their doings corrected with whom I please; so by one or the other + they are led at last to the true sense of an author; my judgement + giving the negative to all my translators.' 'Then how are you sure + these correctors may not impose upon you?' 'Why, I get any civil + gentleman (especially any Scotchman) that comes into my shop, to + read the original to me in English; by this I know whether my first + translator be deficient, and whether my corrector merits his money + or not. + + " 'I'll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained with + S---- for a new version of _Lucretius_, to publish against Tonson's, + agreeing to pay the author so many shillings at his producing so + many lines. He made a great progress in a very short time, and I + gave it to the corrector to compare with the Latin; but he went + directly to Creech's translation, and found it the same, word for + word, all but the first page. Now, what d'ye think I did? I arrested + the translator for a cheat; nay, and I stopped the corrector's pay, + too, upon the proof that he had made use of Creech instead of the + original.' + + " 'Pray tell me next how you deal with the critics?' 'Sir,' said he, + 'nothing more easy. I can silence the most formidable of them; the + rich ones for a sheet a-piece of the blotted manuscript, which cost + me nothing; they'll go about with it to their acquaintance, and + pretend they had it from the author, who submitted it to their + correction: this has given some of them such an air, that in time + they come to be consulted with and dedicated to as the tip-top + critics of the town.--As for the poor critics, I'll give you one + instance of my management, by which you may guess the rest: a lean + man, that looked like a very good scholar, came to me, t'other day; + he turned over your Homer, shook his head, shrugged up his + shoulders, and pish'd at every line of it. "One would wonder," says + he, "at the strange presumption of some men; Homer is no such easy + task as every stripling, every versifier--" He was going on, when my + wife called to dinner; "Sir," said I, "will you please to eat a + piece of beef with me?" "Mr. Lintot," said he, "I am very sorry you + should be at the expense of this great book, I am really concerned + on your account." "Sir, I am much obliged to you: if you can dine + upon a piece of beef together with a slice of pudding--?" "Mr. + Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise + with men of learning--" "Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you + please to go in." My critic complies; he comes to a taste of your + poetry, and tells me in the same breath, that the book is + commendable, and the pudding excellent.' + + " 'Now, sir,' continued Mr. Lintot, 'in return for the frankness I + have shown, pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at Court + that my Lord Lansdowne will be brought to the bar or not?' I told + him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my lord being one I had + particular obligations to.--'That may be,' replied Mr. Lintot; 'but + by G-- if he is not, I shall lose the printing of a very good trial.' + + "These, my lord, are a few traits with which you discern the genius + of Mr. Lintot, which I have chosen for the subject of a letter. I + dropped him as soon as I got to Oxford, and paid a visit to my Lord + Carleton, at Middleton.... + + "I am," &c. + + DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE. + + "Sept. 29, 1725. + + "I am now returning to the noble scene of Dublin--into the _grand + monde_--for fear of burying my parts; to signalize myself among + curates and vicars, and correct all corruptions crept in relating to + the weight of bread-and-butter through those dominions where I + govern. I have employed my time (besides ditching) in finishing, + correcting, amending, and transcribing my _Travels_ [_Gulliver's_], + in four parts complete, newly augmented, and intended for the press + when the world shall deserve them, or rather, when a printer shall + be found brave enough to venture his ears. I like the scheme of our + meeting after distresses and dissensions; but the chief end I + propose to myself in all my labours is to vex the world rather than + divert it; and if I could compass that design without hurting my own + person and fortune, I would be the most indefatigable writer you + have ever seen, without reading. I am exceedingly pleased that you + have done with translations; Lord Treasurer Oxford often lamented + that a rascally world should lay you under a necessity of + misemploying your genius for so long a time; but since you will now + be so much better employed, when you think of the world, give it one + lash the more at my request. I have ever hated all societies, + professions, and communities; and all my love is towards + individuals--for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love + Councillor Such-a-one and Judge Such-a-one: it is so with physicians + (I will not speak of my own trade), soldiers, English, Scotch, + French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal + called man--although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so on. + + "... I have got materials towards a treatise proving the falsity of + that definition _animal rationale_, and to show it should be only + _rationis capax_.... The matter is so clear that it will admit of no + dispute--nay, I will hold a hundred pounds that you and I agree in + the point.... + + "Dr. Lewis sent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a + very sensible affliction to me, who, by living so long out of the + world, have lost that hardness of heart contracted by years and + general conversation. I am daily losing friends, and neither seeking + nor getting others. Oh, if the world had but a dozen of Arbuthnots + in it, I would burn my _Travels_!" + + MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT. + + "October 15, 1725. + + "I am wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind answer. + It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline + more and more to your old friends.... Here is one [Lord Bolingbroke] + who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after long experience + of all that comes of shining) learned to be content with returning + to his first point without the thought or ambition of shining at + all. Here is another [Edward, Earl of Oxford], who thinks one of the + greatest glories of his father was to have distinguished and loved + you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered + from the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of seeing you + again than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long + despised but what is made up of a few men like yourself.... + + "Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs--and + generally by Tories too. Because he had humour, he was supposed to + have dealt with Dr. Swift, in like manner as when any one had + learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the devil.... + + "Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall; I wish he had + received no more by his other fall. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most + improved mind since you saw him, that ever was improved without + shifting into a new body, or being _paullo minus ab angelis_. I have + often imagined to myself, that if ever all of us meet again, after + so many varieties and changes, after so much of the old world and of + the old man in each of us has been altered, that scarce a single + thought of the one, any more than a single action of the other, + remains just the same; I have fancied, I say, that we should meet + like the righteous in the millennium, quite at peace, divested of + all our former passions, smiling at our past follies, and content to + enjoy the kingdom of the just in tranquillity. + + ---- + + "I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to + fill, but he is so touched with the period in yours to me, + concerning him, that he intends to answer it by a whole letter." + + 125 Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says:--"He was one of those men + of careless wit, and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand _bons + mots_ and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather and hoard, + till the authors stare to find themselves authors. Such was this + lord, of an advantageous figure, and enterprising spirit; as gallant + as Amadis and as brave; but a little more expeditious in his + journeys; for he is said to have seen more kings and more postilions + than any man in Europe.... He was a man, as his friend said, who + would neither live nor die like any other mortal." + + FROM THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH TO POPE. + + "You must receive my letter with a just impartiality, and give + grains of allowance for a gloomy or rainy day; I sink grievously + with the weather-glass, and am quite spiritless when oppressed with + the thoughts of a birthday or a return. + + "Dutiful affection was bringing me to town, but undutiful laziness, + and being much out of order keep me in the country: however, if + alive, I must make my appearance at the birthday.... + + "You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one woman + at a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with you on this + point, I doubt, every jury will give a verdict against me. So, sir, + with a Mahometan indulgence, I allow you pluralities, the favourite + privileges of our Church. + + "I find you don't mend upon correction; again I tell you you must + not think of women in a reasonable way; you know we always make + goddesses of those we adore upon earth; and do not all the good men + tell us we must lay aside reason in what relates to the Deity? + + "... I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray when you + write to him next, tell him I expect him with impatience, in a place + as odd and as out of the way as himself. + + "Yours." + + Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer. + + 126 "Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family, who, + under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house on the south + side of Russell Street, about two doors from Covent Garden. Here it + was that the wits of that time used to assemble. It is said that + when Addison had suffered any vexation from the Countess, he + withdrew the company from Button's house. + + "From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat + late and drank too much wine."--DR. JOHNSON. + + Will's coffee-house was on the west side of Bow Street, and "corner + of Russell Street". See _Handbook of London_. + + 127 "My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712: I liked him + then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond of his + conversation. It was very soon after that Mr. Addison advised me + 'not to be content with the applause of half the nation'. He used to + talk much and often to me, of moderation in parties: and used to + blame his dear friend Steele for being too much of a party man. He + encouraged me in my design of translating the _Iliad_, which was + begun that year, and finished in 1718."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 128 "Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the + selfishness of Pope's friendship; and, resolving that he should have + the consequences of his officiousness to himself, informed Dennis by + Steele that he was sorry for the insult."--JOHNSON (_Life of + Addison_). + + 129 "While I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. + Addison, to let him know 'that I was not unacquainted with this + behaviour of his; that if I was to speak of him severely in return + for it, it should not be in such a dirty way; that I should rather + tell him himself fairly of his faults, and allow his good qualities; + and that it should be something in the following manner.' I then + subjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my satire + on Addison. He used me very civilly ever after; and never did me any + injustice, that I know of, from that time to his death, which was + about three years after."--POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 130 "That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems to us + highly improbable; that Addison should have been guilty of a villany + seems to us highly improbable; but that these two men should have + conspired together to commit a villany, seems, to us, improbable in + a tenfold degree."--MACAULAY. + + 131 LORD BOLINGBROKE TO THE THREE YAHOOS OF TWICKENHAM. + + "July 23, 1726. + + "JONATHAN, ALEXANDER, JOHN, MOST EXCELLENT TRIUMVIRS OF PARNASSUS,-- + + "Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what I am + doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I persuade myself that + you have sent at least fifteen times within this fortnight to Dawley + farm, and that you are extremely mortified at my long silence. To + relieve you, therefore, from this great anxiety of mind, I can do no + less than write a few lines to you; and I please myself beforehand + with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs give you. That + I may add to this pleasure, and give further proofs of my beneficent + temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your + neighbourhood again, by the end of next week: by which time I hope + that Jonathan's imagination of business will be succeeded by some + imagination more becoming a professor of that divine science, _la + bagatelle_. Adieu. Jonathan, Alexander, John, mirth be with you!" + + 132 Prior must be excepted from this observation. "He was lank and + lean." + + 133 Swift exerted himself very much in promoting the _Iliad_ + subscription; and also introduced Pope to Harley and + Bolingbroke.--Pope realized by the _Iliad_ upwards of 5,000_l._, + which he laid out partly in annuities, and partly in the purchase of + his famous villa. Johnson remarks that "it would be hard to find a + man so well entitled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so + much in talking of his money". + + 134 Garth, whom Dryden calls "generous as his Muse", was a Yorkshireman. + He graduated at Cambridge, and was made M.D. in 1691. He soon + distinguished himself in his profession, by his poem of the + _Dispensary_, and in society, and pronounced Dryden's funeral + oration. He was a strict Whig, a notable member of the Kit-Kat and a + friendly, convivial, able man. He was knighted by George I, with the + Duke of Marlborough's sword. He died in 1718. + + 135 "Arbuthnot was the son of an episcopal clergyman in Scotland, and + belonged to an ancient and distinguished Scotch family. He was + educated at Aberdeen; and, coming up to London--according to a Scotch + practice often enough alluded to--to make his fortune--first made + himself known by 'an examination of Dr. Woodward's account of the + Deluge'. He became physician, successively to Prince George of + Denmark and to Queen Anne. He is usually allowed to have been the + most learned, as well as one of the most witty and humorous members + of the Scriblerus Club. The opinion entertained of him by the + humourists of the day is abundantly evidenced in their + correspondence. When he found himself in his last illness, he wrote + thus, from his retreat at Hampstead, to Swift: + + "Hampstead, Oct. 4, 1734. + + "MY DEAR AND WORTHY FRIEND,-- + + "You have no reason to put me among the rest of your forgetful + friends, for I wrote two long letters to you, to which I never + received one word of answer. The first was about your health; the + last I sent a great while ago, by one De la Mar. I can assure you + with great truth that none of your friends or acquaintance has a + more warm heart towards you than myself. I am going out of this + troublesome world, and you, among the rest of my friends, shall have + my last prayers and good wishes. + + "... I came out to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma, + that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move. I most earnestly + desired and begged of God that he would take me. Contrary to my + expectation, upon venturing to ride (which I had forborne for some + years), I recovered my strength to a pretty considerable degree, + slept, and had my stomach again.... What I did, I can assure you was + not for life, but ease; for I am at present in the case of a man + that was almost in harbour, and then blown back to sea--who has a + reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an absolute certainty + of leaving a very bad one. Not that I have any particular disgust at + the world; for I have as great comfort in my own family and from the + kindness of my friends as any man; but the world, in the main, + displeases me, and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that + are to befall my country. However, if I should have the happiness to + see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the comforts of + life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine why you are + frightened from a journey to England: the reasons you assign are not + sufficient--the journey I am sure would do you good. In general, I + recommend riding, of which I have always had a good opinion, and can + now confirm it from my own experience. + + "My family give you their love and service. The great loss I + sustained in one of them gave me my first shock, and the trouble I + have with the rest to bring them to a right temper to bear the loss + of a father who loves them, and whom they love, is really a most + sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my dear friend, we shall + never see one another more in this world. I shall, to the last + moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well assured you + will never leave the paths of virtue and honour; for all that is in + this world is not worth the least deviation from the way. It will be + great pleasure to me to hear from you sometimes; for none are with + more sincerity than I am, my dear friend, your most faithful friend + and humble servant." + + "Arbuthnot," Johnson says, "was a man of great comprehension, + skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with + ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a + bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of + wit; a wit who in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble + ardour of religious zeal." + + Dugald Stewart has testified to Arbuthnot's ability in a department + of which he was particularly qualified to judge: "Let me add, that, + in the list of philosophical reformers, the authors of _Martinus + Scriblerus_ ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule of the + scholastic logic and metaphysics is universally known; but few are + aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their allusions to + some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke's Essay. In this part + of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot had the + principal share."--See Preliminary Dissertation to _Encyclopaedia + Britannica_, note to p. 242, and also note B. B. B., p. 285. + + 136 TO MR. RICHARDSON. + + "Twickenham, June 10, 1733. + + "As I know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hope that + this day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither. And this + for the very reason, which possibly might hinder you coming, that my + poor mother is dead. I thank God, her death was as easy as her life + was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, or even a sigh, there + is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay, + almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it. It would + afford the finest image of a saint expired that ever painter drew; + and it would be the greatest obligation which even that obliging art + could ever bestow on a friend, if you could come and sketch it for + me. I am sure, if there be no very precedent obstacle, you will + leave any common business to do this; and I hope to see you this + evening, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter flower is + faded. I will defer her interment till to-morrow night. I know you + love me, or I could not have written this--I could not (at this time) + have written at all. Adieu! May you die as happy! + + "Yours," &c. + + 137 "Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his nephew, a + Guinea trader, came in. 'Nephew,' said Sir Godfrey, 'you have the + honour of seeing the two greatest men in the world.'--'I don't know + how great you may be,' said the Guinea man, 'but I don't like your + looks: I have often bought a man, much better than both of you + together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas.' "--DR. WARBURTON + (_Spence's Anecdotes_). + + 138 Swift's mention of him as one + + ---- whose filial piety excels, + Whatever Grecian story tells, + + is well known. And a sneer of Walpole's may be put to a better use + than he ever intended it for, a propos of this subject.--He + charitably sneers, in one of his letters, at Spence's "fondling an + old mother--in imitation of Pope!" + + 139 Joseph Spence was the son of a clergyman, near Winchester. He was a + short time at Eton, and afterwards became a Fellow of New College, + Oxford, a clergyman, and professor of poetry. He was a friend of + Thomson's, whose reputation he aided. He published an _Essay on the + Odyssey_ in 1726, which introduced him to Pope. Everybody liked him. + His _Anecdotes_ were placed, while still in MS., at the service of + Johnson and also of Malone. They were published by Mr. Singer in + 1820. + + 140 He speaks of Arbuthnot's having helped him through "that long + disease, my life". But not only was he so feeble as is implied in + his use of the "buckram", but "it now appears", says Mr. Peter + Cunningham, "from his unpublished letters, that, like Lord Hervey, + he had recourse to ass's-milk for the preservation of his health." + It is to his lordship's use of that simple beverage that he alludes + when he says-- + + Let Sporus tremble!--A. What, that thing of silk, + Sporus, that mere white-curd of ass's-milk? + + 141 "He (Johnson) repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the + concluding lines of the _Dunciad_."--BOSWELL. + + 142 "Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson (on the + authority of Spence), that Pope himself admired these lines so much + that when he repeated them his voice faltered. 'And well it might, + sir,' said Johnson, 'for they are noble lines.' " + + J. BOSWELL, junior. + + 143 Coleridge speaks of the "beautiful female faces" in Hogarth's + pictures, "in whom," he says, "the satirist never extinguished that + love of beauty which belonged to him as a poet."--_The Friend._ + + 144 "I was pleased with the reply of a gentleman, who, being asked which + book he esteemed most in his library, answered, 'Shakespeare': being + asked which he esteemed next best, replied 'Hogarth'. His graphic + representations are indeed books: they have the teeming, fruitful, + suggestive meaning of _words_. Other pictures we look at--his prints + we read.... + + "The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every picture + would almost unvulgarize every subject which he might choose.... + + "I say not that all the ridiculous subjects of Hogarth have + necessarily something in them to make us like them; some are + indifferent to us, some in their nature repulsive, and only made + interesting by the wonderful skill and truth to nature in the + painter; but I contend that there is in most of them that sprinkling + of the better nature, which, like holy water, chases away and + disperses the contagion of the bad. They have this in them, besides, + that they bring us acquainted with the every-day human face,--they + give us skill to detect those gradations of sense and virtue (which + escape the careless or fastidious observer) in the circumstances of + the world about us; and prevent that disgust at common life, that + _taedium quotidianarum formarum_, which an unrestricted passion for + ideal forms and beauties is in danger of producing. In this, as in + many other things, they are analogous to the best novels of Smollett + and Fielding."--CHARLES LAMB. + + "It has been observed that Hogarth's pictures are exceedingly unlike + any other representations of the same kind of subjects--that they + form a class, and have a character, peculiar to themselves. It may + be worth while to consider in what this general distinction + consists. + + "In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, _historical_ + pictures; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of _Tom + Jones_ ought to be regarded as an epic prose-poem, because it + contained a regular development of fable, manners, character, and + passion, the compositions of Hogarth, will, in like manner, be found + to have a higher claim to the title of epic pictures than many which + have of late arrogated that denomination to themselves. When we say + that Hogarth treated his subjects historically, we mean that his + works represent the manners and humours of mankind in action, and + their characters by varied expression. Everything in his pictures + has life and motion in it. Not only does the business of the scene + never stand still, but every feature and muscle is put into full + play; the exact feeling of the moment is brought out, and carried to + its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the + canvas for ever. The expression is always taken _en passant_, in a + state of progress or change, and, as it were, at the salient + point.... His figures are not like the background on which they are + painted: even the pictures on the wall have a peculiar look of their + own. Again, with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history, + Hogarth's heads have all the reality and correctness of portraits. + He gives the extremes of character and expression, but he gives them + with perfect truth and accuracy. This is, in fact, what + distinguishes his compositions from all others of the same kind, + that they are equally remote from caricature, and from mere still + life.... His faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet never + (we believe in any single instance) go beyond it."--HAZLITT. + + 145 He made this excursion in 1732, his companions being John Thornhill + (son of Sir James), Scott the landscape-painter, Tothall, and + Forrest. + + 146 "Dr. Johnson made four lines once, on the death of poor Hogarth, + which were equally true and pleasing: I know not why Garrick's were + preferred to them:-- + + The hand of him here torpid lies, + That drew th' essential forms of grace; + Here, closed in death, th' attentive eyes, + That saw the manners in the face. + + "Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shown to me when I was + too young to have a proper sense of them, was used to be very + earnest that I should obtain the acquaintance, and if possible the + friendship, of Dr. Johnson; whose conversation was, to the talk of + other men, like Titian's painting compared to Hudson's, he said: + 'but don't you tell people now that I say so' (continued he) 'for + the connoisseurs and I are at war, you know; and because I hate + _them_, they think I hate _Titian_--and let them!' ... Of Dr. + Johnson, when my father and he were talking about him one day, 'That + man' (says Hogarth) 'is not contented with believing the Bible; but + he fairly resolves, I think, to believe nothing _but_ the Bible. + Johnson' (added he), 'though so wise a fellow, is more like King + David than King Solomon, for he says in his haste, _All men are + liars_.' "--MRS. PIOZZI. + + Hogarth died on the 26th of October, 1764. The day before his death, + he was removed from his villa at Chiswick to Leicester Fields, "in a + very weak condition, yet remarkably cheerful." He had just received + an agreeable letter from Franklin. He lies buried at Chiswick. + + 147 TO SIR WATKIN PHILLIPS, BART., OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXON. + + "DEAR PHILLIPS,--In my last, I mentioned my having spent an evening + with a society of authors, who seemed to be jealous and afraid of + one another. My uncle was not at all surprised to hear me say I was + disappointed in their conversation. 'A man may be very entertaining + and instructive upon paper,' said he, 'and exceedingly dull in + common discourse. I have observed, that those who shine most in + private company are but secondary stars in the constellation of + genius. A small stock of ideas is more easily managed, and sooner + displayed, than a great quantity crowded together. There is very + seldom anything extraordinary in the appearance and address of a + good writer; whereas a dull author generally distinguishes himself + by some oddity or extravagance. For this reason I fancy that an + assembly of grubs must be very diverting.' + + "My curiosity being excited by this hint, I consulted my friend Dick + Ivy, who undertook to gratify it the very next day, which was Sunday + last. He carried me to dine with S----, whom you and I have long known + by his writings. He lives in the skirts of the town; and every + Sunday his house is open to all unfortunate brothers of the quill, + whom he treats with beef, pudding, and potatoes, port, punch, and + Calvert's entire butt beer. He has fixed upon the first day of the + week for the exercise of his hospitality, because some of his guests + could not enjoy it on any other, for reasons that I need not + explain. I was civilly received in a plain, yet decent habitation, + which opened backwards into a very pleasant garden, kept in + excellent order; and, indeed, I saw none of the outward signs of + authorship either in the house or the landlord, who is one of those + few writers of the age that stand upon their own foundation, without + patronage, and above dependence. If there was nothing characteristic + in the entertainer, the company made ample amends for his want of + singularity. + + "At two in the afternoon, I found myself one of ten messmates seated + at table; and I question if the whole kingdom could produce such + another assemblage of originals. Among their peculiarities, I do not + mention those of dress, which may be purely accidental. What struck + me were oddities originally produced by affectation, and afterwards + confirmed by habit. One of them wore spectacles at dinner, and + another his hat flapped; though (as Ivy told me) the first was noted + for having a seaman's eye, when a bailiff was in the wind; and the + other was never known to labour under any weakness or defect of + vision, except about five years ago, when he was complimented with a + couple of black eyes by a player, with whom he had quarrelled in his + drink. A third wore a laced stocking, and made use of crutches, + because, once in his life, he had been laid up with a broken leg, + though no man could leap over a stick with more agility. A fourth + had contracted such an antipathy to the country, that he insisted + upon sitting with his back towards the window that looked into the + garden; and when a dish of cauliflower was set upon the table, he + snuffed up volatile salts to keep him from fainting; yet this + delicate person was the son of a cottager, born under a hedge, and + had many years run wild among asses on a common. A fifth affected + distraction: when spoke to, he always answered from the purpose. + Sometimes he suddenly started up, and rapped out a dreadful oath; + sometimes he burst out a-laughing; then he folded his arms, and + sighed; and then he hissed like fifty serpents. + + "At first, I really thought he was mad; and, as he sat near me, + began to be under some apprehensions for my own safety; when our + landlord, perceiving me alarmed, assured me aloud that I had nothing + to fear. 'The gentleman,' said he, 'is trying to act a part for + which he is by no means qualified: if he had all the inclination in + the world, it is not in his power to be mad; his spirits are too + flat to be kindled into phrenzy.' ''Tis no bad p-p-puff, + how-owever,' observed a person in a tarnished laced coat: + 'aff-ffected m-madness w-will p-pass for w-wit w-with nine-nineteen + out of t-twenty.' 'And affected stuttering for humour,' replied our + landlord; 'though, God knows! there is no affinity betwixt them.' It + seems this wag, after having made some abortive attempts in plain + speaking, had recourse to this defect, by means of which he + frequently extorted the laugh of the company, without the least + expense of genius; and that imperfection, which he had at first + counterfeited, was now become so habitual, that he could not lay it + aside. + + "A certain winking genius, who wore yellow gloves at dinner, had, on + his first introduction, taken such offence at S----, because he looked + and talked, and ate and drank, like any other man, that he spoke + contemptuously of his understanding ever after, and never would + repeat his visit, until he had exhibited the following proof of his + caprice. Wat Wyvil, the poet, having made some unsuccessful advances + towards an intimacy with S----, at last gave him to understand, by a + third person, that he had written a poem in his praise, and a satire + against his person: that if he would admit him to his house, the + first should be immediately sent to press; but that if he persisted + in declining his friendship, he would publish the satire without + delay. S---- replied, that he looked upon Wyvil's panegyric as, in + effect, a species of infamy, and would resent it accordingly with a + good cudgel; but if he published the satire, he might deserve his + compassion, and had nothing to fear from his revenge. Wyvil having + considered the alternative, resolved to mortify S---- by printing the + panegyric, for which he received a sound drubbing. Then he swore the + peace against the aggressor, who, in order to avoid a prosecution at + law, admitted him to his good graces. It was the singularity in + S----'s conduct on this occasion, that reconciled him to the + yellow-gloved philosopher, who owned he had some genius; and from + that period cultivated his acquaintance. + + "Curious to know upon what subjects the several talents of my fellow + guests were employed, I applied to my communicative friend Dick Ivy, + who gave me to understand that most of them were, or had been, + understrappers, or journeymen, to more creditable authors, for whom + they translated, collated, and compiled, in the business of + bookmaking; and that all of them had, at different times, laboured + in the service of our landlord, though they had now set up for + themselves in various departments of literature. Not only their + talents, but also their nations and dialects, were so various, that + our conversation resembled the confusion of tongues at Babel. We had + the Irish brogue, the Scotch accent, and foreign idiom, twanged off + by the most discordant vociferation; for as they all spoke together, + no man had any chance to be heard, unless he could bawl louder than + his fellows. It must be owned, however, there was nothing pedantic + in their discourse; they carefully avoided all learned + disquisitions, and endeavoured to be facetious; nor did their + endeavours always miscarry; some droll repartee passed, and much + laughter was excited; and if any individual lost his temper so far + as to transgress the bounds of decorum, he was effectually checked + by the master of the feast, who exerted a sort of paternal authority + over this irritable tribe. + + "The most learned philosopher of the whole collection, who had been + expelled the university for atheism, has made great progress in a + refutation of Lord Bolingbroke's metaphysical works, which is said + to be equally ingenious and orthodox: but in the meantime, he has + been presented to the grand jury as a public nuisance for having + blasphemed in an alehouse on the Lord's Day. The Scotchman gives + lectures on the pronunciation of the English language, which he is + now publishing by subscription. + + "The Irishman is a political writer, and goes by the name of My Lord + Potatoe. He wrote a pamphlet in vindication of a minister, hoping + his zeal would be rewarded with some place or pension; but finding + himself neglected in that quarter, he whispered about that the + pamphlet was written by the minister himself, and he published an + answer to his own production. In this he addressed the author under + the title of 'your lordship', with such solemnity, that the public + swallowed the deceit, and bought up the whole impression. The wise + politicians of the metropolis declared they were both masterly + performances, and chuckled over the flimsy reveries of an ignorant + garreteer, as the profound speculations of a veteran statesman, + acquainted with all the secrets of the cabinet. The imposture was + detected in the sequel, and our Hibernian pamphleteer retains no + part of his assumed importance but the bare title of 'my lord', and + the upper part of the table at the potatoe-ordinary in Shoe Lane. + + "Opposite to me sat a Piedmontese, who had obliged the public with a + humorous satire, entitled _The Balance of the English Poets_; a + performance which evinced the great modesty and taste of the author, + and, in particular, his intimacy with the elegances of the English + language. The sage, who laboured under the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, or 'horror of + green fields', had just finished a treatise on practical + agriculture, though, in fact, he had never seen corn growing in his + life, and was so ignorant of grain, that our entertainer, in the + face of the whole company, made him own that a plate of hominy was + the best rice-pudding he had ever eat. + + "The stutterer had almost finished his travels through Europe and + part of Asia, without ever budging beyond the liberties of the + King's Bench, except in term-time, with a tipstaff for his + companion: and as for little Tim Cropdale, the most facetious member + of the whole society, he had happily wound up the catastrophe of a + virgin tragedy, from the exhibition of which no promised himself a + large fund of profit and reputation. Tim had made shift to live many + years by writing novels, at the rate of five pounds a volume; but + that branch of business is now engrossed by female authors, who + publish merely for the propagation of virtue, with so much ease, and + spirit, and delicacy, and knowledge of the human heart, and all in + the serene tranquillity of high life, that the reader is not only + enchanted by their genius, but reformed by their morality. + + "After dinner, we adjourned into the garden, where I observed Mr. + S---- give a short separate audience to every individual in a small + remote filbert-walk, from whence most of them dropped off one after + another, without further ceremony." + + Smollett's house was in Lawrence Lane, Chelsea, and is now + destroyed. See _Handbook of London_, p. 115. + + "The person of Smollett was eminently handsome, his features + prepossessing, and, by the joint testimony of all his surviving + friends, his conversation, in the highest degree, instructive and + amusing. Of his disposition, those who have read his works (and who + has not?) may form a very accurate estimate; for in each of them he + has presented, and sometimes, under various points of view, the + leading features of his own character without disguising the most + unfavourable of them.... When unseduced by his satirical + propensities, he was kind, generous, and humane to others; bold, + upright, and independent in his own character; stooped to no patron, + sued for no favour, but honestly and honourably maintained himself + on his literary labours.... He was a doating father, and an + affectionate husband; and the warm zeal with which his memory was + cherished by his surviving friends, showed clearly the reliance + which they placed upon his regard."--SIR WALTER SCOTT. + + 148 Smollett of Bonhill, in Dumbartonshire. _Arms_, az. "a bend, or, + between a lion rampant, ppr., holding in his paw a banner, arg. and + a bugle-horn, also ppr. _Crest_, an oak-tree, ppr. _Motto, + Viresco._" + + Smollett's father, Archibald, was the fourth son of Sir James + Smollett of Bonhill, a Scotch judge and Member of Parliament, and + one of the commissioners for framing the Union with England. + Archibald married, without the old gentleman's consent, and died + early, leaving his children dependent on their grandfather. Tobias, + the second son, was born in 1721, in the old house of Dalquharn in + the valley of Leven; and all his life loved and admired that valley + and Loch Lomond beyond all the valleys and lakes in Europe. He + learned the "rudiments" at Dumbarton Grammar-school, and studied at + Glasgow. + + But when he was only eighteen, his grandfather died, and left him + without provision (figuring as the old judge in _Roderick Random_ in + consequence, according to Sir Walter). Tobias, armed with the + _Regicide_, a tragedy--a provision precisely similar to that with + which Dr. Johnson had started, just before--came up to London. The + _Regicide_ came to no good, though at first patronized by Lord + Lyttelton ("one of those little fellows who are sometimes called + great men," Smollett says); and Smollett embarked as "surgeon's + mate" on board a line-of-battle ship, and served in the Carthagena + expedition, in 1741. He left the service in the West Indies, and, + after residing some time in Jamaica, returned to England in 1746. + + He was now unsuccessful as a physician, to begin with; published the + satires, _Advice_ and _Reproof_--without any luck; and (1747) married + the "beautiful and accomplished Miss Lascelles". + + In 1748 he brought out his _Roderick Random_, which at once made a + "hit". The subsequent events of his life may be presented, + chronologically, in a bird's-eye view:-- + + 1750. Made a tour to Paris, where he chiefly wrote _Peregrine + Pickle_. + + 1751. Published _Peregrine Pickle_. + + 1753. Published _Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom_. + + 1755. Published version of _Don Quixote_. + + 1756. Began the _Critical Review_. + + 1758. Published his _History of England_. + + 1763-1766. Travelling in France and Italy; published his _Travels_. + + 1769. Published _Adventures of an Atom_. + + 1770. Set out for Italy; died at Leghorn 21st of Oct., 1771, in the + fifty-first year of his age. + + 149 A good specimen of the old "slashing" style of writing is presented + by the paragraph on Admiral Knowles, which subjected Smollett to + prosecution and imprisonment. The admiral's defence on the occasion + of the failure of the Rochfort expedition came to be examined before + the tribunal of the _Critical Review_. + + "He is," said our author, "an admiral without conduct, an engineer + without knowledge, an officer without resolution, and a man without + veracity!" + + Three months imprisonment in the King's Bench avenged this stinging + paragraph. + + But the _Critical_ was to Smollett a perpetual fountain of "hot + water". Among less important controversies may be mentioned that + with Grainger, the translator of _Tibullus_. Grainger replied in a + pamphlet; and in the next number of the _Review_ we find him + threatened with "castigation", as an "owl that has broken from his + mew"! + + In Dr. Moore's biography of him is a pleasant anecdote. After + publishing the _Don Quixote_, he returned to Scotland to pay a visit + to his mother:-- + + "On Smollett's arrival, he was introduced to his mother with the + connivance of Mrs. Telfer (her daughter), as a gentleman from the + West Indies, who was intimately acquainted with her son. The better + to support his assumed character, he endeavoured to preserve a + serious countenance, approaching to a frown; but while his mother's + eyes were riveted on his countenance, he could not refrain from + smiling: she immediately sprung from her chair, and throwing her + arms round his neck, exclaimed, 'Ah, my son! my son! I have found + you at last!' + + "She afterwards told him, that if he had kept his austere looks and + continued to _gloom_, he might have escaped detection some time + longer, but 'your old roguish smile', added she, 'betrayed you at + once.' " + + "Shortly after the publication of _The Adventures of an Atom_, + disease again attacked Smollett with redoubled violence. Attempts + being vainly made to obtain for him the office of Consul in some + part of the Mediterranean, he was compelled to seek a warmer + climate, without better means of provision than his own precarious + finances could afford. The kindness of his distinguished friend and + countryman, Dr. Armstrong (then abroad), procured for Dr. and Mrs. + Smollett a house at Monte Nero, a village situated on the side of a + mountain overlooking the sea, in the neighbourhood of Leghorn, a + romantic and salutary abode, where he prepared for the press, the + last, and like music 'sweetest in the close', the most pleasing of + his compositions, _The Expedition of Humphry Clinker_. This + delightful work was published in 1771."--SIR WALTER SCOTT. + + 150 The dispute with the captain arose from the wish of that functionary + to intrude on his right to his cabin, for which he had paid thirty + pounds. After recounting the circumstances of the apology, he + characteristically adds:-- + + "And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own + praises, I do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. Neither + did the greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my + Christianity exact this forgiveness. To speak truth, I forgave him + from a motive which would make men much more forgiving, if they were + much wiser than they are; because it was convenient for me so to + do." + + 151 Lady Mary was his second cousin--their respective grandfathers being + sons of George Fielding, Earl of Desmond, son of William, Earl of + Denbigh. + + In a letter dated just a week before his death, she says:-- + + "H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first wife + in the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Booth, some compliments to his own + figure excepted; and I am persuaded, several of the incidents he + mentions are real matters of fact. I wonder he does not perceive Tom + Jones and Mr. Booth are sorry scoundrels.... Fielding has really a + fund of true humour, and was to be pitied at his first entrance into + the world, having no choice, as he said himself, but to be a hackney + writer or a hackney coachman. His genius deserved a better fate; but + I cannot help blaming that continued indiscretion, to give it the + softest name, that has run through his life, and I am afraid still + remains.... Since I was born no original has appeared excepting + Congreve, and Fielding, who would, I believe, have approached nearer + to his excellences, if not forced by his necessities to publish + without correction, and throw many productions into the world he + would have thrown into the fire, if meat could have been got without + money, or money without scribbling.... I am sorry not to see any + more of Peregrine Pickle's performances; I wish you would tell me + his name,"--_Letters and Works_ (Lord Wharncliffe's ed.), vol. iii, + pp. 93, 94. + + 152 He sailed for Lisbon, from Gravesend, on Sunday morning, June 30th, + 1754; and began the _Journal of a Voyage_ during the passage. He + died at Lisbon, in the beginning of October of the same year. He + lies buried there, in the English Protestant church-yard, near the + Estrella Church, with this inscription over him:-- + + "HENRICUS FIELDING, + LUGET BRITANNIA GREMIO NON DATUM + FOVERE NATUM." + + 153 Fielding himself is said by Dr. Warton to have preferred _Joseph + Andrews_ to his other writings. + + 154 "Richardson," says worthy Mrs. Barbauld, in her Memoir of him, + prefixed to his Correspondence, "was exceedingly hurt at this + (_Joseph Andrews_), the more so as they had been on good terms, and + he was very intimate with Fielding's two sisters. He never appears + cordially to have forgiven it (perhaps it was not in human nature he + should), and he always speaks in his letters with a great deal of + asperity of _Tom Jones_, more indeed than was quite graceful in a + rival author. No doubt he himself thought his indignation was solely + excited by the loose morality of the work and of its author, but he + could tolerate Cibber." + + 155 It must always be borne in mind, that besides that the Doctor + couldn't be expected to like Fielding's wild life (to say nothing of + the fact, that they were of opposite sides in politics), Richardson + was one of his earliest and kindest friends. Yet Johnson too (as + Boswell tells us) read _Amelia_ through without "stopping". + + 156 "Manners change from generation to generation, and with manners + morals appear to change--actually change with some, but appear to + change with all but the abandoned. A young man of the present day + who should act as Tom Jones is supposed to act at Upton, with Lady + Bellaston, &c., would not be a Tom Jones; and a Tom Jones of the + present day, without perhaps being in the ground a better man, would + have perished rather than submit to be kept by a harridan of + fortune. Therefore, this novel is, and indeed, pretends to be, no + example of conduct. But, notwithstanding all this, I do loathe the + cant which can recommend _Pamela_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_ as strictly + moral, although they poison the imagination of the young with + continued doses of _tinct. lyttae_, while _Tom Jones_ is prohibited + as loose. I do not speak of young women; but a young man whose heart + or feelings can be injured, or even his passions excited by this + novel, is already thoroughly corrupt. There is a cheerful, sunshiny, + breezy spirit, that prevails everywhere, strongly contrasted with + the close, hot, day dreamy continuity of Richardson."--COLERIDGE, + _Literary Remains_, vol. ii, p. 374. + + 157 "Nor was she (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) a stranger to that beloved + first wife, whose picture he drew in his _Amelia_, when, as she + said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ, did not do + more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to + her beauty, although this had suffered a little from the accident + related in the novel--a frightful overturn, which destroyed the + gristle of her nose. He loved her passionately, and she returned his + affection.... + + "His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that after the + death of this charming woman, he married her maid. And yet the act + was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. The maid + had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly + attached to her mistress, and almost brokenhearted for her loss. In + the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he + found no relief but from weeping along with her; nor solace when a + degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually + regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, and in + process of time he began to think he could not give his children a + tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper + and nurse. At least, this was what he told his friends; and it is + certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully + justified his good opinion."--_Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley + Montagu._ Edited by Lord Wharncliffe. _Introductory Anecdotes_, vol. + i, pp. 80, 81. + + Fielding's first wife was Miss Craddock, a young lady from + Salisbury, with a fortune of 1,500_l._, whom he married in 1736. + About the same time he succeeded, himself, to an estate of 200_l._ + per annum, and on the joint amount he lived for some time as a + splendid country gentleman in Dorsetshire. Three years brought him + to the end of his fortune; when he returned to London, and became a + student of law. + + 158 In the _Gentleman's Magazine_, for 1786, an anecdote is related of + Harry Fielding, "in whom," says the correspondent, "good nature and + philanthropy in their extreme degree were known to be the prominent + features." It seems that "some parochial taxes" for his house in + Beaufort Buildings had long been demanded by the collector. "At + last, Harry went off to Johnson, and obtained by a process of + literary mortgage the needful sum. He was returning with it, when he + met an old college chum whom he had not seen for many years. He + asked the chum to dinner with him at a neighbouring tavern; and + learning that he was in difficulties, emptied the contents of his + pocket into his. On returning home he was informed that the + collector had been twice for the money. 'Friendship has called for + the money and had it,' said Fielding; 'let the collector call + again.' " + + It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl of + Denbigh, his kinsman, and the conversation turning upon their + relationship, the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his name + "Fielding", and not "Feilding", like the head of the house? "I + cannot tell, my lord," said he, "except it be that my branch of the + family were the first that knew how to spell." + + 159 In 1749, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster and + Middlesex, an office then paid by fees, and very laborious, without + being particularly reputable. It may be seen from his own words, in + the Introduction to the _Voyage_, what kind of work devolved upon + him, and in what a state he was, during these last years; and still + more clearly, how he comported himself through all. + + "Whilst I was preparing for my journey, and when I was almost + fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five + different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by + different gangs of street-robbers, I received a message from his + grace the Duke of Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the King's + messenger, to attend his grace the next morning in Lincoln's Inn + Fields, upon some business of importance: but I excused myself from + complying with the message, as, besides being lame, I was very ill + with the great fatigues I had lately undergone, added to my + distemper. + + "His grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington the very next morning, with + another summons; with which, though in the utmost distress, I + immediately complied; but the duke happening, unfortunately for me, + to be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some time, sent + a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be + invented for these murders and robberies, which were every day + committed in the streets; upon which I promised to transmit my + opinion in writing to his grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, + intended to lay it before the Privy Council. + + "Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set + myself down to work, and in about four days sent the duke as regular + a plan as I could form, with all the reasons and arguments I could + bring to support it, drawn out on several sheets of paper; and soon + received a message from the Duke, by Mr. Carrington, acquainting me + that my plan was highly approved of, and that all the terms of it + would be complied with. + + "The principal and most material of these terms was the immediately + depositing 600_l._ in my hands; at which small charge I undertook to + demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil policy into + such order, that no such gangs should ever be able for the future, + to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time + formidable to the public. + + "I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the + repeated advice of my physical acquaintances, and the ardent desire + of my warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep + jaundice; in which case the Bath waters are generally reputed to be + almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire to demolish this + gang of villains and cut-throats.... + + "After some weeks the money was paid at the Treasury, and within a + few days, after 200_l._ of it had come into my hands, the whole gang + of cut-throats was entirely dispersed...." + + Further on, he says-- + + "I will confess that my private affairs at the beginning of the + winter had but a gloomy aspect; for I had not plundered the public + or the poor of those sums which men, who are always ready to plunder + both as much as they can, have been pleased to suspect me of taking; + on the contrary, by composing, instead of inflaming, the quarrels of + porters and beggars (which I blush when I say hath not been + universally practised), and by refusing to take a shilling from a + man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, I had + reduced an income of about 500_l._, a year of the dirtiest money + upon earth, to little more than 300_l._, a considerable portion of + which remained with my clerk." + + 160 He came of a Suffolk family--one of whom settled in Nottinghamshire. + The famous "starling" was actually the family crest. + + 161 "It was in this parish" (of Animo, in Wicklow), "during our stay, + that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race, + whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt; the story + is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, + where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me."--STERNE. + + 162 "My wife returns to Toulouse, and proposes to pass the summer at + Bagneres--I, on the contrary, go and visit my wife, the church, in + Yorkshire. We all live the longer, at least the happier, for having + things our own way; this is my conjugal maxim. I own 'tis not the + best of maxims, but I maintain 'tis not the worst."--STERNE'S + _Letters_, 20th January, 1764. + + 163 In a collection of _Seven Letters by Sterne and His Friends_, + (printed for private circulation), in 1844, is a letter of M. + Tollot, who was in France with Sterne and his family in 1764. Here + is a paragraph:-- + + "Nous arrivames le lendemain a Montpellier, ou nous trouvames notre + ami Mr. Sterne, sa femme, sa fille, Mr. Huet, et quelques autres + Anglaises; j'eus, je vous l'avoue, beaucoup de plaisir en revoyant + le bon et agreable Tristram.... Il avait ete assez longtemps a + Toulouse, ou il se serait amuse sans sa femme, qui le poursuivit + partout, et qui voulait etre de tout. Ces dispositions dans cette + bonne dame, lui ont fait passer d'assez mauvais momens; il supporte + tous ces desagremens avec une patience d'ange." + + About four months after this very characteristic letter, Sterne + wrote to the same gentleman to whom Tollot had written; and from his + letter we may extract a companion paragraph:-- + + "... All which being premised, I have been for eight weeks smitten + with the tenderest passion that ever tender wight underwent. I wish, + dear cousin, thou couldst conceive (perhaps thou canst without my + wishing it) how deliciously I canter'd away with it the first month, + two up, two down, always upon my _hanches_, along the streets from + my hotel to hers, at first once--then twice, then three times a day, + till at length I was within an ace of setting up my hobby-horse in + her stable for good and all. I might as well, considering how the + enemies of the Lord have blasphemed thereupon. The last three weeks + we were every hour upon the doleful ditty of parting--and thou mayest + conceive, dear cousin, how it altered my gait and air--for I went and + came like any louden'd carl, and did nothing but _jouer des + sentimens_ with her from sun-rising even to the setting of the same; + and now she is gone to the south of France; and to finish the + _comedie_, I fell ill and broke a vessel in my lungs, and half bled + to death. _Voila mon histoire!_" + + Whether husband or wife had most of the _patience d'ange_ may be + uncertain; but there can be no doubt which needed it most! + + 164 "_Tristram Shandy_ is still a greater object of admiration, the man + as well as the book; one is invited to dinner, when he dines, a + fortnight before. As to the volumes yet published, there is much + good fun in them, and humour sometimes hit and sometimes missed. + Have you read his _Sermons_, with his own comick figure, from a + painting by Reynolds, at the head of them? They are in the style I + think most proper for the pulpit, and show a strong imagination and + a sensible heart; but you see him often tottering on the verge of + laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the + audience."--GRAY'S _Letters_, June 22nd, 1760. + + "It having been observed that there was little hospitality in + London--Johnson: 'Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who has the + power of pleasing, will be very generally invited in London. The + man, Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for three + months.' Goldsmith: 'And a very dull fellow.' Johnson: 'Why, no, + sir.' "--BOSWELL'S _Life of Johnson_. + + "Her [Miss Monckton's] vivacity enchanted the sage, and they used to + talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened + one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were + very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied it. 'I am sure,' said she, + 'they have affected me.' 'Why,' said Johnson, smiling, and rolling + himself about--'that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce.' When she + some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth + and politeness, 'Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not + have said it.' "--BOSWELL's _Life of Johnson_. + + 165 A passage or two from Sterne's _Sermons_ may not be without interest + here. Is not the following, levelled against the cruelties of the + Church of Rome, stamped with the autograph of the author of the + _Sentimental Journey_?-- + + "To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons + of the Inquisition--behold _religion_ with mercy and justice chained + down under her feet,--there, sitting ghastly upon a black tribunal, + propped up with racks, and instruments of torment.--Hark!--what a + piteous groan!--See the melancholy wretch who uttered it, just + brought forth to undergo the anguish of a mock-trial, and endure the + utmost pain that a studied system of _religious cruelty_ has been + able to invent. Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his + tormentors. _His body so wasted with sorrow and long confinement, + you'll see every nerve and muscle as it suffers._ Observe the last + movement of that horrid engine.--What convulsions it has thrown him + into! Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies + stretched.--What exquisite torture he endures by it.--'Tis all nature + can bear.--Good GOD! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his + trembling lips, willing to take its leave, but not suffered to + depart. Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell,--dragg'd out + of it again to meet the flames--and the insults in his last agonies, + which this principle--this principle, that there can be religion + without morality--has prepared for him."--_Sermon 27th_. + + The next extract is preached on a text to be found in Judges xix, + ver. 1, 2, 3, concerning a "certain Levite":-- + + "Such a one the Levite wanted to share his solitude and fill up that + uncomfortable blank in the heart in such a situation; for, + notwithstanding all we meet with in books, in many of which, no + doubt, there are a good many handsome things said upon the secrets + of retirement, &c.... yet still, '_it is not good for man to be + alone_': nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our ears + with upon the subject, ever give one answer of satisfaction to the + mind; in the midst of the loudest vauntings of philosophy, nature + will have her yearnings for society and friendship;--a good heart + wants some object to be kind to--and the best parts of our blood, and + the purest of our spirits, suffer most under the destitution. + + "Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. God speed + him! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way; _let me + be wise and religious, but let me be_ MAN; wherever Thy Providence + places me, or whatever be the road I take to Thee, give me some + companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, 'How our shadows + lengthen as our sun goes down';--to whom I may say, 'How fresh is the + face of Nature! how sweet the flowers of the field! how delicious + are these fruits!' "--_Sermon 18th._ + + The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the famous + "Captive". The second shows that the same reflection was suggested + to the Rev. Laurence, by a text in Judges, as by the + _fille-de-chambre_. + + Sterne's _Sermons_ were published as those of "Mr. Yorick". + + 166 "I am glad that you are in love--'twill cure you at least of the + spleen, which has a bad effect on both man and woman--I myself must + even have some Dulcinea in my head; it harmonizes the soul; and in + these cases I first endeavour to make the lady believe so, or + rather, I begin first to make myself believe that I am in love--but I + carry on my affairs quite in the French way, sentimentally--_l'amour_ + (say they) _n'est rien sans sentiment_. Now, notwithstanding they + make such a pother about the _word_, they have no precise idea + annexed to it. And so much for that same subject called + love."--STERNE'S _Letters_, May 23rd, 1765. + + "PS.--My _Sentimental Journey_ will please Mrs. J---- and my Lydia [his + daughter, afterwards Mrs. Medalle]--I can answer for those two. It is + a subject which works well, and suits the frame of mind I have been + in for some time past. I told you my design in it was to teach us to + love the world and our fellow creatures better than we do--so it runs + most upon those gentler passions and affections which aid so much to + it."--_Letters_ [1767]. + + 167 TO MRS. H----. + + "Coxwould, Nov. 15th, 1767. + + "Now be a good, dear woman, my H----, and execute those commissions + well, and when I see you I will give you a kiss--there's for you! But + I have something else for you which I am fabricating at a great + rate, and that is my _Sentimental Journey_, which shall make you cry + as much as it has affected me, or I will give up the business of + sentimental writing ... + + "I am yours, &c. &c., + + "T. SHANDY." + + TO THE EARL OF ----. + + "Coxwould, Nov. 28th, 1767. + + "MY LORD--'Tis with the greatest pleasure I take my pen to thank your + lordship for your letter of inquiry about Yorick--he was worn out, + both his spirits and body, with the _Sentimental Journey_; 'tis + true, then, an author must feel himself, or his reader will not--but + I have torn my whole frame into pieces by my feelings--I believe the + brain stands as much in need of recruiting as the body; therefore I + shall set out for town the twentieth of next month, after having + recruited myself a week at York. I might indeed solace myself with + my wife (who is come from France), but, in fact, I have long been a + sentimental being, whatever your lordship may think to the + contrary." + + 168 "It is known that Sterne died in hired lodgings, and I have been + told that his attendants robbed him even of his gold sleeve-buttons + while he was expiring."--DR. FERRIAR. + + "He died at No. 41 (now a cheesemonger's) on the west side of Old + Bond Street.--_Handbook of London._" + + 169 "In February, 1768, Laurence Sterne, his frame exhausted by long + debilitating illness, expired at his lodgings in Bond Street, + London. There was something in the manner of his death singularly + resembling the particulars detailed by Mrs. Quickly, as attending + that of Falstaff, the compeer of Yorick for infinite jest, however + unlike in other particulars. As he lay on his bed totally exhausted, + he complained that his feet were cold, and requested the female + attendant to chafe them. She did so, and it seemed to relieve him. + He complained that the cold came up higher; and whilst the assistant + was in the act of chafing his ankles and legs, he expired without a + groan. It was also remarkable that his death took place much in the + manner which he himself had wished; and that the last offices were + rendered him, not in his own house, or by the hand of kindred + affection, but in an inn, and by strangers. + + "We are well acquainted with Sterne's features and personal + appearance, to which he himself frequently alludes. He was tall and + thin, with a hectic and consumptive appearance."--SIR WALTER SCOTT. + + 170 "With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which + presses so seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark + that there is a sort of knowingness, the wit of which depends, + firstly, on the modesty it gives pain to; or, secondly, on the + innocence and innocent ignorance over which it triumphs; or thirdly, + on a certain oscillation in the individual's own mind between the + remaining good and the encroaching evil of his nature--a sort of + dallying with the devil--a fluxionary art of combining courage and + cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle with his fingers for the + first time, or better still, perhaps, like that trembling daring + with which a child touches a hot tea-urn, because it has been + forbidden; so that the mind has its own white and black angel; the + same or similar amusement as may be supposed to take place between + an old debauchee and a prude--the feeling resentment, on the one + hand, from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a + character; and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We + have only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this + sort of wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no + sound, because exciting no resistance; the remainder rests on its + being an offence against the good manners of human nature itself. + + "This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with wit, + drollery, fancy, and even humour; and we have only to regret the + misalliance; but that the latter are quite distinct from the former, + may be made evident by abstracting in our imagination the morality + of the characters of Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and Trim, which are + all antagonists to this spurious sort of wit, from the rest of + _Tristram Shandy_, and by supposing, instead of them, the presence + of two or three callous debauchees. The result will be pure disgust. + Sterne cannot be too severely censured for thus using the best + dispositions of our nature as the panders and condiments for the + basest."--COLERIDGE, _Literary Remains_, vol. i, pp. 141, 142. + + 171 "He was a friend to virtue, and in his most playful pages never + forgets what is due to it. A gentleness, delicacy, and purity of + feeling distinguishes whatever he wrote, and bears a correspondence + to the generosity of a disposition which knew no bounds but his last + guinea.... + + "The admirable ease and grace of the narrative, as well as the + pleasing truth with which the principal characters are designed, + make the _Vicar of Wakefield_ one of the most delicious morsels of + fictitious composition on which the human mind was ever employed. + + "... We read the _Vicar of Wakefield_ in youth and in age--we return + to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who + contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature."--SIR WALTER + SCOTT. + + 172 "Now Herder came," says Goethe in his Autobiography, relating his + first acquaintance with Goldsmith's masterpiece, "and together with + his great knowledge brought many other aids, and the later + publications besides. Among these he announced to us the _Vicar of + Wakefield_ as an excellent work, with the German translation of + which he would make us acquainted by reading it aloud to us + himself.... + + "A Protestant country clergyman is perhaps the most beautiful + subject for a modern idyl; he appears like Melchizedeck, as priest + and king in one person. To the most innocent situation which can be + imagined on earth, to that of a husbandman, he is, for the most + part, united by similarity of occupation as well as by equality in + family relationships; he is a father, a master of a family, an + agriculturist, and thus perfectly a member of the community. On this + pure, beautiful, earthly foundation rests his higher calling; to him + is it given to guide men through life, to take care of their + spiritual education, to bless them at all the leading epochs of + their existence, to instruct, to strengthen, to console them, and if + consolation is not sufficient for the present, to call up and + guarantee the hope of a happier future. Imagine such a man with pure + human sentiments, strong enough not to deviate from them under any + circumstances, and by this already elevated above the multitude of + whom one cannot expect purity and firmness; give him the learning + necessary for his office, as well as a cheerful, equable activity, + which is even passionate, as it neglects no moment to do good--and + you will have him well endowed. But at the same time add the + necessary limitation, so that he must not only pause in a small + circle, but may also, perchance, pass over to a smaller; grant him + good nature, placability, resolution, and everything else + praiseworthy that springs from a decided character, and over all + this a cheerful spirit of compliance, and a smiling toleration of + his own failings and those of others,--then you will have put + together pretty well the image of our excellent Wakefield. + + "The delineation of this character on his course of life through + joys and sorrows, the ever-increasing interest of the story, by the + combination of the entirely natural with the strange and the + singular, make this novel one of the best which has ever been + written; besides this, it has the great advantage that it is quite + moral, nay, in a pure sense, Christian--represents the reward of a + goodwill and perseverance in the right, strengthens an unconditional + confidence in God, and attests the final triumph of good over evil; + and all this without a trace of cant or pedantry. The author was + preserved from both of these by an elocution of mind that shows + itself throughout in the form of irony, by which this little work + must appear to us as wise as it is amiable. The author, Dr. + Goldsmith, has, without question, a great insight into the moral + world, into its strength and its infirmities; but at the same time + he can thankfully acknowledge that he is an Englishman, and reckon + highly the advantages which his country and his nation afford him. + The family, with the delineation of which he occupies himself, + stands upon one of the last steps of citizen comfort, and yet comes + in contact with the highest; its narrow circle, which becomes still + more contracted, touches upon the great world through the natural + and civil course of things; this little skiff floats on the agitated + waves of English life, and in weal or woe it has to expect injury or + help from the vast fleet which sails around it. + + "I may suppose that my readers know this work, and have it in + memory; whoever hears it named for the first time here, as well as + he who is induced to read it again, will thank me."--GOETHE, _Truth + and Poetry; from my own Life_ (English translation, vol. i, pp. + 378-9). + + "He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one + bright, the other blundering; or to have had fairy gifts laid in his + cradle by the 'good people' who haunted his birthplace, the old + goblin mansion, on the banks of the Inny. + + "He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so term it, + throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at school, + academy, or college: they unfit him for close study and practical + science, and render him heedless of everything that does not address + itself to his poetical imagination, and genial and festive feelings; + they dispose him to break away from restraint, to stroll about + hedges, green lanes, and haunted streams, to revel with jovial + companions, or to rove the country like a gipsy in quest of odd + adventures.... + + "Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate with the + poor, they never could betray him into companionship with the + depraved. His relish for humour, and for the study of character, as + we have before observed, brought him often into convivial company of + a vulgar kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity and + their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole store + familiar features of life which form the staple of his most popular + writings."--WASHINGTON IRVING. + + 173 "The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or, as it was occasionally + written, Gouldsmith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, and + seems always to have held a respectable station in society. Its + origin is English, supposed to be derived from that which was long + settled at Crayford in Kent."--PRIOR'S _Life of Goldsmith_. + + Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were + clergymen; and two of them married clergymen's daughters. + + 174 At church with meek and unaffected grace, + His looks adorn'd the venerable place; + Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, + And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray. + The service past, around the pious man, + With steady zeal each honest rustic ran; + E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, + And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile. + His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, + Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest; + To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, + But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. + As some tall cliff that lifts his awful form, + Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, + Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, + Eternal sunshine settles on its head. + + _The Deserted Village._ + + 175 "In May this year (1768), he lost his brother, the Rev. Henry + Goldsmith, for whom he had been unable to obtain preferment in the + Church.... + + "....To the curacy of Kilkenny West, the moderate stipend of which, + forty pounds a year, is sufficiently celebrated by his brother's + lines. It has been stated that Mr. Goldsmith added a school, which, + after having been held at more than one place in the vicinity, was + finally fixed at Lissoy. Here his talents and industry gave it + celebrity, and under his care the sons of many of the neighbouring + gentry received their education. A fever breaking out among the boys + about 1765, they dispersed for a time, but reassembling at Athlone, + he continued his scholastic labours there until the time of his + death, which happened, like that of his brother, about the + forty-fifth year of his age. He was a man of an excellent heart and + an amiable disposition."--PRIOR'S _Goldsmith_. + + Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, + My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee: + Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, + And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. + + _The Traveller_. + + 176 "When Goldsmith died, half the unpaid bill he owed to Mr. William + Filby (amounting in all to 79_l_.) was for clothes supplied to this + nephew Hodson."--FORSTER'S _Goldsmith_, p. 520. + + As this nephew Hodson ended his days (see the same page) "a + prosperous Irish gentleman", it is not unreasonable to wish that he + had cleared off Mr. Filby's bill. + + 177 "Poor fellow! He hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a + goose, but when he saw it on the table."--CUMBERLAND'S _Memoirs_. + + 178 "These youthful follies, like the fermentation of liquors, often + disturb the mind only in order to its future refinement: a life + spent in phlegmatic apathy resembles those liquors which never + ferment and are consequently always muddy."--GOLDSMITH, _Memoir of + Voltaire_. + + "He (Johnson) said Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late. There + appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was young."--BOSWELL. + + 179 "An 'inspired idiot', Goldsmith, hangs strangely about him [Johnson] + ... Yet, on the whole, there is no evil in the 'gooseberry-fool', + but rather much good; of a finer, if of a weaker sort than + Johnson's; and all the more genuine that he himself could never + become _conscious_ of it, though unhappily never cease attempting to + become so: the author of the genuine _Vicar of Wakefield_, nill he + will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine + manhood."--CARLYLE'S _Essays_ (2nd ed.), vol. iv, p. 91. + + 180 "At present, the few poets of England no longer depend on the great + for subsistence; they have now no other patrons but the public, and + the public, collectively considered, is a good and a generous + master. It is indeed too frequently mistaken as to the merits of + every candidate for favour; but to make amends, it is never mistaken + long. A performance indeed may be forced for a time into reputation, + but, destitute of real merit, it soon sinks; time, the touchstone of + what is truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, and an author + should never arrogate to himself any share of success till his works + have been read at least ten years with satisfaction. + + "A man of letters at present, whose works are valuable, is perfectly + sensible of their value. Every polite member of the community, by + buying what he writes, contributes to reward him. The ridicule, + therefore, of living in a garret might have been wit in the last + age, but continues such no longer, because no longer true. A writer + of real merit now may easily be rich, if his heart be set only on + fortune: and for those who have no merit, it is but fit that such + should remain in merited obscurity."--GOLDSMITH, _Citizen of the + World_, Let. 84. + + 181 Goldsmith attacked Sterne, obviously enough, censuring his + indecency, and slighting his wit, and ridiculing his manner, in the + 53rd letter in the _Citizen of the World_. + + "As in common conversation," says he, "the best way to make the + audience laugh is by first laughing yourself; so in writing, the + properest manner is to show an attempt at humour, which will pass + upon most for humour in reality. To effect this, readers must be + treated with the most perfect familiarity; in one page the author is + to make them a low bow, and in the next to pull them by the nose; he + must talk in riddles, and then send them to bed in order to dream + for the solution," &c. + + Sterne's humorous _mot_ on the subject of the gravest part of the + charges, then, as now, made against him, may perhaps be quoted here, + from the excellent, the respectable Sir Walter Scott. "Soon after + _Tristram_ had appeared, Sterne asked a Yorkshire lady of fortune + and condition, whether she had read his book, 'I have not, Mr. + Sterne,' was the answer; 'and to be plain with you, I am informed it + is not proper for female perusal.' 'My dear good lady,' replied the + author, 'do not be gulled by such stories; the book is like your + young heir there' (pointing to a child of three years old, who was + rolling on the carpet in his white tunics): 'he shows at times a + good deal that is usually concealed, but it is all in perfect + innocence.' " + + 182 "Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a Natural + History; and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken + lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the six-mile stone in the + Edgeware Road, and had carried down his books in two returned + post-chaises. He said he believed the farmer's family thought him an + odd character, similar to that in which the _Spectator_ appeared to + his landlady and her children; he was _The Gentleman_. Mr. Mickle, + the translator of the _Lusiad_, and I, went to visit him at this + place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a + curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps + of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall with a blacklead + pencil."--BOSWELL. + + 183 "When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, 'Your pulse is in + greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of fever which + you have; is your mind at ease?' Goldsmith answered it was not."--DR. + JOHNSON (_in Boswell_). + + "Chambers, you find, is gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone much + farther. He died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the fear + of distress. He had raised money and squandered it, by every + artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. But let not his + failings be remembered; he was a very great man."--DR. JOHNSON to + Boswell, July 5th, 1774. + + 184 "When Burke was told [of Goldsmith's death] he burst into tears. + Reynolds was in his painting-room when the messenger went to him; + but at once he laid his pencil aside, which in times of great family + distress he had not been known to do, left his painting-room, and + did not re-enter it that day.... + + "The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with + mourners, the reverse of domestic; women without a home, without + domesticity of any kind, with no friend but him they had come to + weep for; outcasts of that great, solitary, wicked city, to whom he + had never forgotten to be kind and charitable. And he had domestic + mourners, too. His coffin was reopened at the request of Miss + Horneck and her sister (such was the regard he was known to have for + them!) that a lock might be cut from his hair. It was in Mrs. Gwyn's + possession when she died, after nearly seventy years."--FORSTER'S + _Goldsmith_. + + 185 "Goldsmith's incessant desire of being conspicuous in company was + the occasion of his sometimes appearing to such disadvantage, as one + should hardly have supposed possible in a man of his genius. When + his literary reputation had risen deservedly high, and his society + was much courted, he became very jealous of the extraordinary + attention which was everywhere paid to Johnson. One evening, in a + circle of wits, he found fault with me for talking of Johnson as + entitled to the honour of unquestionable superiority. 'Sir,' said + he, 'you are for making a monarchy of what should be a republic.' + + "He was still more mortified, when, talking in a company with fluent + vivacity, and, as he flattered himself, to the admiration of all + present, a German who sat next him, and perceived Johnson rolling + himself as if about to speak, suddenly stopped him, saying, 'Stay, + stay--Toctor Shonson is going to zay zomething.' This was no doubt + very provoking, especially to one so irritable as Goldsmith, who + frequently mentioned it with strong expressions of indignation. + + "It may also be observed that Goldsmith was sometimes content to be + treated with an easy familiarity, but upon occasions would be + consequential and important. An instance of this occurred in a small + particular. Johnson had a way of contracting the names of his + friends, as Beauclerk, Beau; Boswell, Bozzy.... I remember one day, + when Tom Davies was telling that Dr. Johnson said--'We are all in + labour for a name to _Goldy's_ play,' Goldsmith seemed displeased + that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and said, 'I have + often desired him not to call me _Goldy_.' " + + This is one of several of Boswell's depreciatory mentions of + Goldsmith--which may well irritate biographers and admirers--and also + those who take that more kindly and more profound view of Boswell's + own character, which was opened up by Mr. Carlyle's famous article + on his book. No wonder that Mr. Irving calls Boswell an "incarnation + of toadyism". And the worst of it is, that Johnson himself has + suffered from this habit of the Laird of Auchenleck's. People are + apt to forget under what Boswellian stimulus the great Doctor + uttered many hasty things:--things no more indicative of the nature + of the depths of his character than the phosphoric gleaming of the + sea, when struck at night, is indicative of radical corruption of + nature! In truth, it is clear enough on the whole that both Johnson + and Goldsmith _appreciated_ each other, and that they mutually knew + it. They were, as it were, tripped up and flung against each other, + occasionally, by the blundering and silly gambolling of people in + company. + + Something must be allowed for Boswell's "rivalry for Johnson's good + graces" with Oliver (as Sir Walter Scott has remarked), for Oliver + was intimate with the Doctor before his biographer was,--and as we + all remember, marched off with him to "take tea with Mrs. Williams" + before Boswell had advanced to that honourable degree of intimacy. + But, in truth, Boswell--though he perhaps showed more talent in his + delineation of the Doctor than is generally ascribed to him--had not + faculty to take a fair view of _two_ great men at a time. Besides, + as Mr. Forster justly remarks, "he was impatient of Goldsmith from + the first hour of their acquaintance."--_Life and Adventures_, p. + 292. + + 186 The above portraits are from contemporary prints of this princess, + before her marriage, and in her old age. + + 187 Here [below in the text] are the figures, as drawn by young Gilray, + of Lord North, Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Burke. + + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY ESMOND; THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS; THE FOUR GEORGES*** + + + +CREDITS + + +July 10, 2008 + + Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1 + Produced by Chris Curnow, David King, and the Online + Distributed Proofreading Team at <http://www.pgdp.net/>. + + + +A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG + + +This file should be named 29363.txt or 29363.zip. + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + + + http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/9/3/6/29363/ + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one -- the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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